Net language: Implications for Search Engine Marketing
Last week, I discussed net language for automotive industry, with some examples around Ford Focus.
Looking at Ford Focus net language, according to the 93,721 messages mentioning Focus in our June data set of BBS messages, the official Chinese name “福克斯” gets the most number of mentions with 50% of all Focus BBS messages mentioning this term. “小福” (Little “Fu”) gets 25%, and FKS gets 15% (a single message may have more than one mention of a nickname).
If we dig deeper, we can see some implications for SEM. Take a look at the nick name “FKS.” If you do a search for “FKS” on Baidu or Google, you will find that 8/10 results on Baidu and 10/10 results on Google refer to Ford Focus. None refer to any official Ford site and many refer to BBS articles. Neither has any purchased keywords.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) experts say that 80% of users who do not find the desired search results on the first page will not go to the second page, it’s critical for a brand to appear in 1st page search results, paid or unpaid. Clearly, this is a missed opportunity for SEM.
2 Comments
May 9, 200811:39 pm
This is a nice example on both a missed search opportunity and the type of impact that social media can have on search results.
Even if it is only on this one term that the brand’s website is not showing up for, this is a missed opportunity to engage a user.
If “FKS” is a relevant keyword, the brand needs to be visible for it. It really does not matter whether it is through a paid search ad, a natural (non-paid) result, or ideally both as studies have shown (Atlas Institute) that showing up in both paid and natural results on the same keyword can reinforce brand association and user response.
It would seem that the search opportunity is not only in buying relevant keyword ads but also in learning how to leverage social media to increases your chances of showing up in both locations.
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3:40 am
Good article. But it would have been more complete if the analysis of the search results of the two major keywords had also been presented alongside FKS.
But it is true that major and aspiring brands need to put more efforts in terms of SEM to appear in the first page even for net-related terms. This is a vast area that needs to be fill not only in China but also in the global search industry.
Patrick