Case study · Lounge in Seoul, foreign-owned
A foreign-owned lounge in Seoul started its first Naver blog and was seeing new Korean customers every weekend within five months.
By Jieun Kim, Naver SEO specialist ·
Client
A bar and event lounge in one of Seoul's nightlife districts, run by a foreign owner who wanted more Korean customers.
The problem
Korean customers choose where to go out by searching Naver for things like "places to go near" a subway station or "good lounges to go to alone". The lounge had no Naver blog, so it did not show up in those searches at all, and the owner did not write in Korean.
What I did
- Started the lounge's official Naver blog in September 2024 and wrote its posts in Korean: neighborhood guides, event announcements and seasonal posts around Halloween and Valentine's Day.
- Built each post around the place-based searches Korean customers use, then widened the keyword radius to nearby areas once the first posts ranked.
- Reached out to other Korean bloggers in the area, which brought in independent reviews of the lounge.
- Sent the owner regular reports on blog traffic and the searches that brought people in.
Results
- A Naver Knowledge Snippet for a "things to do near" search for the lounge's neighborhood, using the blog's first post. The snippet is the answer box at the top of Naver's results.
- Daily blog views from 19 to 188 in one week, in October 2024, the week a seasonal guide post went up.
- Independent reviews. After the outreach, two more bloggers contacted the lounge, and a third-party review reached Naver's popular posts for a venue-type search.
- "We're seeing results!!" the owner wrote in the first month. By February 2025: "Yes! I see new Korean customers every weekend." (translated from Korean)
- Kept working together for more than a year, through the 2025 Halloween season.
Why it worked
Korean customers rarely pick a bar from English reviews on Google. They search Naver for a neighborhood and a mood, and they trust Korean blog posts. Writing for those searches, and getting other Korean bloggers to write about the lounge, put it in front of Korean customers who were already deciding where to go that night.
Client name withheld. Figures from Naver statistics, search results and client messages.