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Work / Alibaba Cloud

Alibaba CloudCloud computing · International launch

Organic traffic up almost elevenfold in eight months, for an international launch

USASE AsiaAsia-Pacific
~11xorganic sessions in eight months (+993%)
+630%organic sessions from the USA
+448%organic sessions from Southeast Asia
8% to 41%tracked keywords in the Google top 100 in the USA
Industry
Cloud computing
Markets
USA, Southeast Asia, Canada
Services
Digital roadmap, SEO, content, analytics
Team
12 people
The company

Who this was for.

Alibaba Cloud is the largest public cloud services provider in China, expanding into international markets with its international site and a marketplace.

The challenge

What stood in the way.

A presence built for one market

Taking the business outside China meant the international site, the marketplace and the user console had to work for buyers in the USA, Southeast Asia and Canada, and be found by them.

Starting from a low base

The international site had little organic visibility in English-speaking markets, against competitors that included the largest global cloud providers.

What we did

The work, in detail.

Step 1

Revamp of web properties

Redesigned the web properties, marketplace and user console, based on mapped user journeys.

Step 2

A numbered SEO programme

Dozens of numbered recommendations across the international site and the marketplace: redirects and change of address, hreflang tags and geo-targeting, canonical tags, page speed, sitemaps, duplicate content, structured data, URL structure and dynamic meta tags.

Step 3

Keyword tracking by market

Nearly 300 target keywords tracked in the USA and Singapore, with a competitor analysis showing who held the top ten results and a backlink analysis.

Step 4

Content and distribution

An editorial calendar, repurposed assets and distribution to the markets in focus.

Step 5

Reporting by market

Monthly organic reports for the global site and for the USA, Southeast Asia and Canada, each with observations and recommendations.

Step 6

Paid product marketing

Campaigns with coupons run through an affiliate network.

The results

What it produced.

~11xorganic sessions in eight months (+993%)
+630%organic sessions from the USA
+448%organic sessions from Southeast Asia
8% to 41%tracked keywords in the Google top 100 in the USA

Page views

Organic page views grew almost as fast as sessions, up 984% over the same eight months.

Competition

The competitor analysis showed the large cloud providers and reference sites that hold the top ten for the target keywords, so the plan could target gaps.

More work

Other case studies.

A top-5 Indian IT companyFlagship · IT services

Lead-to-SAL from 0.22% to 4.12% in twelve months

The company had a strong outbound sales team and a website with traffic.

Read the case study →BirlasoftIT services · Ongoing SEO programme

Organic traffic up 136%, and organic now brings 74% of the site's visits

A broad portfolio of industry and service pages competes for different searches in different regions.

Read the case study →A global heavy-duty tools makerManufacturing · Liechtenstein HQ

Organic traffic up 302% against marketplaces in India

In India, online marketplaces held the top of the search results for the company's products.

Read the case study →
Technology clients across 19 yearsBirlasoftCoforgeAlibaba CloudInnodataEXL ServiceAlgoworksHyTechProIncessant TechnologiesGS1 IndiaOrtele Health
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FAQ

Questions about this work, answered in detail.

Short answers first. Open any question for the detail.

See all questions →
How do you plan SEO for an international product launch?

You research the target market's real search language, build country-specific pages with correct hreflang and a clean structure, and prioritise terms buyers use. For Alibaba Cloud, organic traffic rose almost elevenfold in eight months.

An international launch has no history to lean on, so the plan leads with technical foundations, local keyword research and content that answers buyers in each market. Read the full case study.

What does Search Value do for IT services and technology companies?

We run SEO and GEO, LinkedIn and Google advertising, inbound lead nurturing and analytics, and we report on the number that matters to your sales team: the leads they accept.

Most B2B marketing is judged on traffic or form fills. We judge it on lead-to-SAL ratio, the share of marketing leads that sales accepts as worth following up. That one number connects search, paid media, nurture and reporting into a single funnel you can manage.

How is Search Value different from a general digital marketing agency?

We are a specialist, not a generalist. We focus on the technical and analytical side of marketing for IT and technology companies, and we are not a social media, creative or content-production agency.

A generalist agency often sells a bundle: social posts, a blog, some ads, a monthly report of impressions. We narrow the scope deliberately to search, paid, nurture and measurement, because that is where we have nearly two decades of depth and where B2B technology buyers are actually found.

We also report differently. Instead of a deck of vanity metrics, you get a funnel view that ends with leads your sales team accepted, so marketing and sales argue about the same number.

How soon will we see results?

Paid campaigns produce leads first. SEO and nurture compound over months. In our top-5 IT company case, organic rankings moved within six months and the full effect showed at twelve.

As a rule of thumb for a B2B technology company: paid search and LinkedIn can generate leads within weeks once tracking is in place, nurture improves lead quality over one to three months as workflows and scoring settle, and SEO and GEO typically show meaningful movement from around month four to six, with the full effect building through the first year.

Timelines depend on your starting point, such as domain history, site health and competition. That is why we agree early indicators with you, like indexing, ranking movement and lead-to-SAL, rather than waiting a year to find out whether the programme works. See how a top-5 IT company went from 0.22% to 4.12% lead-to-SAL.

What is lead-to-SAL ratio?

It is the share of marketing leads that sales accepts as worth following up: sales-accepted leads divided by marketing leads for the same period and source. It is the number we report.

A lead is a form fill or similar capture by marketing. A sales-accepted lead (SAL) is one that sales agrees is worth pursuing. The ratio shows quality, not volume: a small number of well-qualified leads can beat a large number of poor ones.

Tracking it by source, such as SEO, LinkedIn, Google Ads or events, tells you which channels deserve more budget. Our guide to the lead-to-SAL ratio explains how to calculate and improve it.

How much does B2B SEO and digital marketing for an IT company cost?

We price as a monthly retainer, a project fee or an embedded pod, and we scope it after a pipeline review once we have seen your funnel. We do not publish a flat price because the right scope depends on your market and goals.

Three factors drive the cost: how competitive your target terms and audiences are, how much work the site needs before it can rank or convert, and how many channels you want us to run. A technical audit and migration plan is a project. Ongoing SEO, paid media and nurture is usually a retainer. If you want a named team that works as part of your marketing group, that is an embedded pod.

Beware of any agency that quotes a fixed price before it has looked at your site and funnel. A short pipeline review gives you a scoped proposal rather than a guess.

What happens in a pipeline review, and what do you need from us?

A pipeline review is a short conversation and a look at your funnel, from first visit to sales-accepted lead. We need access to your analytics, your CRM or marketing automation reporting and a few minutes with whoever owns sales follow-up.

We ask about your target accounts and markets, your current lead sources, how sales qualifies leads, and what has and has not worked. We then review your site, search visibility and tracking, and come back with what we would fix first and why.

You do not need a finished brief or a large budget to begin. The review ends with a clear view of the opportunity and, if it makes sense, a scoped proposal. You can book one here.

Which companies do you work with?

IT services and technology companies, mostly in the US, UK, Europe and India. Clients over the years include Coforge, Birlasoft, Alibaba Cloud, Innodata, EXL Service, GS1 India and Incessant Technologies.

Our sweet spot is the IT services and technology company with a long, considered sales cycle and a sales team that needs better leads rather than more of them. That includes global system integrators, mid-sized services firms, SaaS and platform companies, and specialist consultancies.

Some of our longest relationships are covered by confidentiality agreements, so we cannot show every programme. The ones we can are on our case studies page, with the challenge, the work and the results for each.

What is B2B SEO for IT services companies, and how is it different from consumer SEO?

B2B SEO for IT services is search optimisation aimed at a small number of high-value buyers who research for weeks, so it targets specific problems, services and industries rather than high-volume consumer keywords.

Consumer SEO chases volume. B2B IT services SEO chases relevance and intent: a CTO searching for an SAP migration partner, a head of operations comparing integration approaches, or a procurement lead shortlisting vendors. The searches are few, the deals are large, and one good page can be worth more than a thousand generic visits.

That changes the work. We prioritise service and industry pages, comparison and problem-led content, proof such as case studies, and technical health. We measure success by qualified leads, not sessions. Our guide to SEO for IT services companies goes deeper.

How long does SEO take for a B2B technology company?

Expect early signals such as indexing and ranking movement in two to four months, and meaningful lead growth from around six months, with the full effect over twelve. Competition and your starting site health change this.

SEO is cumulative. Month one is usually an audit and fixes: crawl and index problems, page speed, structure and tracking. Months two to four are content and page improvements and the first ranking movements for lower-competition terms. Months four to eight are where competitive terms start to move and organic leads become visible in your CRM.

A new domain or a site with a history of penalties takes longer. A site with good authority and weak structure can move faster. Anyone who promises page one in 30 days for a competitive B2B term is guessing or cutting corners.

What is GEO (generative engine optimisation), and how is it different from SEO?

GEO is the practice of making your content clear, credible and easy to cite so AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity describe your company accurately. It builds on SEO rather than replacing it.

Search engines rank pages. AI assistants synthesise answers and cite or paraphrase sources. To be included, your pages need a direct answer near the top, clear entity information (who you are, what you do, where, for whom), consistent facts across your site and the wider web, and structured data that machines can read.

We cannot guarantee a mention, because assistants choose their own sources. What we can do is make your pages the clearest answer available and measure how you are described each month. See our guide to GEO for technology companies.

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