SEO for Japan

[KnutDSvendsen]

Google and Yahoo are the two major search engines in Japan. You can search using Western characters, and you often see English language results with Japanese (Chinese) characters next to them.

As I don't speak Japanese, how do I approach SEO for my Japanese-language site? would appreciate any experiences and educational sources on the topic.

[Desiree-CP]

Hello Knut,

Below are a few articles and White Board Friday's to give you a quick primer regarding SEO.  There's definitely more of these out there so don't hesitate to ask Google!

WBF - International SEO: Where to Host and How to Target
YOUmoz - International SEO Part 2
mozBlog - Geolocation & International SEO FAQ

I've had a little experience SEO-ing websites in Japanese and the landscape is completely different.  For starters, Yahoo is actually the dominant search engine but they use the Google algorithm - so just focus on Google's main ranking factors.

Since you don't know any Japanese you'll need someone VERY fluent in the written language so that you can account for both Kanji AND Chinese.  You'll need to make a business decision on whether you want to write it in one form or the other - keyword research would definitely help here.

Don't be surprised if most of your visitors are coming from mobile - that's just how the technological culture is in Japan.  Most people surf the web using their cell phones (since they are light years ahead of us) and not so much from their computer.

Last but not least, create great content to attract links.  Your easiest links will come from those your website/business already has a relationship with.  It comes from the Chinese concept of "guanxi" which literally means "relationships" and is an extension of the culture.

I hope that helps you get started and good luck!

[RAN_SEO]

It is a bit tricky to deal with, and for high end SEO you will need a japanese speaker to optimize your landing pages and for local link building.