Beyond Global Internet Marketing

SEO for extraterrestrials

It is a good idea to target extraterrestrials in order to break away from the over crowded global marketing scene here on earth. We will use the Klingons from Star Trek as a case study to show the best methodology for extraterrestrial SEO.

Our first goal is to help people on Earth to market to Klingons. Although there are many technical problems, this group is worth targeting now that they are allies of the United Federation of Planets. Less money spent on making war frees up more disposable income.

First, we want to see if Klingons are a market. Google has a Klingon interface which proves just that. After all, they wouldn't create an interface just for a few Trekkies. Interestingly they do not have a "search in Klingon only" option. There must be a good reason for this although I can't imagine why.

Google interface in Klingon

 

Keyword Research That is Out Of This World

Next thing we need to do is research the keywords that Klingons use. This is not as easy as it seems as Google's keyword tool doesn't have a Klingon region option.

 

Google lacks a Klingon Territory or Planet option. Another search engine is sure to fill this gap soon.

 

We have two choices:

• Use the all countries option to find out what the Earth bound diaspora Klingons search for
• Use experience and judgment to find a proxy group - that is to say - a group of searchers which has similar search habits as Klingons. Then use Google's region option to research the keywords they target

 

Google's keyword tool shows that there is fierce Google Adwords advertiser competition in the Antarctica for Icelandic speakers searching for Klingon.

 

From our experience the closest group to Klingons is people in the Antarctic who speak Icelandic. It is a good thing that we have the Google tool to do our research. The tool shows us that a campaign in Antarctica for people searching for Klingon has too many advertisers and not any searchers.

But wait a minute; we are using the wrong mindset. We need to think like our potential clients and they are probably searching in the Klingon language.

Translating for Internet Marketing Campaigns

Although Israel probably has more people speaking more languages per square foot than any place on the globe we were not successful in finding a local translator. Craigslist, Facebook and a PPC campaign brought no results.

Our next move was to use the Google translation tool. Unfortunately, we found out that it does not yet work in Klingon. However, we didn't give up. A good Internet Marketer who wants to capture the outer space market has to be persistent. After all, this kind of Internet marketing calls for boldly going where no man (or woman) has gone before.

In the end we found some online translators.

Online Klingon Translator

 

When we use the Google Keyword tool to search in the Klingon language for tlhIngan we see no competition and enough searches to justify starting a campaign! I can't wait to start seeing the orders start to roll in from the Klingons.

The market for Tlhingan looks promising

 

What about shipping to the Klingons you ask? Isn't that part of global internet marketing? Yes of course it is. We will cover that in a future blog post.

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