Supporting A Manufacturing Customer’s Plans for International Sales
My customers would like to expand their market in Russia, so I proposed adding their site to the international search engine Yandex through their English-language webmaster tools. Yandex is the most popular search engine in Russia. We recently upgraded the site with a Content Distributed Network, I felt confident that the website would load quickly in the region.
My customer’s site is in English, and I speak no Russian. Signing up for Yandex Webmaster tools, I found there is an English version of Yandex Webmaster tools, which makes sign-up easy.
I have made a baseline Google Analytics report so I can compare traffic before and after adding the website to Yandex.
Update: Yandex Ranking Code Leaked
You can dig into the code behind all 1900+ ranking factors identified in the January 2023 link, some experts believe this will be scrubbed from the web. This article on Search Engine Land has an overview of the Twitter chatter and evaluations as of 1/27/23
One observer tweeted that the code likely has interesting overlaps with Google’s ranking factors.
To set an appropriate goal, I had to think through what we anticipated Russian visitors will do on our site.
Setting the Right Goals
I have made a baseline Google Analytics report so I can compare traffic before and after adding the website to Yandex. To set an appropriate goal, I had to think through what we anticipated Russian visitors will do on our site. Since we do not have Russian speakers in the factory, we depend on our Russian Sales Rep to serve local customers. That means our current site goals, clicking our email link or filling out a form, wouldn’t apply to potential Russian customers who want to contact our local sales agent and do business in Russian.
I could set a goal specifically for clicks through to our Russian sales rep. Since the long-term plan includes marketing to other regions, would I want a separate GA goal for each sales rep or region? It would scale better to make one goal and break out the regions in the Google Analytics reports. I set an event tag to track when anyone clicked on anything on our overseas sales rep page.
Following Up on Yandex Search
- Check Yandex Webmaster Tools after the site is crawled and add any issues to the Issues Spreadsheet
- Set a reminder in a month to rerun the Google Analytics Russian traffic and Conversions report
- Gather a list of keywords used to find the site and add to the keyword ideas list
- Repeat with Baidu, the search engine popular in China