Naver – The Biggest Search Engine in Korea

The Korean market is not the same as other markets. For example, it's one of those countries that outpace Google locally and if you are planning to target the Korean market then your best bet would be going on Naver – the biggest search engine in Korea!

Korea is one of those countries that outpace Google locally. Therefore, if you are planning to target Korea, you should know that you cannot market there without getting on Naver – the biggest search engine in Korea.

Naver started in 1999 and grew to become the biggest search engine in South Korea. I believe at a certain point in time, it took up over 90% of the Korean search engine market. Today that has dropped down to around 60%, depending on who you're getting that data from.

Naver was built around the Korean language. That’s the main reason why it is more reliable than Google if you want to reach your marketing goals in Korea. It also delivers more relevant results than Google as it is not just built around the Korean language but also in Korean culture.

Homepage

Unlike Google, the Naver homepage may look busy and cluttered. It covers a variety of topics such as weather and news and you’ll see a lot of advertisements. You can also see the log-in button and a couple of menus that can lead users to “mail”, “café”, “blog”, and more.

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Naver Homepage
Naver - The Biggest Search Engine in Korea 2
Naver Homepage

The SERP

The Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) of Naver show an expanded display of information. Unlike Google, the categories are arranged in Naver SERP depending on the search term. It can also be arranged based on the users’ historical search behavior data.

Moreover, the search tool can arrange the results by relevance and can filter the results within a certain period. An advanced search that can include or exclude the search terms is also possible in Naver.

This is how the SERP looks:

Naver SERP
Naver SERP
Naver SERP
Naver SERP
Naver SERP
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Basic Features of Naver

Naver has developed different services such as blogs and cafes and other community services such as news, knowledge, maps, e-mail, and more. Other than these services, they also have fundamental features for advertising and marketing your brand.

Display Ads

Display ads are what people usually see on the first page of the search engine. People who pay for these ads have a lot of money because they cost five figures per hour depending on what day and what time of day you are running these ads.

Naver Display Ads

Display ads are useful for companies who want to increase brand awareness and create drive traffic to the website. As Naver has millions of active users, this type of feature can surely boost the product.

Search Ads

Like Google, Naver has a standard pay-per-click (PPC) text advertisement. It contains a title, description, display URL, and more options depending on the placement of the ad.

You will be able to see these search ads on Naver search results, Naver service pages, and on Naver search partner sites.

Brand Search Ads

Naver Brand Search Ads

When a user searches for something, it will trigger ads that show related products or services while featuring a specific brand. Naver currently allows a business to select a limit of 30 keywords to trigger brand search ads that guarantee first positioning on the search results. Brand ads include images but Naver established very detailed rules that you have to follow, or else, your ads won’t run.

Content Search Ads

Unlike brand ads, your selection for search keywords for content ads has a limit. This one is located just below Power Link ads and will direct your target customer to blog pages. These ads allow you to show your content to the audiences who search for something that is relevant to your brand.

If you are planning to create a Naver blog and would like to promote the service or you do not have your own website and use Naver blog as an alternative, content search ads are great for you.

Naver Content Search Ads

Shopping Search Ads

Unlike brand ads and content search ads, shopping search ads cannot be triggered by keywords. This category relies on Naver to automatically position the ad in search results depending on the information of the product registered on Naver Shopping. The search intent and buying patterns can also influence these ads.

Naver Shopping Search Ads

Naver Blog

In Korea, many companies use the Naver blog to provide visitors with a comprehensive profile of their business. This section provides valuable company information for potential customers and helps you gain wider market exposure and eventually rank in Naver.

Naver Blog

When someone searches for a keyword and it matches your blog entry, your article appears on the first page of the search results. Your target audience can access the blog for more information and make online orders.

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Naver Blog Dashboard

Moreover, the blog section on the Naver search engine is useful no matter what your business is. Creating a Naver blog can make it easier for our target audience to find you when they started looking for something that is relevant to your brand.

This is what Naver's blog post looks like. You'll also see it's just an alternate of pictures and texts but this is what works for the ranking in Naver.

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Naver Blog Sample

Naver blogs are important and also the tone or the type of writing. I was looking at pizza here, but in general, you'll find that there aren't too many highly niched-down blogs and you'll find that the type of writing is casual and conversational. It's like saying “I went here. I had this.”

Knowledge iN

Knowledge iN is an online Q&A platform that creates a user-generated pool of content that helps increase the information available online in the Korean language. This also functions like Quora, wherein users can ask any question and receive answers from other users.

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Knowledge iN

Naver Café

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Naver Café

This is a popular social community within South Korea. This is the place where influencers can leverage their social media marketing efforts. Therefore, if you want to succeed in Naver marketing, make sure you’re aware of the big influencers in Naver Cafe in your specific industry.

With Naver Cafe, you can create your own internet communities and makeup to 300 cafes. This allows you to build a following of members that can help you be visible in the search results.

Naver Encyclopedia

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Naver Encyclopedia functions almost the same way as Knowledge iN. It is mainly composed of a professional database with over 3 million entries from many different encyclopedias, to widen the knowledge available in the Korean language.

Naver Shopping

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Naver Shopping

This feature has been popular since Naver did not just allow entrepreneurs to connect with their customers online, they also allow their users to earn points using Naver Pay, a digital wallet service. The points accumulated can be used when the users go on online shopping again.

Through this service, your products can be exposed to various sales areas, and search results and allow you to do and have access to the following:

1. Shopping Store

This is where your products are exposed in front of your consumers. Here, convenient payment is possible from a consumer's point of view because Naver Pay is available.

2. Search Ads Can Be Registered

In Naver shopping, ads can be registered through Naver’s official advertisement agency or customer center.

3. Keyword Search Advertisement

With this, you will be able to be in front of the search results by purchasing the top spot on the keyword search result page.

4. Targeted Ads

This category is manipulated and will only be exposed to people who already showed interest in your keyword or brand.

Naver TV

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Naver TV

This service is for those people who are a fan of Korean music or drama. If you are one of those people and you are not familiar with Naver TV, you are seriously missing out! This web broadcast network mainly provides everything from shows, music, movies, and like Youtube, you can also access the creator studio and upload your own videos.

Naver Mail

Naver also has a mail service, the same way Google has Gmail. It is available to anyone who is a user of Naver and offers free 5GB for each user. With this service, you’ll be able to manage multiple mail accounts and switch between accounts with keyboard shortcuts. Like Gmail, you can also use and customize Naver Mail and control notifications by schedule.

Naver Webtoon

This is a webcomic platform that allows users to have free access to a variety of webtoons created by professional artists.

This feature allows you to read comics in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Indonesian and more.

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Naver Webtoon

Marketing in Naver

Naver is the most effective platform for advertising in South Korea. Using this search engine, you can boost your brand awareness and reach your target market, even if you are not an expert.

Still, it will be difficult to win in Naver marketing if you are not in Korea. That’s why there are digital marketing agencies like Inquivix, that can help you reach your marketing goals in Korea even if you are not Korean and you’re not based in Korea. Inquivix can help you optimize your Naver marketing campaigns because they are Koreans and they are experts in Korean marketing.

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Inquivix–Leading Digital Marketing Agency In South Korea

If you want to learn more about digital marketing in Korea, comment down below.

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