Monte talks to Christian Van Der Henst
07/19/2006 - Monte Cahn
Christian Van Der Henst has been working in web design, media and education for almost a decade in the Latin American market. Mr. Van Der Henst is the founder and director of Maestrosdelweb.com, a portal dedicated to serve the webmaster community with tutorials, news, several tools and services since 1997. As director he is developing e learning programs based on video, podcasts and blogging technology to promote Internet usage among high school and college students. He has served as the keynote speaker at over 50 conferences and seminars in several universities and events in Argentina, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Panama, Peru, Spain, Uruguay and his natal Guatemala touching on subjects ranging from web design to e-business.
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Monte: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Domain Masters. Another great week. If you’ll remember last week, we did a first half of the Affiliate Summit and SES Miami follow up. One of the guests that we were trying to hook up with that actually had some hotel phone problems was Christian Van Der Henst and we have him on tonight and we’re going to be talking about the Latin America Internet market and what’s going on in Latin America countries and Latin America domain related issues; and so I’m real excited to have him on. He was a speaker at SES Miami and he has served as a keynote speaker in over 50 conferences and seminars and in several universities and events. So, I ‘m excited to have him on. And so we’re going to cover that and we’re going to break for a couple commercials and be right back with Christian. Stay tuned.
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Monte: Master of your domain. Welcome back to Domain Masters. I’m Monte Cahn, your host. As I mentioned earlier, we have Christian Van Der Henst. Christian is the founder and director of Maestrosdelweb.com and this is a portal dedicated to serve the webmaster community with tutorials, news, several tools and services since 1997. It specializes in Latin America or the Latin market. I believe Christian is from Guatemala. And, Christian, are you on board?
Christian: Yep. Yeah. Howdy-doody.
Monte: We got you in Spain, today?
Christian: Yeah, I’m in Spain. Its over midnight already but I’ve been having expected to be on the show, so here I am ready to talk about the Latin market and all the opportunities there are available.
Monte: Great, great. Well, we’re very happy to have you on the show. Before we go into the Latin American market or the Latin market in general, why don’t you give us a little bit of background on how you got involved in the Internet and when you bought your first or had your first domain registered, those types of things. Give us a little background on you.
Christian: Yeah, well, I started working in the Internet in about ’96. I found that by accident; I started developing web pages, because I found these websites that had the 404 error and it actually told me that I was actually able to make my own website, so like, okay, lets do a website. And I started looking for information and found out great communities in English devoted to Web developers who are masters, but no content at in Spanish, so I thought, there’s an opportunity out there and that’s how my [inaudible] was started. My [inaudible] to Spanish of webmasters and at about 1998, it was almost a year after it was already available. First we started as a free [inaudible] website. We got our domain. I remember paying the [inaudible] to Network Solutions for the domain. And that’s actually how the [inaudible] started. We started to develop some content in Spanish about how to build your website, how to search for tools and we just started developing content. And we also had a mailing list and a web forum. The web forum is now known as For the Web, Forums of the Web, actually, in Spanish and it has a big community of web developers and actually computer users that are search and sharing knowledge through the Internet.
Monte: That’s great. Now, you’re, we talk a lot about International markets but that’s very rare that we have someone in from the International community. I’ve had a couple guests and we spoke about the Spanish market and the Latin American market quite a bit. But you seem to be an expert in this. You’ve spoken at 50 conferences and you just spoke at SES Miami. What was your subject matter and what was your topic about?
Christian: Ah, well, actually, I was very glad to be invited SES Latino in Miami because it’s the first opportunity for the Latin market and for the U.S. Hispanic markets to be noticed in an important search engine event and it was all about telling people how big the market is, all the opportunities you’re going to find out and my two points for the event was about domain issues. I just talked a little about how the market of country-specific domains is working in Latin America and the other talk was about search engine optimizations and the Spanish language. You know, when you write some things in Spanish, you use some special characters, like the accent mark for the ena, which is an “n” with a [inaudible]; and how to work with those characters when you are doing some SEO and well, there was mostly all the points and we have also great experts from the U.S., from Mexico, from Brazil, that were telling their stories of how they are promoting their websites and like I told you, the big opportunities that the Latin American market has freely available.
Monte: So, let’s talk about that a little bit. How big is the Latin American market and the Latin market in general. How many . . . what’s the estimated user base? How fast is it growing? Do you have some of those statistics?
Christian: Yah, I have some of those statistics. But just to give you an idea of the Latin American market; it’s the fastest growing market right now in Internet users. The U.S. market or the European market, the Asian market – it’s a very big piece of the market right now, but its not going to grow much during the following years. But when we’re talking about Latin America or the Hispanic market, we’re talking about 60 million Internet users which are only, I think, we are below the English, Chinese and Japanese markets, but we are on top of the German market, the French market, the Korean, Italian, Portuguese. So it’s a very big market and like I told you, its growing very, very fast, so who knows where it’s going to stop in a couple of years.
Monte: Great. And then, you know, in the Latin America market, we also, I mean, its not just Latin America; its also Spain and also Spanish-speaking countries that are a big part of the Spanish market in general, the Spanish-speaking market.
Christian: Yeah. Actually, when we are talking about the Spanish market in general, Spain is one of the most important countries and where you’re going to have a lot easy access to Internet, to payment options, to domains, things like that. Then, you go to Latin America and you get a big Mexico, a big Argentina, Brazil (which speaks Portuguese but as a Latin American market it’s also huge) and then all the U.S. Hispanic market. But that’s like a different target because usually that market is able to speak English so when you want to target that market, you usually going to try to use the nostalgic market, like make websites for people to remember their cultures, their countries, things like that . . .
Monte: Right, right.
Christian: But you can use English without any trouble because they’re going to be able to understand it.
Monte: Now, there’s a lot of . . . I guess there’s three different ways that people can register or look at some of the domain names. Let’s move this a little bit over to the domain side a little bit, because there’s IDN (international domain names, which are the alpha-numeric combination of character sets that translate into both Spanish and Asian words) and then there’s Spanish, pure Spanish domain names (that are spelled out in Spanish with regular extensions at the end - .com, .net, .org; when I say regular I mean TLDs) and of course you have the Country Code Extensions of each of these Latin American countries and also the Spanish market . . .
Christian: Yeah . . .
Monte: Give us your perspective on the different types of approaches, the best way to hit the Latin America market, the biggest areas of opportunity in each of those three different types of domain registrations and just kind of the stuff that you’re preaching to your webmasters when you’re talking to them.
Christian: Yeah. Usually, when you want to register a domain name with some special characters, like the accent mark which is pretty common in Spanish words, you’re going to have a lot trouble with some browsers with some you’re going to require a plug in and the technology is not as used as you may expect. So, a lot of people actually got these domains, paid some money for them but I don’t think the market is using them. You don’t see important websites with those domains. So if you’ve got one, just save it; perhaps in the future you’re going to be able to use it. But right now, they’re not as important as you may think. Then when you go for the top level domains - .com, .net, .org, all the main extensions – you’re going to find that a lot of Latin American, and also Spain, companies are using those extensions for there domains and they’re right now, this market is getting very long domain names, because its hard to get, like, the initials from your company because probably a U.S. company already got them. So if you just write down the entire name of your company or the name of your company and perhaps some characters that will specify the country you are located or even the country, you’re going to spell right in your domain, so I’m seeing that there are a lot of people who [inaudible] who are getting a short domain is important but because they don’t find it available, they just go for the .com domain and they just make it long.
Monte: Right, right.
Christian: And that’s becoming pretty common. And then when you go to country-specific domains, one of the main points that I point out in my presentation was that – I don’t know if you remember the old days when you only had one, Network Solutions, and you were paying a lot of money to them and the service wasn’t as good as now that you have a lot of competition; that’s actually what’s happening with a lot of country-specific domains. When you go to Latin American, you’re trying, for example, to get a domain from Mexico or Guatemala, there’s only one company in all these countries to get your domain, and usually, the feeling that user are carrying is that the service is good but it could be improved, a lot. And, also, when you were talking about prices, we’re talking about paying $50, $70, to $100, $150 U.S. for a country specific domain. What you’re going to find good about this is that country-specific domains are not as used as you may expect them to be so it’s easy to get great domains for your company name or even words from the dictionary, from a specific . . . country-specific domain. So that’s also the opportunity. And then you have here in Spain, for example, the main company that was selling domains is not a monopoly anymore. Now there are plenty of companies here in Spain and in Europe who are able to sell the .ES domain and thanks to this competition we are watching a fast growing market. More people are getting a .ES domain here in this country. Also, there are a couple of laws that are making people get domains from their specific country and they also have some promotions. For example, right now during July, if you have a company or you want to have the domain of your name, you can get it for very, very cheap. I don’t remember how much, but I guess that it was about .ES for getting your domain. So, Spain is starting to promote their domains a lot. Then you go to Mexico, which sometimes makes another promotion to sell domains for cheap. And then you have Argentina, which is a great example of how to promote your country online. They give away domains for free. All you need for an Argentina domain is to have a postal address in Argentina . . .
Monte: Right, right.
Christian: . . . and there you go; you have your domain.
Monte: So they provide you the domain name free when you’re in Argentina.
Christian: Yeah. Yeah. But actually, if you are a U.S. company or a company from outside Argentina, you’re going to have to find somebody who will rent you a postal office or who’s able to make all the . . . make things work to get your domain, right?
Monte: Right, right. Now, in terms of Internet users and these domain names, which countries have the most Internet users in the Spanish-speaking countries, you know, between the South American market, the Central American market and some of the other countries? Now, I assume Spain is pretty up and running, but what are . . . what’s the largest Spanish market in the world right now in terms of online Internet users out of that 60 million online?
Christian: Yeah. When you take Spain outside the picture and you go to our continent, you’re going to find that Mexico is growing and is growing very fast. They are very close to the U.S. and they’re learning how to make things. There are actually a lot of big companies on the market that are developing websites for the U.S. market, so in Mexico we are watching a great Internet revolution. A lot of companies coming out into the market. Also, when you go more down, you’re going to find an Argentina. Argentina has some economic issues and the IT companies have some trouble [inaudible] but Argentina is going to be big also. Chile is very important. And also Peru. In [inaudible] Peru, it’s a very big market. There are a lot of users from Peru. A lot of people from Peru learning to develop websites and just putting more things online. So those are, I guess, the most important countries right now. Central American, unfortunately, my place, where Guatemala is located, its not a big market right now. But I hope that changes some day.
Monte: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, is there a . . . are you starting to see a lot of aftermarket transaction going on with domain names, like the domain name . . . as you know, the domain name selling market, buying and seller market, is becoming very, very big here, on the .com and .net and .org side and some of the other country codes. Are you seeing those types of transactions in these different countries, as well, if somebody wants to buy a domain name that someone else has?
Christian: There are actually a couple of companies who are developing groups of websites through imported domains. There’s a company, also from Guatemala, called “cleek[inaudible]” which owns, for example, the translated version of Sports.com, or Postcards.com and all these big important domains and they are paying a lot to get them. There’s also a guy from Uruguay, I don’t remember his name right now, but . . oh, I mean from Paraguay, but he’s also working on getting important domains. He just got “domain” but in Spanish it’s Dominio.com, for a couple of [inaudible]. So there are . . . there is people, there are a lot of people right now in the market investing on getting good extensions, good domains. Usually, with a .com extension but with Spanish words and some country-specific domains. It’s not big. But there are a couple of eBay websites, eBay kind of – the translation of eBay to Spanish website where you ‘re going to be able to get your domain, to sell your domain and get some money from it. We’re not talking about thousands and millions or thousands of dollars or even millions but it’s a market and there are companies that are starting to invest a lot of money.
Monte: Right, right. I think you were talking about . . . we actually spoke to and had on the show, Matias, from . . .
Christian: Yeah, Matias . . .
Monte: Yeah, yeah. So he was on my show maybe the beginning of this year, maybe the end of last year and yeah, he was a great guest to have on because he talked a lot about, you know, some of the domain names that they’re purchasing, the Spanish domain names that they’re purchasing and how valuable they’re becoming and the fact that the portfolio that they’ve created was then later resold to a big online company out of Japan that later on had some stock market issues but still, they got to cash out and got some money, some good money, for their portfolio, that’s for sure.
Christian: Yeah, that’s for sure. So, you have that example. We have this other guy from Paraguay example. Those are domains, domain companies, who are making money out of buying and selling domains. Well, there are other companies like SEDO.com that also works for the English market, where you’re going to be able to find a lot of Spanish domain names for resells, so there’s also opportunity there. Usually, all the important Spanish domains are already taken by now, but if you want to buy them, you’re not going to have to pay as much as you do when you buy it for an English word.
Monte: Right, right. Now, moving on to some of the search engine points that you brought up earlier and that was one of the other topics that spoke about at SES – how . . . what kind of impact on the Spanish market? And what kind of Spanish market impact is there on the search engines these days with those different character sets? And what do you recommend out there to some of the community that may be listening and by the way, our audience is a large mix of webmasters, web developers, SEO, you know, gurus, and of course, domainers, both speculators and people that are investing in domain names for the future to develop out websites? And I ‘m sure each one of them has or many of them have one or two Spanish, you know, clients or Latin American clients or would like to get into that market. What are some of the points and what are some of the key things that people should be concerned about and also where the areas of opportunity are?
Christian: Well, to get some tips and to give you an idea of how important, well, we’ve already talked about Internet users, and like I told you, it’s a big market. But when we talk about content, you ‘re going to find that the Spanish content part of the Internet, its not growing as it should be. Right now, there’s only 4.6% of all the content of the Internet, only 4.6% of them are in Spanish. And usually you get that number also for French content, German content, and Italian content and those markets are growing faster in content (not in Internet users). And then the Spanish market, which is a very big opportunity, it’s not growing in content. There’s no . . . there are not many people invested in having their websites in Spanish. Big companies are not having their websites in Spanish. Not even to try to get to the U.S. Hispanic market or just to have their companies grow in Latin America. And then the other trouble is that we’re having a lot of users who are getting online and because they don’t find good content in Spanish, are just going to the main tools for communications, like using their email and chatting and things like that.
Monte: Wow. So why do you think that is, with such a big, fast growing online Spanish community, why isn’t the content on the Web also taking the same type of pattern and shape and growth?
Christian: First of all, we have a lack of education and when you talk about the main points of web design, web development right now, like using standards, making interactive web sites, selling online and things like, first of all, you will not find a lot of places to search for information and [inaudible] my website and there are other communities in Latin America and in Spain who are developing great contents but still, we are not going as fast as we should. And then there’s people who really need to learn to do things good and then there are a lot of companies that are just trying to put companies online with the simple websites that just tells you where you are and how to send you an email. So, . . .
Monte: This seems like to me like a big area of opportunity then, for the Latin America and Spanish market, so . . .
Christian: Of course! And because you were telling me that you have a lot of users that are searching for opportunities, one interesting point that I want to distinguish here is that a lot of Latin American web developers are using domain name services and web hosting services from the U.S. actually. A lot of people who I work with are getting their web hosting on their domains in U.S. companies, and usually these U.S. companies get the clients because they offer good deals in the prices but not because they are offering any support in Spanish and those are opportunities where you could be investing right now. Its like, okay, lets just start putting some Spanish information about my services and who knows? Perhaps I’m going to find this market attractive and I’m even going to have to invest in some Spanish-speaking people to makes important, things like that, in the future.
Monte: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good point. So, those that are listening, if you offer your services in Spanish and also you’re help and your FAQs in Spanish and also offer products and services that translate to Spanish, you could have a whole new world opened up to you because there is a lack of that opportunity and a lack of those companies providing that, even in the Latin American countries.
Christian: Yeah. And then returning to the point of how the special characters and I mean, we remembers, where we search, that’s another trouble, because we don’t have as many content online, I think that search engines are not doing any work about Spanish results or like trying to use this characters in a good way at all. And when we get better content and I hope there are not just good content but well made content with the right Spanish, then I think that search engines are going to start caring about it, because they’re really working to give you good results and to become your search engine. And right now in Latin American market, we have Google as the king of search engines and Yahoo! and MSN, which are starting to be big players in the U.S. market and Latin America is still very, very small. And none of them is doing a big work for Spanish and most of that is because they don’t have much content, like you need for a lot of content to make some tests upon it, you know.
Monte: Yeah. Well, what’s the Spanish word for Google? [laughs]
Christian: Actually, it’s [inaudible] Google but you got no idea how people spell it over in Latin America. Its so funny because sometimes I’ll be in Argentina and somebody refers to Google and I don’t understand it at all and just I . . . in some countries its “Goge-ly,” in other countries its “Googool” and you have no idea of how people in Latin America is spelling Google at all, so . . . but I don’t know if that’s also an opportunity like to start to get all the . . . to invest some money in researching how people is spelling Google in [inaudible] to get those domains. I think that could be a great opportunity, you know?
Monte: Yeah, yeah. Definitely, definitely. Well, Christian, lets . . . we’re going to take a little commercial break and we’ll be right back on with you. And I want to cover some of the other items or some of the other areas of the Latin America market that you talked about at SES. Talk a little bit about the big boom with the blogs in Spanish and what’s going on in that market, and how that might be an opportunity for some of the web development and some of the standards that are being set out there for SEO experts and some of the web developers that we can, you know, pass on to the users so that when they are looking at the Latin American market, they can address it appropriately.
Christian: Okay.
Monte: Okay? So hold on; we’re going to take a quick commercial break. We’ll be back on with Christian.
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Monte: Hello, welcome back to Domain Masters and welcome back to my guest, Christian Van Der Henst. We’re talking about the Latin America market and talked a lot about domain names and the different types of countries that are growing faster than others in the Latin America market and some of the areas for opportunity. Ah, Christian, now, let’s talk a little bit about the big boom of the blogs in Spanish. Obviously blogs have become very popular in the English language. What’s going on in the Spanish community?
Christian: Well, ah, following the steps of what’s going on around the world, also in Spanish, we are starting to see lots and lots of blogs. And actually, I think it’s a great opportunity because we are starting to get some Internet users who are experts or have great knowledge of some subjects but have never had the opportunity to share it on the Internet because it was hard to get a website or just to get to know HTML or a web page editor. But with blogs, it’s about getting your account in a free space like Blogger; there’s one in Spanish called [?] which is “Blogs in Spanish” and there are plenty of free services also in Spanish that giving users the opportunities to share their [inaudible]. And, also, we are getting great . . . a lot of companies are doing . . . are following what WebBlogs Inc. did in the U.S. market and are starting to develop specific subjects in their blogs and that’s great because blogs are giving us new websites of some subjects that didn’t exist earlier. There’s a lot of information about [inaudible] and but now you also find information about support; about, I don’t know, gadgets; TV offers; radio; things like that. And right now there’s also a big opportunity for other media – for example, a [inaudible] like WebmasterRadio in Spanish will be a great idea. I don’t know if that’s going to happen soon but at least there are a couple of people doing some podcasts for all sorts of subjects in Spanish. There’s a webmaster association in Peru, who are developing a podcast every month. It’s called “Interesting Times” (well, in Spanish, of course). But they’re starting to share some knowledge in new media using podcasts, for example and I’m also expecting to see more content using media for example, using more multi-media and things like that. So, I think that what blogs are doing to our market is just giving a better and easier access to people who are interested in sharing knowledge.
Monte: And you know what of the point you brought up where there’s not a lot of . . . you know, one of the big reasons why there’s not a lot of content developed in Spanish from Spanish . . . from the Spanish community, because you mentioned that the education, you know, a lot of the Spanish countries are not as educated as some of the European or American, you know, communities and the blogs seem like to be a good way where people can get a lot . . . at least get more educated and find out where they can learn about web development and get tips and tricks on being better and offering those services to your community.
Christian: Yeah. I think it gives you easy access. I know a lot of people who are studying to read some [inaudible] of HTML about web designers starting to learn some PhotoShop or DreamWeaver or other programs, other software, because they started a blog and then they wanted to change a header and they found out that to do that they needed images and its interesting how something as simple as that is . . . is making people get interested in searching for more information and well, right now what we have to do is try to help all these people with great tutorials also in Spanish because usually people who are in IT related positions in Latin America, speak a little English or read some English but not everybody and not if you are not in the IT market. So, a lot of people who are experts, for example, in gardens and right now have started a blog, they’re probably going to need information in Spanish to continue developing their community.
Monte: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Definitely. And what are some of the standards that are being set in the SEO and webmaster community when you’re designing and developing websites now? What are some of the key standards that people are following?
Christian: Ah, well, something interesting about that for example the SEO market you have a lot of people just starting to be specialized in an area. Now we have people who just make [inaudible] for websites, other people who are making CEO. [inaudible] is still difficult to be an expert in some subject. You have to know a little bit about everything and usually because when a customer calls you, he expects to have everything done and he doesn’t care how things work; people don’t really know much about websites so it’s like, hey, I need a website and I want it to be also in the search results of Google; I want to be able to send a mailing list [inaudible] and when you start, in the U.S. market, that happens also but you have some customers who already know how the business works and who are targeting to specific companies that do Internet marketing or Internet . . . or CEO or just web development and things like. Latin America is still about trying to know a little bit of all and of course, getting some . . . just trying to have your company specialize in something is good, but it’s hard still.
Monte: Right, right. Well, that would hard for anybody in the English . . . in the American market or European market, to be a jack of all trades of that magnitude and have some kind of effect. I mean, that’s why there’s niche markets and people are specializing in SEO and web development . . .
Christian: Yeah . . .
Monte: . . . and dedicated job for a major company, to have . . . to be able to be ranked properly in the search engines and to be on the first page and my guest a couple weeks ago was Bruce Clay from BruceClay.com, who’s one of the godfathers or one of the founders of SEO and you know, he talked about just being totally dedicated to one’s website and also sweating the small stuff, where most people can’t sweat the small stuff; don’t have time to. That is the key advantage of getting off of Page 3 and onto Page 1, is to think about those kinds of details.
Christian: I know, I know . . . I was talking to a guy from Costa Rica in Miami through the [inaudible] Latino and he was telling me that he thinks that in Costa Rica there’s a big market for just specializing his company in CEO but he was telling me that its hard to promote himself as that, because if he goes to companies and is like, hey, I do search engine optimization, people are going to be, like, what? And [inaudible] . . .
Monte: Yeah . . .
Christian: . . . like, I do Internet marketing – oh, great! I wanted that! So it’s more about trying to use the right tools and starting to teach your customer what you’re really doing. Like in every other market, the more you teach, the more the market is going to appreciate that and its going to help you to do a better job.
Monte: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, yeah, and Costa Rica kind of a . . . its starting to get a little bit Americanized because a lot of the American companies that are locating there, especially in the online gambling community and some of the other places, so I don’t know anybody personally who’s set up shop there; however, I have heard that they’ve built quite an infrastructure in Costa Rica, to support very massive Internet companies. Their networks and everything are fairly sophisticated and they’ve really advanced themselves ‘cause they’re attracting, you know, International customers to them to come over and make that area their home base and their new corporate headquarters.
Christian: Of course. It’s also happening, for example, in Argentina, you have a lot of companies who are . . . a lot of people who are working for big companies in the U.S. market and you have great skills from Argentina, great skills also from people in Chile, people from Peru and they’re working to . . . companies in the U.S., thanks to the Internet and a lot of people who know how to communicate in English and have to make business through the Internet, so it doesn’t really matter with location anymore, like you know . . .
Monte: Yeah; well, that’s one of the beautiful things about the Internet is that you basically have your products and services available to the entire world, regardless of where you live and people can contact you anytime of the day or the night or at least attempt to, if they know where you are [laughs]. So making yourself available, visible, searchable and public in some manner, you’ll be able to be found and at least be able to do business and commerce; you just need to know who . . . what identity to type in and you know, what extension and domain . . .
Christian: Yeah . . . when we’re talking about commerce, for example, that’s a big problem in Latin American market. IN the U.S. market, when you want to buy a digital camera, you go online, you search for options, you do some price comparison and then you buy the camera online. In Latin America, you go online, you do a lot of searching, you know about prices, you know everything about the camera, but you end up in a store, probably telling the salesman more about the camera than what he knows already . . .
Monte: [laughs]
Christian: But I mean, for searching, it’s hard, because they know they are being very good and effective to help people sell things but there are not stats of the actual sells because the sales are not being . . . are not aligned, the sales are getting on the store. So, it’s hard to measure that and that’s going to be a challenge that the Latin world needs to solve as soon as possible. And when that happens, I also expect more investment in this area.
Monte: Yeah, yeah. For sure. It seems like there’s a . . . as far back as – or as set back as Latin America and the Spanish market is, there’s so much more opportunity because of those delays in certain aspects of the business that could really be very fruitful for someone that’s actually specializing in any one of those areas.
Christian: Yeah. A lot of people in the U.S. markets have big companies right now because they solved those problems in the U.S. market. So if you have solutions for the Latin American market, you’re probably going to do some innovation or you’re going to get a big part of the pie, so . . .
Monte: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Now, one of the final points you want to talk about were the gurus in the Spanish market. Tell us a little bit about that.
Christian: Yeah. That’s also important. There’s a lot of people in Latin America who are trying to get knowledge from experts in the U.S. market, to get knowledge from the European or Asian market. Fortunately, I started to realize that there’s a lot of people in the Latin American market or in Spain who know what they’re doing, who are doing things very good and who are starting to share that knowledge. There’s a lot of web communities available and I hope that also for Latin Americans and even for people from other countries, they start to realize that we are forming big communities. You can find big communities from Spanish gurus and people who really know the business and they are working hard to develop this market and you’re going to find a lot of people in Maestrosdelweb in my web community right now; we just started a new section of the website. When we’re’ giving information about the profile of a lot of Latin American people who are really making the difference, not only in the Latin market but they’re working in the U.S.; they’re working in Europe. They’re working in big companies and they didn’t attend big universities. They didn’t get to big courses or to big seminars, they just started doing some research online. They study by their own. And now they are sharing that knowledge. So, like the U.S. market, also in Latin America, you ‘re going to find a lot of people who is willing to share what they know and I think that this community that really wants to make things happen in Latin America is out there and just expecting for opportunities and for people interested in making changes.
Monte: Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Any other last points or tips or anything that can help the listening audience be better at their overall business. It seems like you’ve been able to overcome a lot of hurdles in front of you given a lack of you know, an educated market, a lack of . . . although, you have a very fast growing Latin America market probably coming to your website. What are some of the key things that you’ve been able to overcome that could help anybody in business, whether they’re American, English-speaking or Spanish-speaking, that’s helped you be successful at what you do.
Christian: Something that is very important is to remember that we are a Spanish market, a big Spanish market but you’re not targeting just one country. You’re targeting several cultures; you’re targeting a lot of places that are all over the world and you are going to have a lot of cultural differences that you’re going to be . . . you’re going to have to solve and also, some things that are common in the U.S. market are not going to work in Latin America. Like, for, delivery options, payment options, things like that. They just work different in Latin America. So, be ready to make some research in the area and search for information. There are a lot of countries in Spanish and there are a lot of people who are willing to help. And also when you think about Latin America, don’t just think of a market crowded with people who only speak Spanish. There’s a lot of people who can share what they know in other languages and people who are having a hard time studying but they are great people right now who can help you with your [inaudible] and if you want to target Latin American market, you can always email me; in my website, there’s a contact form and I’ll be glad to help and who knows, to help develop more new products for the Latin American market. I’ve been working with several clients however, in Central America and Mexico and a couple of people in South America and sometimes you have to invest a little more money and you’re not going to have results as fast as in other markets but when you see the big picture and then you think in long-term, you are probably going to hit a big opportunity.
Monte: Hey, one point you brought up was that you know, you’re not . . . when you hit the Latin America market or the Spanish market, you’re not just hitting one country, obviously; and that’s the same for the English speaking market as well, but the Spanish market does have a lot of differences in culture between countries. And you can say one thing in one country and it could be offensive in another country. What’s the trick to get around some of that? One of my best friends here is from Colombia originally, his family’s from Colombia and they always claim to speak like the most proper Spanish in the entire world in Colombia, they say, and so . . .
Christian: I don’t think . . . I don’t think nobody that lives in a Spanish country can say that they have the most proper Spanish.
Monte: I know, but he always makes fun of like the folks in Puerto Rico and the folks in Mexico when they speak certain . . . you know, slang, you know, Spanish content [inaudible] . . .
Christian: [inaudible] another big opportunity, for example, if you just want to target one country, get to know the slang, get to know all the cultural things that they have and use them as you research because usually, people in countries in Latin America are going to love to find websites that are developed with their slang.
Monte: Yeah, with their slang, which may be completely foreign to . . . even though its Spanish slang, it could be completely foreign to a few . . . to other Spanish speaking communities.
Christian: Yeah. And just to give you an idea, here right now in Spain, and I’m having a hard time to just to share some [inaudible] with some people who speak Spanish like me. And . . . because they don’t understand Guatemala Spanish, so . . . its about learning and you end up having a great time. . . .
Monte: Yeah.
Christian: . . . just understanding all those differences.
Monte: Well, Christian, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show and I’m glad we got to learn a lot about the Latin America market and certainly the great opportunities there are for the webmasters and SEOs and domainers that are out there. And I have posted your website and your contact email up on the . . . in the chat room, I hope that’s okay.
Christian: Oh yeah, don’t worry, don’t worry.
Monte: And you’re very willing and able to assist those that want to try to address the Latin America market to help them be successful in offering products and services. I guess the same motto I use in our business here in the domain market just in general is its better to work with folks to help advance a community and advance an industry than to be competitive and right now we’re at the very infancy and early stages of the Internet still and we should all be working together to help advance our marketplace in every language and every community and even with our competitors so that we have a strong foundation for the future and that the business and the industry survives and makes it through all the hard times that are yet to come and all the great times that are yet to come.
Christian: Of course. We’re expecting those great times. So I just want to thank again for the invitation to the show and I hope to get some emails from people who are listen to it and who are willing to share their experiences or to talk or their questions of what to do and what other opportunities there are if they have a special idea for a web project. Thanks again.
Monte: Oh, my pleasure and thank you for being up so late and talking to us from Spain. I guess its time for you to go to sleep or in Spain, I guess you’d be just about ready to go out and do some partying.
Christian: [laughs] Yeah. I’ll think about it.
Monte: [laughs] They just start going out and partying right now, so you got to go dancing and go eat.
Christian: Yeah, that was actually the plan. Staying up late just to go party [inaudible].
Monte: [laughs] Great. Well, great. Well, thanks a lot, Christian and I appreciate having you on the show.
Christian: Okay, thank you. Bye.
Monte: Okay, take care. Well, thanks again to my guest, Christian Van Der Henst, from Maestrosdelweb.com and I posted the website and his email up on the chat room. For those of you listening, you can email Christian at cvander@gmail.com – that’s one of the easy emails to get to him, and his website is spelled M-A-E-S-T-R-O-S-D-E-L web.com. Stay tuned for some great shows still yet on WebMasterRadio and we will be co-sponsoring the big search bash on SES San Jose coming up in August so make sure if you’re going to be at SES, and I really highly suggest that conference, domains will be on a panel. We’ll be talking about domains on a panel for the first time at that show. As you know, Christian covered some domain related issues from the Spanish perspective, Spanish market perspective at SES Latin America or Latino and the party is going to be a big bash. It’s worth going there just for the party. And also, don’t forget about Search Bash in Jamaica in Negril on September the 15th through the 18th. You can find more information about Search Bash in Jamaica at SearchBash.com and sign up – we’re all going to be there, drinking and partying away. I’ll talk to you next week. Be the master of your domain. We’ll be on next week with another live show. Take care.
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