SEO in Kazakhstan: where to start and what to expect

SEO in Kazakhstan differs from Russian SEO and even more from Western SEO: two search engines with different shares, two languages, several major cities, and maps that take half the clicks for services. Below is how it works and where to start.

Google or Yandex

Google is 80–90% of search in the country. Yandex is the remaining 10–20%, but unevenly: in Almaty and Astana its share is higher, and so it is among the Russian-speaking 35+ audience. In property, cars, healthcare and services, Yandex can bring a third of enquiries.

The conclusion: Google is mandatory, Yandex is desirable, and most of the work serves both. The differences: Yandex reacts more strongly to behavioural factors and commercial signals (prices, contacts, range); Google to links and technical quality.

The Kazakh language: the biggest underrated opportunity

Kazakh-language queries grow every year, especially in Shymkent, Turkestan, Kyzylorda and other regions, and among the young audience across the country. Yet few websites have proper Kazakh pages: most settle for machine translation or skip the Kazakh version altogether.

In practice this means: a Kazakh page with correct hreflang, living text and answers to questions reaches the top within weeks, because there is nobody to compete with. The cost per enquiry from Kazakh search is usually several times lower.

What you need: translation by a native speaker, not automatic; separate URLs for the Kazakh version (/kz/ or a subdomain); hreflang between versions; Kazakh keyword research — people phrase queries differently from a direct translation from Russian.

Cities: without them, queries are useless

“Flat renovation” without a city is an informational query. “Flat renovation Almaty” is commercial. Search engines show local results, and a site with no link to a city does not get into them.

If you work in several cities, each needs a page with real content: an address or service area, prices, examples of work in that city, reviews. Google recognises copies with the city name swapped and does not rank them.

Maps: Google Maps, 2GIS, Yandex Business

For “near me” service queries, half of the clicks go to maps. Your business listing on Google Business Profile, 2GIS and Yandex Business is part of SEO: name, category, address, hours, photos, reviews, replies to reviews. 2GIS is especially strong in Kazakhstan — for many people it is the main directory.

More in the article local SEO in Kazakhstan.

Technical: where to begin

1. Speed. 90+ in PageSpeed on mobile. Site builders and old WordPress sites do not deliver this.
2. Indexing. Sitemap, robots, canonical URLs, no duplicates, hreflang for languages.
3. Structure. A page for every group of queries: services, categories, cities, questions.
4. Markup. Schema.org: Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, Product, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList. It gives rich snippets and helps AI search.
5. Mobile version. Google indexes the mobile version, and if it is cut down, you lose.

Content: what to write

Service pages with prices, process and questions. Articles answering the questions customers ask before buying: “how much does it cost”, “how to choose”, “which is better”. Case studies. All of it from interviews with an expert, not rewritten from competitors' sites: Google recognises that.

Links

The link market in Kazakhstan is small: directories, industry platforms, local media, partners, suppliers. Link exchanges bring risk, not results. A few dozen genuine links from Kazakhstan sites over a year is a normal pace for a small business.

Timing and prices

First results for low-competition and Kazakh-language queries: 2–3 months. Core commercial queries in Almaty: 4–8 months. Studio prices: ₸150,000–400,000 a month; freelancers from ₸80,000; agencies from ₸500,000. More under SEO.

Plan for the first month

1. Audit: technical, indexing, structure, competitors.
2. Keyword research in Russian and Kazakh for your cities.
3. Map listings: Google, 2GIS, Yandex.
4. Fixing the critical technical issues.
5. The first new pages for query groups.

If the site is on a site builder and slow, it is sometimes more honest to start with a new website built for SEO than to optimise something that cannot be optimised.