Eclipsed by other Eastern European countries who have already joined the EU, and with less than 10% of the population online in one way or another, you don’t hear about internet progress in Ukraine too often. But here is a little insight: there is progress indeed; baby steps or not, Ukraine is slowly churning out progress in the internet arena.

There are now nearly 152,765 local .ua domains registered; that’s an increase of 2.4% in the last month. What’s more, according to a Sputnikmedia.net study, based on the number of unique users who accessed the internet at least once during June, the Ukrainian internet audience grew by 116,111, reaching 6,449,517. Geographically speaking, Kiev, the nation’s capital, leads the way with 55.43% of all national internet usage.

For those interested in the top searches, they are slightly different than in other European countries. Tourism does not make it into the top 5 in Ukraine, but weather does. In fact, the list as is follows:

1. weather
2. jobs in Kiev
3. jobs
4. chat
5. sonic
6. horoscope

Now, onto the search engines. The leading Russian search engine, Yandex, was the gateway of 32.1% of all traffic onto Ukrainian websites. And out of the Ukrainian search engines, sure enough, Google led pack with 42.9%

But with all this notable progress, there is plenty of unpaved road ahead. Companies, like UaMaster, one of the leading internet marketing companies in Ukraine, are not happy with the progress, but they’re also not sitting put and counting on improvement to fall out of the sky. On May 30th, the company organized the first multinational internet marketing conference in Kiev, Ukraine; an event that was not only much called for, but as many hope, will set off a chain of similar events in the near future.

According to Maksym Khmara, an UaMaster executive, “Another thing that is not very good in terms of the internet in Ukraine, we are isolated and stuck. In neighboring Russia, who although located next door, has by far surpassed our [Ukraine’s] levels, there are a variety of websites that publish internet marketing information. A few times a month, Russia hosts online advertising and SEO seminars. The conferences held in Russia bring together participants from all of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and other former Soviet Union countries. In Ukraine, these are scarce.”

The idea is to strive towards similar progress and activity seen in neighboring countries, letting the internet evolution else where, seep into Ukraine. “That is why UaMaster is trying to increase interest in the internet not only as a fountain of information, but also as an attractive advertising medium, by organizing professional events, like the latest Internet Marketing conference or the upcoming seminar related to Yandex.”

For those following Yandex’s success in Russia, can follow the search engine to Kiev, Ukraine, where on July 14th and 15th the company’s directors will lead the UaMaster sponsored conference on Internet Marketing, entitled, “Search Advertising and Advertising opportunities in Yandex.” More than anything, this will be a 2-day long informative session to spice up the Ukrainian business world with the necessary enthusiasm and instill confidence in search marketing and online advertising in general, an advertising medium that is taking many new markets by storm, but is still fairly weak in Ukraine.

Participants will include representatives from internet agencies, offline marketing agencies, internet managers of large companies with an online presence in Ukraine, advertising firms, marketing strategists, web design studios and anyone else who is keen on learning more about internet marketing and marketing opportunities at Yandex, still barely explored in Ukraine.

Not only will participants receive a participant diploma, but they will also be able to take a Yandex internet advertising test to become certified internet marketing specialists, according to Yandex’ criteria.

The idea is to get the word out, so for anyone who is interested in attending the conference (in Russian), more information is available on a specially created Internet Marketing in Ukraine site, sponsored by UaMaster.

But for those of you who don’t speak Russian or just can’t make it to Ukraine, Multilingual Search (MSE) will make sure to put Ukraine’s efforts toward internet progress into the limelight, covering the highlights of the upcoming conference in future.

Sources:

AIN