Posted on May-06-2008
Ice Cream with Sinotech Search.
During the last day of SMX China I had the good fortune to share lunch with Matthew McDougall, Laker Chen and Jessica Zhang from China based search marketing agency Sinotech Search.
I gained a lot of great insights from talking to Matthew especially about the search industry in China and operating a business in Asia.
On operating a business Matthew spoke a lot about how to structure a company to keep staff motivated and said that even on Saturdays and Sundays his team are in the office working away because its what they love doing. He seemed genuinely proud that his company is making a positive difference to the lives of his 120 or so employees.
Matthew has set up companies before, previously setting up in Silicon Valley. Probably the biggest piece of encouragement I took from him was when he said “The first company you setup is always a mess, you do everything wrong. You just have to take everything you learn and use it the second time around.” Really good advice for someone like myself making a lot of hard decisions about company setup in Asia.
After the conference i fired some quick questions to Matthew to get a better understanding of the industry in China.
How should companies targeting Chinese audiences approach beginning paid search campaigns in China?
Matthew: Consult with Sinotech Search 
Understand local language nuances, local seasonal trends and the way local search engines work (each SE has particular algorithmic structures to contend with)
How does natural search on the major Chinese search engines differ from search engines like Google and Yahoo?
Matthew: Baidu is King! Major difference is number of paid inclusions within organic results. Some keywords will have pages of paid inclusion.
Any predictions about major developments in the search industry in Asia over the next two years?
Matthew: Local Search Providers will continue to dominate. Will see the use of cost per day and cost per acquisition advertising models- support for text, display and video ads.
For more information about the Sinotech group see their website: China SEO Agency Sinotech Search
To read more of Matthew in the Blogosphere check out this post on Thomas Crampton dot com or some comments by Matthew about business in China in the New York Times.
Wonderful Post….:). Please up-date us with the current information Thanks!
Tina
Thanks for posting our discussion and like the information in your blog.
By way of update I am wanting to increase the level of professionalism in Search Marketing in China. Currently, the Search Marketing industry here is embryonic and has a number of firms using black hat practices- much like the early days in the US
To promote good practices and help prospective companies use Search, we have launched a Certified Search Professional program. There is an exam associated that is industry (not vendor) focused and we aim simply to drive knowledge, awareness and good practices here in this market. (you can find more on our website: http://www.sinotechmedia.com.cn)
Here’s to better SEO/SEM
Matt