Search Marketing in Korea

Search Laboratory have expertise in Korean search marketing. There are many important considerations when performing search engine optimisation and pay per click marketing in Korea that go beyond the language, character set and culture. This page provides an insight into some of the issues as well as some important information regarding search marketing in Korean.

If you would like further information on our Korean search marketing services and how they can directly help your business, please contact us now for advice.

When we find information related to Korea and search engine marketing we add it here. Some information is common accross all countries, but other useful information you may find about one country or language may not exist for another. Please keep checking back as we update these pages frequently.

Korean Online Market

Korea is getting richer and they are spending money on line. Demand for new product categories is is growing on Korea. For example, skiing has recently taken off and Koreans are buying everything and anything.

Important Korean Search Engines

Google has failed to conquer South Korea - one of the world’s most wired countries. Google referred only 17% of unique visitors to other sites in the month of March. KoreanClick also reported that Google’s Korean sited only referred around 10,8% of unique visitors last February. The search engine in the country is ruled by NHN Corporation’s Naver Web site. The search engine earned almost 80% of unique visitors. This link accounted for 58.4% search referrals. Daum Communication was the second where it earned 48%. Yahoo, on the other hand, was third with 32%.

PPC In Korea

Engines to use are Zingu.com, Google AdWords and Yahoo Korea. However, Naver (korea’s most popular search site) have a keyword advertising cost per month model. It is keyword based, but you pay for one-month blocks per keyword based on the traffic for the last month for that keyword. Keywords are expensive, ranging from around $150 (for keywords with almost no searches) to $10,000 for popular ones.

Natural web results in many korean engines don’t even appear until the far down the bottom of a results page. 3/4 of the page is other search results including various forms of sponsored results, with PPC at the top.

Need Advice?

Search Laboratory can help you take your message to Korea. This can be using a fully localized site or a small subset of the site to test the market. Either way, with full search marketing to truly realise your on line potential. Please contact us for free advice. Taking the first steps into Korea is easier than you might think.