If your business is based in Hong Kong and you are seeking a way to help grow your business online then this five-minute guide might help you achieve that.
So Henry, Cut To The Chase, What Are The Five Things?
They are:
- Create Specific Hong Kong SEO Content Using The E-A-T Strategy;
- Execute Localized SEO-Centric Hong Kong Strategies;
- Don’t Sell, Offer Value During the COVID-19 Nightmare;
- Connect With Competitors (Roundups) Using This Golden Method;
- Get Your Tech Tidied Up – Think Speed!
Quick Overview (Before We Dive In)
Contents
The ideas I’m proposing take time, money, and a ton of effort.
If you’re not willing to work hard then this post is not for you and I’d encourage you to not waste your time by reading anymore, seriously.
I’ve been doing digital marketing since 2002 and I have several sites that are dominant in their niches so I feel I know a thing or two to share, especially about SEO Strategies – and that’s why I’m sharing these thoughts to help you in [year].
It’s Tough in [year].
I hear you.
It’s tough for everyone at the moment.
However, like everything in life, we have choices.
The choice that I see are as follows, we can either choose to:
- Go on the defensive, or
- Go on the offensive!
I’ve chosen to go on the Offensive and I hope you do too.
Let’s Go On The Offensive!
I’m assuming that because you’re reading this post regarding marketing ideas for Hong Kong in [current_year] you’re obviously a positive and offensive-orientated person, and for that, I salute you!
Remember, some of Hong Kong’s most successful businesses were built in downturns. Let’s take a well-known example of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.
Li Ka-shing made his fortune by buying properties at rock-bottom prices at the height of the 1967 Hong Kong riots [1].
Here’s another way of explaining the above:
Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.
Warren Buffet
#1 Create Specific Hong Kong SEO Content Using The E-A-T Strategy;
What is the E-A-T Strategy?
The E (Expertise), A (Authoritativeness) and T (Trustworthiness) are the three drivers that Google now looks at with regards to SEO, and SEO in Hong Kong is no different.
When you create your content for your digital marketing strategy you should always do so with the E-A-T concepts in the back of your mind.
Let’s discuss each one in turn.
Expertise means, does the writer and by extension, the website (“business”) know what they’re talking about or are they just faking it? If you’re an “expert” in the niche that you’re in then your content will reflect that, i.e. you won’t just regurgitate someone else’s work – and that is especially true with regards to SEO: your content should be as unique and rammed-full of value.
Authoritativeness means the depth of authority. Has the business, but more importantly, the domain, been online for a decent amount of time? A domain’s longevity is one of a multitude of SEO ranking factors Google places on whether to rank your content or not.
Furthermore, to further validate your SEO and business, do you have credentials, “verification”, reviews, testimonials or perhaps user feedback comments? If so, they all help to rank your website in Hong Kong.
Trustworthiness is all about what you’ve got on your site. Are you linking to suspicious websites or do you have an insecure certificate on your site? (By “certificate” I am referring to the little padlock before the www which create the https protocol).
Do these three things and you’ll be in a great position to grow your online business in [current_year].
#2 Localized SEO Hong Kong Strategies
By “local SEO” I am referring to executing digital marketing efforts to rank your site on Google Hong Kong, i.e. google.com.hk rather than google.com
There are a bunch of ways to do this, here are a few suggestions:
- If you’re solely marketing to Hong Kong then I’d suggest using a local domain (TLD) such as
.hkor.com.hk - Host locally too! If your website is physically located in Hong Kong (or Singapore) then that is another positive signal;
- Use SEO Markup Schema for your site, if you’re unsure about that then hit the contact page on my site and view the source;
- Make sure that your essential SEO metadata (Title Tags) contain the words “Hong Kong”, at least on the homepage;
- Link building! You can ask for local Hong Kong membership bodies to link to you as well as getting indexed in local search directories;
- Google My Business is another “must-do” when it comes to local Hong Kong SEO.
#3 Offer A Ton Of Value During the C-19 Crisis
The last thing you want is to be seen as some exploitative business seeking a quick buck at other peoples expense during this crisis.
Simply showing compassion during these hard times will set you in a positive light so when the grass shoots of recovery come through you’ll be in a fantastic spot to take advantage.
Ask yourself what it is that you can do to add value and your customers will likely remember that and will act accordingly.
Planning and executing this is a little tricky to do but I’ve done it to effectively several times now, with the last being during the Hong Kong Protests of 2019 for a client.
#4 Connect With Your Competitors
Whatever niche you’re in you can take leadership and create resources to help your community, you can think of this as being similar to #3 above, i.e. it’s all about being seen to care and adding value.
Whilst it might seem crazy to want to connect with your competitors, just hear me out and hopefully, I’ll make sense. Google, as we mentioned above in #1, loves expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, so let’s action that with an example of how to get this recognition from within your industry.
Let me share with you an example of how I did this for a client back in 2017 here in Hong Kong.
In 2017, I was helping a client within the education space. They were very keen to improve their SEO rankings locally in Hong Kong so I sent dozens of interview requests to peers within their education niche simply asking them what their primary concerns were with the education market – especially – in Hong Kong.
Because I wasn’t selling anything and I was giving them a platform to vent, I was able to generate a bunch of replies with their concerns and as a result, I created a 2,000-word industry round-up with a bunch of references from experts within their field. The result was that the site achieved a 141% increase in traffic for the keywords they were targeting because Google fell in love with that resources.
#5 Get Your Tech Working For You!
You’re seeking digital marketing help: that’s why you’re here.
You should be trying to squeeze every drop of juice you can out of your marketing efforts so don’t let your marketing and tech stack let you down.
What do I mean by a marketing and tech stack? I mean all the products and services that you use to get your content online, read and actioned.
Hosting is the best place to start. Make sure that you are using a web hosting company that provides excellent support as well as using bleeding-edge fast servers. Time is money is especially true when it comes to SEO and you should have a fast-loading theme as well as an excellent server setup.
Google now places the speed at which your website loads as being a critical and often determining factor as to whether they will rank your site or not.
Your digital marketing stack is equally vital. If you are receiving traffic but not converting then it’s time to use a different landing page template design or perhaps it’s equally time to use a better Split Testing Analytics tool so that you can measure the success of your efforts and tweak inefficiencies and seek out opportunities.
In Summary
You can do it.
[current_year] is indeed a challenging year but with the right approach you’ll be just fine.
If you need help to execute the above, or you’re interested in a no-obligation brain-storming session, then get in touch and let’s talk!