I was really looking forward to this meeting. Why? Because, Larry (www.larrylim.net) had got his website ranked in the top 10 of Google search for the keywords Singapore SEO in less than 6 months and has been in the top 5 since last year.
If you ever need SEO services or a SEO consultant, he is one person that I’ll recommend.
I met him this morning at Parco Bugis Junction. He was in Singapore for a short business cum shopping trip. Larry is based in Malaysia. Yes, Malaysian helping Singapore companies to optimize their websites.
Singapore SEO vs Malaysia SEO
We had a long talk, nearly 2 hours, about the prospect of providing SEO services. There is definitely a growing demand for SEO/SEM related services. More companies are willing to pay to get their websites into Google and Yahoo search results. Apparently, according to Larry, Singapore companies are more willing to allocate budget for SEO than Malaysia companies.
So is there really a demand for SEO in Malaysia? How big is this demand compared with Singapore market?
I am not familiar with the Malaysia market. So I came home and did a quick research.
A Little Research on Malaysia SEO Market
I used Google Trends and here’s the results for terms “hong kong”, “malaysia”, “singapore” & “sex”. We know there is lots of traffic for the search term “sex”, so I used it to act as the basis of comparison to reflect the magnitude of the market.
In the chart/table below, you’ll see that the number of searches for the term “singapore” is about 10 times that of “sex” for traffic from Singapore. In Hong Kong, the number of searches for “hong kong” is 5 times that of “sex”.
Unfortunately, the chart/table above does not give me direct answers. I need to do a bit more analysis in the data to deduce some answers.
We can see that there are many people in Singapore using the term “Singapore” in their searches. These people are looking for information, products, services and etc. in Singapore or related to Singapore e.g. “SEO training in Singapore”. With so many people using the search engine to look for information, it is no doubt that there is more companies in Singapore spending money to get into top Google and Yahoo search ranking.
Singapore SEO Market Twice As Large?
Now, let’s look at Malaysia. Take note the data was presented for 2 cities: Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. The number of searches for Malaysia related information is about 80% of Singapore numbers. So the difference is not so big.
In other words, for every 10 SEO jobs in Singapore, there are 8 in KL and PJ (if the conditions in all the 3 cities are same).
When we factor in the difference in currencies, a person based in Malaysia will find job in Singapore twice as lucrative as a job in KL and PJ. So in dollar terms, Singapore current market size, in terms of US$, could be twice as large as Malaysia’s.
No wonder, Larry prefers to have Singapore clients paying in Singdollars to looking for Malaysian clients who pay in Ringgits.
It was a pleasure meeting you too. Unfortunately, your analysis only gives an indication of the search engine usage by end-users and not real SEO job requests, i.e. high search engine usage does not equal high SEO job request.
The big problem is that while the opportunities are available out there (high search usage), companies are still unaware or ignorant about the use of the Internet as an effective marketing medium. Hence, the reason why I’m not focusing on Malaysia is because the market isn’t ready yet.
Hi Larry,
You are right.
The market conditions in Singapore and Malaysia are different. Even if there are equal numbers of searches for Malaysia related information in KL/PJ as compared with number of searches for Singapore related information in Singapore, the demand for SEO jobs WILL NOT be the same.
I am not familiar with the Malaysia market. I do not know what is the actual demand for SEO jobs in Malaysia.
It definitely will take more than just a quick Google Trends research to find out what is the current and potential market size for SEO jobs in Malaysia. This is just a quick way to guess what is happening in the search trends in Singapore and Malaysia if we can trust what Google is giving us the full picture.
Another point to note is the pricing. Singapore SEO companies may not be able to compete with SEO companies from India and upcoming freelancers and companies from the Philippines and Vietnam. We are already seeing lots of web design projects being outsourced to Jakarta and Bangkok. It is so inexpensive to hire good web designers in these cities for a low monthly wage of US$200 to US$400.
Larry Lim, Are you hiring SEO crew?
I work in SEO for about 1 year since my college time.
Hi Smithveg,
Please contact Larry Lim at
http://www.larrylim.net/contact.htm
Outsourcing is the preferred choice in Singapore. But we can still notice the ignorance of business owners about the power of web. A matter of fact, many local business in Singapore still works on their brick and mortar business model. They need to be educated on the power of internet marketing.
Hello,
My name is sakthivel am working as a web researcher for 6 months in India.Is there any opportunity for me in singapore to get into SEO Jobs.The reason why am shifting is my friends are all setlled in singapore.Can you suggest me some useful tips in SEO so that it should be useful for everyone.
Wow that is pretty interesting data. Thanks for the post
Mr Larry Lim now considered as Singapore’s SEO Idol!
Larry lim now team up with Locus-t. from Malaysia to brings online marketing solutions in Malaysia and Singapore.
Since you are the expert in SEO, can you advise if you can optimised other extension as well, instead of the usual .com. Can .asia, .mobi or even .tel be optimised? or, I should just stick to .com and .net?
Yes, .asia, .mobi or even .tel can be optimised for the region, the platform or the industry. Just like you can optimize .sg for Singapore and .au for Australia.
Thanks for the post. I notice the seo are increasing this year. Easily new company setup mention they are SEO expert. How to share the cake?
i am working on seo, here in pakistan and i want to work abroad,, if there is any need of job then let me knw,,thanks i read out you post, that is great..