WebProNews reports that: "…Google and Univision are talking about a partnership that would improve the prospect of search engine marketing using Spanish language."

It’s a good thing that someone has finally noticed that Google, whether it be the Mexican version, or another version in Spanish, is used by millions of Spanish speakers worldwide, including US Latinos (some who search in both English and Spanish) — the group marketers are really after. Google, of course, knew this, and localized its sites long ago. But up until now the Latino market seems to have been an afterthought with regards to search engine marketing. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, if you speak Spanish, try searching Google for something you really want to purchase in that language. Say, a baby stroller. Type in carrito bebe and you’ll come up with something, but the results will be far less appealing than those you’ll find in English. And, if you are a Latino in the US, you are out of luck, because most of the results you’ll find are for products located in Spain, Peru, etc. Now try googling baby stroller. You’ll get Wal-Mart, BizRate and thousands more options.

This two-part article by WebProNews’ Chris Richardson talks about the present and the future of search engine marketing geared toward Latino consumers. For more background, check out Nacho Hernandez’s post on the topic on Search Engine Roundtable, referenced in this article.

Google And Univision Focusing On Spanish Search Marketing
Chris Richardson | Staff Writer | 2005-06-27

"I believe the objective of encouraging advertisers to translate their websites into Spanish mainly relies on the fact that U.S. Hispanics sometimes think in Spanish, therefore they will search in Spanish. Other times they think in English so they will search in English. They are not a "one size fits all" user, nor the statistics of how many are Spanish preferred versus English preferred reveal how dynamic the user is when searching. In my opinion, they are bi-lingual and bi-cultural. It’s important to target U.S. Hispanics in both languages…"

WebProNews    READ MORE OF PART ONE   READ PART TWO

From the UK’s cellular-news.com, this article is a continuation of some previous posts about cell phone Latino marketing wars:

Telecom marketing to Hispanics part of new ethnic focus

Telecom providers are marketing more aggressively
to ethnic groups, reports In-Stat. Examples of this include Qwest’s
low-cost long distance calling plans for Mexico, and Sprint’s launch of
Movida Communications, both of which target the more than 42 million
Hispanics in the United States. Many of the current ethnic marketing
initiatives tend to focus on the Hispanic market, as this is the
largest ethnic population, with more than 43 million individuals in
2005.

"In-Stat
has also found that some ethnic groups react better to specific types
of advertising and marketing, and are influenced by different sources,"
said Amy Cravens, In-Stat analyst. "In better understanding these
differences, providers may be able to more fully realize the potential
subscribership of what may be undersubscribing ethnic groups."

A recent report by In-Stat found the following:

–
Although decreases in revenues from wireline services are expected from
subscribers of all ethnicities, the lowest declines are expected from
Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander subscribers due to their population
growth.

– By 2009, more than 40.4 million whites are expected to
subscribe to broadband. The number of Hispanic and Asian/Pacific
Islander subscribers is expected to grow at faster rates, however.

–
African-Americans are expected this year to account for the
second-greatest percentage of dial-up subscribers, nearly 6.0 million.
This number is expected to fall to 4.3 million by 2009.