Google is the top search engine in the world, as it holds over 85% of the world market share. However, to reach consumers in South Korea, you need to have a strong presence on Naver because Naver is the top “search engine” in Korea. To rank high on Naver is difficult and involves different strategies than ranking high on Google. Punch Digital Marketing was founded in 2008. Our team has helped many global companies reach Korean consumers via SEO and internet ads in Korean portals like Naver and Daum and eCommerce sites like Gmarket. However, Naver is by far the most requested. Before getting into the ten easy steps to rank high on Naver Blog, we need to understand Naver’s layout (search engine results page or “SERP”). You should be familiar with six categories as they are the most relevant to SEO.
This article will strictly focus on Naver Blogs; each category deserves an article. However, I believe Naver Blogs are the ones to focus on for any startup looking to enter the Korean market. Naver SEO is not easy. There are services within Naver that one needs to pay attention to. This is why many global companies do not have the time to create content for Naver. Instead, they work with digital marketing companies in Korea like us, who already have over a decade of experience with platforms like Naver.
Most of all, remember, to run a Naver campaign, you must be fluent in Korean. Therefore, if your team does not have a Korean team member to produce the content, don’t even think about starting a Naver blog.
When you register for a Naver account, you will automatically get a Naver Blog. Your website should ideally be in Korean, and you could also have a blog section on your Korean website. Therefore, you will have to maintain your website and blog and your Naver blog. Do not start a Naver Blog unless you are willing to invest the time. Most companies put only a few months into a Naver SEO campaign. This is the wrong mentality to have. Naver SEO is almost a never-ending game that needs to be played consistently to stay ahead of the competition. This is why many companies use digital marketing agencies to create a well-structured content calendar, do extensive keyword research, and, most importantly, create high-quality and unique content.
No matter what the user searches for, advertisements (Power Links) will most often appear first on Naver. Then, depending on what the user is searching for, one of these sections will show up near the top. For example, if someone is searching for a particular product, Naver Shopping will appear after the advertisements.
The homepage of Naver has more content displayed than Google. It should remind you of Yahoo’s homepage except with A LOT more advertisements; all the content is in Korean. Therefore if you don’t have a content creator fluent in Korean, you must find an agency to handle your Naver SEO needs. So, Naver is more of a web portal than a search engine. Their search engine does not always bring back organic content. Test it out yourself, and you will instantly notice a large number of advertisements and many Naver blog posts. Naver is known for pushing Naver content. Naver Blogs will have a higher chance to rank than external blogs or websites.
This is the first easy step you should take. The goal is to bring more traffic to your website. Therefore it is important to register your website on Naver. When you register to Naver, you will automatically get a Naver blog. Remember to register on Naver webmaster tools and Naver Smart Place. If you don’t register your website, it is not guaranteed to be crawled, indexed, and displayed by the search engine. After registration, it will take about two weeks before your website will appear on Naver’s results pages. Submissions will need to be in Korean. Naver has stated that they are better at crawling and indexing blogs on their platform, but they do external index blogs.
The key is to make unique and high-quality content. This type of content should get users to read your content and hopefully share it or comment on it. Therefore, one piece of high-quality content is better than ten pieces of sub-par content. Naver will probably not even index the content if the quality is low. High-quality content can be controversial if you can back it up with facts. These are blogs that can be shared easily. However, make sure the content is accurate.
To get a higher authority on Naver, it is important to be active. This does not mean just posting low-quality content every single day. Instead, lay out a plan to write ten pieces of high-quality content. Then publish the oldest content by adding fresh new, and relevant information. This way, you will be an active blogger and all your posts will be high-quality. This is why staying current on the latest trends can work wonders. Feel free to add any relevant news to existing articles and republish them. It will rank better because it already has a history behind it.
Since Naver puts a lot of value on user traffic, your content would be on highly popular topics. The top trending topics will be shown on the first page of Naver, so this will be a helpful guide for writing new content. Another great way to find the latest trending topics is to go to Naver Cafe and see what the community in your industry is talking about. Social media channels like Twitter are also great for seeing what is trending. Also, remember to read what people in Korea are commenting about. This will give you a great insight into what the potential audience is interested in and where their opinion stands.
Naver has a machine learning system called Deep Intent Analysis (D.I.A.). It identifies the user’s search intent and finds the relevant content based on what is typed. Many factors go into finding the right content for the user. D.I.A. looks for content where users spent a lot of time, the number of shares it received, and even the number of comments it has. Therefore, if you are targeting a particular keyword, you need to consider what kind of content people would expect when typing that specific keyword.
This is why having a blog on your website is great. You can link back to your Naver Blog. But that is only one source. Your mission is to get other Naver Blogs or external blogs to link to your Naver Blog. These backlinks significantly affect how high you are ranked on Naver. Remember to use plain HTML for key links and body links.
Creating your images, infographics, and graphs will not only help your blog rank higher on Naver but will also increase the likelihood your Naver Blog post will get shared. If you can’t create this kind of content, many online platforms like Fiverr and UpWork can make graphics for cheap. A few tips I can give are to use JPEG over PNG since you might lose image quality with JPEG, but you can adjust the quality level to find a good balance. Second, ensure your images are mobile-friendly, as many Koreans access Naver through their smartphone. Mobile-friendly images will need to scale with the size of your site on both desktop and mobile.
Promote your Blog post on social media channels. This means your website should at least have a KakaoTalk Channel, Facebook Page, Twitter Page, and Instagram account. These social media platforms continue to grow in Korea and are a great way to promote your content outside of Naver. You can also leverage digital marketing agencies to run ads on these social media platforms to increase your website’s traffic.
There is no sure way to rank #1 on Naver Blog. Therefore beware of Naver SEO companies that make promises too good to be true. The key is to target the right keywords and create/promote high-quality/well-optimized content. The better your content, the faster you rank high on Naver Blog. Finally, always keep up to date on the content created. Your blog needs to be constantly maintained and updated.
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