The State of SEO in Hong Kong

Hong Kong still lags behind the United States when it comes to the search engine optimization industry - but it is catching up fast.

How does the search engine optimization (SEO) industry in Hong Kong compare to other markets around the world, such as the U.S? Is it easier to find a good SEO firm in Hong Kong than in say, Provo, Utah? If you’re looking to hire top-notch SEO talent in Hong Kong, how hard is it?

I learned the answers to these questions firsthand when I moved to Hong Kong in mid-2013 to open our firm’s Asia office. Our firm’s headquarters remain in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we have other offices around the U.S. against which to compare the Hong Kong market.

What I discovered about the SEO and more general digital marketing industry in Hong Kong surprised me. Hong Kong is a world city with a population of 7.2 million. It is the “gateway to Asia” and is known for being a major business hub. Utah, by comparison, has a statewide population of 2.9 million, and is relatively rural. Even the capital of Salt Lake City appears quiet and sedate compared to the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong’s busy streets.

Any rational person would assume that Hong Kong would have a much more active SEO industry, and yet what I’ve found is the opposite. Hong Kong, despite its size and place in the world, has a digital marketing industry that is roughly five years behind that of Utah.

Here are some more numbers to consider adding weight to this statement:

A search on LinkedIn for people who use the word “SEO” in their profile turns up 3,789 individuals in Hong Kong, but 10,331 in Utah. Similarly, when one searches on LinkedIn for companies that use the word “SEO” in their profiles, we find 123 results for Hong Kong, but 244 in Utah.

Rather than relying on LinkedIn, one might be inclined to look to Google. After all, it’s logical to assume that SEO firms would be more motivated and adept at showing up in the search giant for a search term like “Hong Kong SEO” than any other type of company. Comparing the results of searches for “Hong Kong SEO” to “Utah SEO,” we find that Google returns 3.9 million results for the former, and only 1.5 million results for the latter. Perhaps the LinkedIn searches aren’t as conclusive as they appear? We might be led to this assumption, until we understand that “Seo” is a popular Korean surname that appears frequently in search results for “Hong Kong SEO.”

More telling is to look at the results themselves. Although a subjective measure, it is clear to me that those results showing up for “Utah SEO” are putting considerably more effort into ranking for that term than those optimizing for “Hong Kong SEO.”

Other measures of the maturity of the SEO industry in Hong Kong can be gathered by interactions with clients and potential clients.

Ten years ago in Utah, most companies I spoke with didn’t know what the acronym “SEO” meant.

Thankfully, that is not the case in Hong Kong today. However, I do see a number of misconceptions in the Hong Kong market, which, although common in all markets, seem to be more pronounced here. From my observations, these misconceptions seem to span language, race, and culture. They are:

  • Paid search is better than SEO: While paid search (also known as pay-per-click, PPC, Google AdWords, etc.) is effective when you need results fast, SEO provides a better return on investment and drives more traffic in the long term.
  • Rankings are the number one SEO metric: Leads and sales are what matter, not rankings. Rankings are a valuable secondary metric, but success should be measured by other data.
  • Lots of links is good for SEO: To say that quality is more important than quantity is an understatement. Low-quality links not only won’t help an SEO campaign, but may earn a website a penalty that results in a loss of traffic. Even amongst some SEO experts in Hong Kong, there is an outdated focus on improper metrics and a lack of experience with natural language search, content marketing, social amplification, conversion rate optimization, marketing automation, and so forth.

While there are a few experts out there, they have proven elusive (trust me, I’ve been looking).

It appears that much of the cause for Hong Kong’s delay when it comes to SEO is due to a combination of talent being absorbed by the ever present financial industry, the high cost of living, and the fact that in a high-density market like Hong Kong occupied primarily by big brands, mass market advertising works well. SEO simply hasn’t been a priority.

But if Hong Kong has lagged behind other markets when it comes to SEO, it is catching up quickly. In the brief 18 months I’ve been living here, I’ve seen increased interest in digital marketing, both in terms of in-house hiring as well as outsourcing.

The increasing demand for SEO and lack of supply means there’s no better time to be an SEO in Hong Kong than now.

Image via Shutterstock.

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