Background of the local movement
The idea was simple and straightforward: to create a network of mono-branded sites (one site – one product or brand) specifically for the Kazakhstan market. We thought about how to gain more trust from the local audience. Interestingly, tools like Ahrefs or Google Search Console sometimes worked unstable with our domain – it was a challenge for us and our team, we had to look for workarounds. Spoiler: we found one.
The main task was to find out how successfully we could scale the model of mono-branded sites and which niche would “shoot” better than the others. We launched 10 projects in equal conditions: approximately the same advertising budgets, the same content strategy and identical site structure. But after 2.5 months, it became clear: one of the sites suddenly broke through, showing impressive results.
Peculiarities of work in Kazakhstan
The Kazakhstan market turned out to be both interesting and challenging. On the one hand, our domain idea had a good conversion rate. On the other hand, analytics in international services became much more complicated: Ahrefs and SEMrush did not show everything we wanted to see. Google Search Console had regular delays in displaying data, which sometimes confused us.
Another nuance is the mandatory localization of content. The audience here is predominantly Russian- and Kazakh-speaking, so everything had to be thought through as carefully as possible. The advantage was that the competition in certain niches is not very high – you can easily take leading positions if you get in touch with the needs of the audience.
How we realized everything
The bet was on narrow specialization: each site was strictly for one brand or specific product. This allowed us to concentrate SEO efforts and create the most accurate and relevant content. When launching all 10 sites, we used the same model and strategy: the same content templates, similar approaches to advertising. The topics were different, but the approach was identical.
We paid special attention to the technical part: we used fast local hosting or CDN, the mobile version was optimized as much as possible, as mobile traffic in the region is absolutely predominant. Content was created only unique and relevant, using local cases, testimonials and regional specifics.
What results we got
The most successful site for 2,5 months of work showed impressive results:
- Active users became almost 1800 – an increase of more than 1000%!
- The number of target events (registrations, clicks, form filling) increased 14 times, up to 11000 events.
- New users became about the same number as active users – about 1800, which spoke about the constantly growing inflow of fresh audience.
Interpretation
- An increase in audience by more than 10 times indicates good promotion (maybe the right advertising or word of mouth worked).
- Events (CTA clicks, checkouts, key page views, etc.) increased by more than 14x, indicating high engagement.
- Fresh audience gains continue to grow, and most of the traffic is new visitors, not much overlap with repeat visitors yet.
What exactly “shot” this project? Most likely, the niche was successfully chosen, hit the expectations of the audience and competently set up contextual advertising. Perhaps word of mouth also worked – it plays a big role in Kazakhstan.
What about the other sites? At the same cost, the figures were lower by 2-3 times. This clearly showed the importance of choosing the right direction and hitting people’s expectations. And that testing is very important.
Pros and cons
On the plus side, it is worth noting the very high conversion rate from registration to deposit. Narrowly focused sites made it easy to gain the audience’s trust in the brand.
Minuses – difficulties with analytics and competitor analysis. It was not easy to get a complete picture of competitors and their keywords, we had to use additional methods of analysis – social networks, local forums and public activity of competitors, but without this there is no way if the approach is responsible.
Our recommendations to those who want to follow our path
- Use local data sources for analysis – forums, social networks, internal Google Ads statistics.
- Pay a lot of attention to content localization and collaboration with local influencers – it pays off, we speak from experience.
- Keep constantly working on improving the mobile version of the sites, as mobile traffic is key.
- Try to replicate the success of the most successful niches and don’t be afraid to experiment.
Long story short
As a result, one of our sites for 2,5 months with equal starting conditions showed outstanding results: 1800 active users, 11000 targeted actions and high conversion rate. The main reasons for the success were the exact hit in the needs of the Kazakh audience, competent localization and technical optimization for mobile traffic.
With the right approach, all the disadvantages easily turned into our advantages, we just needed to make more effort. If you gain the trust of the local audience and develop your content marketing, Kazakhstan is a very promising area for the success of mono-brand projects.