Before I came into this metropolitan bedazzling city of Dubai, I wanted to have an outlook of the online media in the Middle East particularly of search industry. Yes, there were notable companies and individuals who have demonstrated great skills & knowledge in SEO and SEM. I knew for a fact that the Middle East had a talent pool of experts, the technology with all its resources, and a growing market.
But I somehow felt there was not much awareness of SEO, SEM, or even Social Media in the region, or was I expecting too much? But Husam Jandal seems to have sustained my observation. Husam is an internet business consultant with WSI Internet Consulting.
In an article in TheNational.Ae – Searching for an online solution, Husam Jandal said:
“In general they [Middle East] are very ignorant about the fact that their potential clients and existing clients are using the internet, while they are not [doing so themselves].
I think we’re still behind when it comes to the business community recognising the importance of being in front of their potential clients.
With more than 90 per cent of all traffic generated on the internet coming from search engines, it is important for the local business community to identify various ways of utilising these internet tools to achieve the desired visibility for their businesses”
I couldn’t agree with him more. Well there are a lot of reasons to consider though in the Middle East market. I won’t dwell on them for now. But let me help in pointing you to the right direction as to why online media, particularly SEO, SEM and even Social Media will be a vital tool for Middle East businesses:
I. Exponential increase of audience/consumers online
According to IndexMundi.Com, the United Arab Emirates’ number of internet users has rose to 64.64% by 2008.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
During the second edition of the Arab Media Outlook Report, the authors said that “The Arab media sector must move fast to accommodate the ‘net generation’ and its technology must evolve with global media trends.”
It would be illogical to ignore the growing trends of online media affecting consumers. More than 80% of the traffic generated in the internet is coming from search engines. Middle East is no different from the rest of the world in terms of search engine usage. In my previous post, Google, Yahoo, and MSN still ruled as the major search engines used in the Middle East regions.
You might not have known this but ever since the industry was born, SEO has its eyes focused on helping businesses to rank on the top results of the top 3 search engines. To give you a glimpse of the impact of the search industry, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) confirmed that the SEM industry in North America has grown from US$9.4 Billion (Dh34.5bn) in 2006 to $12.2 Billion in 2007 and they’re expecting further growth in 2011 by $25.2 Billion.
II. Expected growth of Middle East online advertising
I could never forget this article I read last year in TheNational.Ae by Tom Gara entitled “Google says Middle East online advertising to grow” This article gave me a good source of inspiration in pursuing my career in this region. Tom states:
“A Middle Eastern economic slowdown is expected to accelerate the growth of online advertising in the region, as companies opt for less expensive web ads over pricey traditional media.”
Fortunately, while I was looking for opportunities to work for as an SEO in the last quarter of last year (which was very limited back in 2007 and early 2008), I got several for project-based offers which I never had when I first came here in Dubai. Was it because of the economic crisis? Maybe… It was too early for me to conclude.
Then I got the chance to attend Media and Marketing Show of 2008 which was attended by some of the biggest names in the online industry. It was there I learned that major businesses are slowly turning into digital and online advertising media in the years to come. Abolishing traditional media was far from reality but choosing online media to implement dynamic marketing strategies has become more evident in these times of downturn.
Management has the option of quick but somehow costly PPC (Pay Per Click) Advertising and of course they can also go for the long-term but cheap organic optimization for better rankings in Google and other major search engines as well as beneficial traffic for their corporate and commercial websites.
III. Major brands being drawn to online advertising
I could safely say that aside from the quick results online advertising/marketing has to offer, it also has numerous tools or metrics which can monitor your spending versus your ROI for any campaign you run.
Mazen Halawi, Corporate Sales Manager of Ayna, one of the leading Arabic search engines in the Middle East, has observed that big companies are allocating up to 7% of their budgets into online advertising in 2008 as compared to only 5% in 2007. He even expects it to rise by 9% or more in the next few years to come.
Aside from well established SEO/SEM strategies that a company can choose, there are now emerging strong avenues for corporate or consumer branding. Social Networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook has been attractive venues for building a brute force online marketing strategy.
As you have noticed in the title of this post, this is just my personal opinion based on the sources that I’ve stumbled upon and many more. Am I taking them out of the context or perhaps concluding to an answer that I only want to hear?
Let me know your thoughts especially for the gurus in the online industry within the region.
The Importance of Online Marketing (Particularly SEO, SEM, and Social Media) in the Middle East is a post from: Small Business SEO Tips – SaktoSEO