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I have a site in Korea but I'm not Korean and the local situation is so different that it's hard to set some sort of strategy to get my site up there in the directories.
Apparently, having good original content is irrelevant to directories here. The big portals index only the content that use their proprietary platforms. (Naver blogs, Daum mini hompis, etc)
The big question for me is: even if you create a site on these platforms, is it possible to be well positioned on these directories without paying? Or will these portals give top positioning only to those who pay?
So my site is now a Wordpress webzine plus a shop, what do you think would be a good directory placement strategy?
Should I create mirror sites and open a Daum mini hompi, a Naver Blog, a Yahoo blog, and copy the content into those?
Do I also absolutely have to pay these directories for good ranking?
Any advice is really welcome,
Thanks
wow.. I could go into this for hours and only scratch the surface. heh.
I will give you quick point-by-point cursory answers, and if you can throw out more specific questions (with background) and I can try to answer ya in more detail. HOWEVER, I will be straightup honest and say that it IS a tiny market here in the SEO sense, and as such some of the more "insider" SEO know-how techniques pretty much stay on the inside. If you read korean, you can dig through some cafes as stuff for some tips and techniques... but the "real goods" can be pretty hushhush (unless you pay for services) and not something people (including me) necessarily readily disseminate.
THAT SAID, a lot of it IS directly tied to PAYING for stuff, so even if I told ya...you still have to pay to play (portals ARE the internet here and they hold all the keys). SEO does still come into play cause it makes a difference HOW you implement your site even after paying--eg: one of them, you paid to register your site to list your site in the directory listings, but how you place is very tied to HOW you write your listing when you submit it. ugh. +_+ and it is time dependent. you have limited time to change it and it make a differnce. so you really have to get it right the first time.
The big question for me is: even if you create a site on these platforms, is it possible to be well positioned on these directories without paying?
its possible...just very very very very improbable with pure un-paid SEO techniques. Depends of course on the keyword your are going for as well, but basically take any SEO rule you have in the "west" and multiply by a factor of 100 at least.
Or will these portals give top positioning only to those who pay?
basically.
*there are exceptions. but its much more true than not.
So my site is now a Wordpress webzine plus a shop, what do you think would be a good directory placement strategy?
very broad question...so I give the very broad answer.. ;) :p
1. suck it up and pay for it.
2. SKNOWLEDGE SEARCH (jishik kumsek) "SEO" as much as possible. get someone to do it for you anyway possible (ie: ask questions and answer them).
3. General rule: Naver is to Korea, what Google is to the US. Secondary rule: the portals have "personalities" ...and if you are target marketing, that may make a difference for you.
4.
open a Daum mini hompi, a Naver Blog, a Yahoo blog (gugi or other search features as well), and copy the content into those.
5. aside: I can't believe you left Cyworld off that list (its gunna get you more than the daum mini-hompy and if done right (eg: with cheap but effective dottori offers), you can even forego some of the others.
IF you can do them all...then by all means do so, but if you don't want to spread too thin... put cyworld up on top of that list (after Knowledge search).
TIP >> once you have a nice cross-section of social mini-sites..SCRAP stuff from other ones... A LOT. make very "scrappable" content.
6. Get a write up in a newspaper article. this is VERY effect here if you get a good article.
7. Write an article for ohmynews.
=============
Think of it like this... so much SEO here is purely guerilla marketing.
Korea is a BIG local market... so networking effects are sizable if you tap the right word of mouth gossip hound. ;)
Do I also absolutely have to pay these directories for good ranking?
If you "absolutely" want it...yes.
Nothing is IMPOSSIBLE... but again, if you think SEO in the US is complicate and difficult and you aren't plannign on spending 100% of your time focused on the efforts for your KOrean market... then in the end...
you WILL end up paying more--in little moneys here and there, in time, wasted efforts, and frustation.
CAVEAT: all this DOES somewhat depend on what keywords you want too....somewhat.
but again, MOST of the "regular" portal paid for ads would go to the portal itself (either via do-it-yourself or via their own internal sales agencies). Registration fees are murder (add up when you do a like 7 of em. heh) but very necessary evil. SEO pros would just help with the that process and "do it a certain way" for an extra fee (generally reasonable). Avoid the big web ad agencies.
PPC is of course a solution now. All PPC caveats apply.
-GK
[edited by: GrendelKhan_TSU at 5:45 am (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]
since you are "local" and going about via socialnet... you can just cut out the middle man.... and hire some student/s part-time to just post/update or participate on your cyworld, blog and in KNOWLEDGE SEARCH for you all day. like W3000/hr and lunch for a few days. (so like.... total investment: around W90,000 over a few days if not less).
I over simplified in that as you still have to do it right/set up properly (you have to control and prep em and give guidelines etc so doesn't "smell too fishy"... nothing wrong with it and so many do this...but its more effective if it sounds more natural and less salesy).
ie: it is still work. but time better spent on this than jumping through many of the useless SEO hurdles.
as long as you trust your part-timer you hire,
you know koreans and the internet...
once they get going... ain't no stoppin em. and you'll have hundreds if not thousands upon thousand of pages/posts/uploads/new content before you know it. lol also, remember that they know the systems better than you (better than ANYONE lol), let them do their thing as much as possible (with aforementioned guidelines).
in the end, its cheap, effective, and you can't beat flesh and blood just hammering aways at your social sites no matter how much SEO you do. its not even worth comparing.
(even just a few good posts or recommenatinos on knowledge search or somewhere visible could have huge effects, even in your area.)
I will say straight-up, I KNOW FOR A FACT from personal experiendce this works and is worth it on many levels if you can get the right people. and even worth it cause you learn so much from THEM. Naver even reported started its incredibilty successful knowledge search engine by just hiring an army of kids to just post and answer questions all day.
ASIDE: seems obvious or maybe silly...but its shocking how much people DONT do this knowing it just plain works. (again, rmember: large, but LOCAL market (basically homogenous), highly networked, highly localized, and very savvy.... yah.... of course it works ^^).
SUM:
I might go as far as to say, I'd spend more time recruiting the right students part-time for this than anythign else (at this point in the venture). You speak english and your wife is korea, so should be easy to leverage english practice as well.
so sayeth GrendelKhan{TSU} ^^
Onya
Woz
[edited by: altar at 6:59 am (utc) on Nov. 2, 2006]
lol woz. yah.. its tough to be here regularily as just getting busier and busier nowadays it seems +_+, but I don't mind answering direct and relevant questions when they appear. ;)
Apparently you cannot use RSS in Cyworld nor Naver.
Don't you find that incredible?
not really.
rss never really took off here. and these sites are so incredibly proprietary about their stuff... they don't want other or think they need other source feeding into them.
both are top in their area (mini-hompy and search, respectively)... and both very much have "we can do our way and do it better" attitudes.
did you code your site or did you hire a local?
