Greig first had the idea to start Oban Multilingual in the late 90’s after working in both Spain and the Middle East, and realised that there would be a need for localised web strategies, including SEO, in the future. He felt that too much emphasis was being placed on English-only content and his personal experiences when working abroad showed him that this would never accurately satisfy local search behaviour. His passion for the global web started at this point continues to grow to this day.
Following on from his experience abroad, he decided to study for a Masters that focused on ‘International Web Communication’ as the core subject, which led him to run cultural usability tests based on Hofstedes work. He says, ”I found the results fascinating and inspiring, so much so that I decided that the future of the web was global and my future lay in providing the best localised SEO, SEM and conversion testing anywhere in the world.”
In 2001 he started Oban Multilingual, and quickly realised that the vast majority of sites in the UK where in English. The sites that did have international content were far too reliant on translations. He knew that they had to be far more localised if they were to be successful. With this in mind, Greig developed SEO teams into over 26 markets with the clear goal to be able to provide the best localised SEO anywhere in the world, managed from one central location in Brighton, UK.
2009 saw huge leaps in not only international usage but international online spend too. He is happy with the company’s growth so far and says, “I’m proud to say Oban continues to grow from strength to strength – with our cultural multivariate database and system: Globalmaxer, rapidly growing to compliment our SEM services. I can truly say we are the first Global search and conversion agency in the world.”
Grieg runs the company how as its Managing Director.
Today, I got a chance to talk to Grieg and we discussed about SEO, Multilingual SEO and Social Media among others. On the necessity of Multilingual SEO he sees the situation to be alarming and throws a data that 70% of Global Internet Users don’t speak English.
Here’s some excerpts of the talk. Enjoy the read.
[Bhupendra] Hi Greig, How are you today? Welcome to GlobalThoughtz.
[Greig] Hello Bhupendra. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak with you. I’m looking forward to sharing some OBAN knowledge!
[Bhupendra] How is Oban Multilingual doing? Any significant milestones achieved in the last year?
[Greig] We’re doing really well at the moment. We’re expanding and taking on some really exciting projects. The last year has been great for us as it’s seen the launch of our long-awaited cultural multivariate testing tool, which determines how different cultures react to different web design elements. We’re hoping it’s going to revolutionize the way online marketers target foreign audiences.
[Bhupendra] When did you start this company and why?
[Greig] I launched OBAN Multilingual in 2002 after realizing that many marketers and businesses weren’t catering to different cultures with their websites. People were assuming that it didn’t matter whether someone was from Britain or Brazil, they would interact with their website in the same way. But in fact over 70% of the world’s internet users don’t speak English, so why should they be expected to use English websites?
[Bhupendra] I see your expertise is Multilingual SEO. Can you explain us this term ‘multilingual SEO’?
[Greig] Sure. For those who don’t know, search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of implementing certain elements to a website in order for it to rank higher in search engine ranking pages. Multilingual SEO is about being able to do this in other countries, in different languages, and for different search engines. There are many big and influential search engines out there aside from Google. Multilingual SEO is about optimizing for local search engines and local markets.
[Bhupendra] What are the major challenges you are trying to overcome?
[Greig] Mainly, it’s educating businesses and marketers that it is all about localization. Simply translating a page from one language to the next won’t reach a target market. There needs to be thorough research conducted into the culture, the linguistics, and the online trends of that country in order to reach them.
[Bhupendra] India and China are growing in the fast rate and many Economists believe that these are the markets which cannot be ignored. What is your view on it?
[Greig] Absolutely, China and India are definitely two of the most exciting markets when it comes to economic growth, and also search. China holds so much potential, especially for luxury brands, as society is very much label – focused here, particularly in the bigger cities.
In terms of search engines, we love to talk about China and India, and the BRIC markets in general, as there are some very interesting things going on in these parts of the world. Baidu is becoming a search-super power, and the launch of their recent online shopping mall now puts them at the forefront of online retail in Asia.
India also has a vibrant online market. It now ranks as the seventh largest market worldwide for social networking, after the U.S., China, Germany, Russian Federation, Brazil and the U.K. There’s a dynamic social media landscape here, with Facebook only recently taking over Orkut in terms of user reach. This is big news in the world of international social media, and also for Orkut, who were previously doing extremely well in holding on to first place here.
The online population of the BRIC + Indonesia markets is expected to more than double to over 1.2 billion by 2015. This, combined with other technological advancements and financial growth, means that it is now the time to start considering extending e-commerce practice in these markets.
[Bhupendra] How optimistic you are about the future growth of Social Media? Is it a fad or a real revolution?
[Greig] Good question. It’s hard to say what will happen with social media, however. At the moment it seems very real. It’s made a huge impact on the digital marketing industry, and everyone seems to be doing it. There are over 550 million users on Facebook, and Twitter is growing at a rate of around 10 million. Video has also taken off in a big way, and there are 150 different video sharing sites out there. So, for now, I don’t think the power social media should be ignored.
[Bhupendra] What is your suggestion to the companies on the use of Social Media and SEO?
[Greig] Our ‘localise’ message spreads right through to social media. Yes, Facebook is big news, but it’s banned in China. QQ.com, China’s biggest social media platform has more registered accounts than there are internet users in the country. Work that one out! In Russia it is Vkontakte.ru which holds the largest market share, followed by Odnoklassniki.ru, which had 66% market reach in January 2010. Look at local social media, and don’t assume that Facebook and Twitter rule the social media world.
[Bhupendra] What is the right stage to start doing SEO works for a company?
[Greig] It’s never too early to start an SEO strategy, in fact the earlier the better. If you can incorporate the strategy into the design and development stages of a website then that’s great. Throughout the process you can always be thinking about the SEO strategy. But always remember that it’s an ongoing process, it should never end. New search terms are popping up, and search engine algorithms are always evolving. Take Google Instant for example, marketers now have to think about how their site will appear in Instant results.
[Bhupendra] What is the next big challenge in the online marketing World? What can a business do to overcome it?
[Greig] Not a challenge as such, but the online world is evolving so quickly, it can be hard for businesses to keep up, especially those who might not be directly linked to the internet or marketing. The key is to look out for possible future developments. For example, Google have been testing a possible new element to search engine ranking pages where full screen shots of websites will pop up as the cursor goes over the result. However, it is yet to work for Flash pages, so anyone who has a Flash animation site or features on a page may want to re-think their design. Looking out for these possible changes will help online marketers stay one step ahead of the search giants.
[Bhupendra] What’s next for Oban?
[Greig] Well we’re really getting the cultural multivariate testing going, and we’ve had a huge amount of interest in our GlobalMaxer tool, so we’re looking forward to seeing more interesting results in the differences between the ways different cultures use websites.
We’re also working with some great clients in the online gambling industry, travel and education. Our team is expanding rapidly and we’re launching a new website soon, so 2011 is set to be a good year for Oban.
[Bhupendra] Thanks for your time Greig. Have a wonderful day.
[Greig] Thanks Bhupendra.