Case study · Local tour guide, Malaysia
A local tour guide in Malaysia got his first Korean customer the day after one Naver post, then filled his schedule for the month.
By Jieun Kim, Naver SEO specialist ·
Client
A local tour guide in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, running island-hopping and snorkeling tours. He found me on Fiverr.
The problem
Kota Kinabalu is a popular family destination for Koreans, and Korean travelers plan trips on Naver, in Korean. The guide had no presence there, so Korean travelers could not find him.
What I did
- Researched how Korean travelers search for tours in Kota Kinabalu: by island name, by activity and by "local guide".
- Published one detailed Korean guide to his island tour on my established Naver blog in June 2024, covering the tour itself and its prices.
- Wrote it the way Korean travelers read trip posts, so it reads as useful trip planning, not an ad.
Results
- Top of Naver within a day. #1 in Naver's "local guide" Smart Block six hours after publishing, and the top blog result for an island tour search the next day.
- First Korean customer the next day. A Korean mother and daughter messaged him to book the tour. He called them his "1st customer."
- Bookings kept coming from the post. More Naver-blog travelers through June, and two group bookings for July.
- "Because of you my tour is full this month." The client sent this with a photo of his booking calendar.
- Small traffic, high intent: the post had 64 views by day two. Almost all came from Naver search for tour-specific queries, which is why readers turned into bookings.
Why it worked
Korean travelers do not search "Kota Kinabalu tour" in English on Google. They search Korean phrases on Naver and trust detailed Korean posts. One post written for those exact phrases reached the people who were already planning the trip.
Client name withheld. Figures from Naver statistics, search results and client messages.