While Google has a tight clinch on the world’s search engine traffic from both desktop and mobile devices, but even then, there is a third of the search traffic left for numerous other search engines. In many countries like China, local search engines outdo Google. Google, for the most part, is unheard of in China.
There are other countries like Russia, and South Korea each with a sizable population which does not use Google and prefer their local search engines above all others. Mainly because it is in their native language and also that the results returned are the most relevant to them. So, if you’re looking to gain a foothold in terms of search engine optimization in those regions, then it is essential that you learn to target them effectively. A considerable part of targeting those regions will also mean having well-written content, in local languages, because that’s the only way your pages will rank in addition to having a local domain.
Yandex
Yandex is the most popular search engine in Russia. It is used by more than 53% of the population of the country. Yandex is also used in the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Belarus. To top it off it is one of the easiest to use search engines with a couple of great tools worth exploring even for American users. One instance of these tools is Yandex Disk which is their version of Google Drive. Though with it you can search for your personal files via the main search engine bar!
Yahoo Japan
Sure it is internationally the third largest search engine in America making up for 12% of searches. However, Yahoo Japan is the most popular search engine there. Why is that exactly the case is unknown, but one thing is for sure that if you’re optimizing a website in Japanese for Japan, you’ll want to optimize it for Yahoo Japan.
Baidu
It is the largest search engine in China and makes up 60% of the local search traffic. It is also the third most popular in the world, but that’s primarily because it is used by a sizable chunk of Chinese. Baidu is an excellent place to start optimizing your website intended for a Chinese audience. However succeeding here will mean that your website’s content is drafted by a native speaker and nothing short of that. All content will have to be in Simplified Chinese, and the domain will need to have a .cn extension.
Naver
Naver collects content from paid search, users and various social platforms. Only brands that have the most extensive presence across numerous search engines are visible here. All content is grouped together in the form of paid listings, registered websites, organic listings, images, etc. Being listed here will require that the brand creates an account and ensure that their content is in the Korean language, then submit it to the search engine. Anything short of that and getting listed here is difficult. Keep in mind your primary audience is Koreans mainly from South Korea.