Web Development
Web Design
Web Localization
Web Marketing
X

Client Testimonial

Jeffrey Allen Consulting

"Tokyo Web Designs really provided us with great solutions for our website. Everything was explained to us along the way and at every step we were provided with creative options to choose from plus give our own input. We really felt like a partner from the start to the finish of the project. The thing that impressed us the most was the level of personalized service we received. Every request or question that we had throughout the process was handled quickly and professionally. We wholeheartedly recommend Tokyo Web Designs to anyone who is seeking help in developing a website." - Jeffrey Allen Consulting

Press ESCAPE or Click on X (right-top) to close this popup.

X

Client Testimonial

MacMillan LanguageHouse

"We were looking to give one of our best selling products a branded presence on the web and provide our customers with added support for the product. Tokyo Web Designs not only helped us with all our requests, but also provided us with some very good suggestions on how to improve the look and impact of the site. It was a pleasure working with them and we appreciate all the hard work they put into our project." - Darren Halliday, Sales & Marketing Manager

Press ESCAPE or Click on X (right-top) to close this popup.

X

Client Testimonial

Parts Agent Australia

"To have a successful business you need to have the right people and right associates to give you a competitive edge. Tokyo Web Designs have given our growing company that edge. They created exactly what we wanted. No fuss and no bother. They created clean, simple, Internet shop front that worked. Now we are able to give potential customers easy access to our business and information to generate sales." - Cliff Lugton, Director

Press ESCAPE or Click on X (right-top) to close this popup.

«
»

Japanese SEO Geo-Targeting

Published 28 December, 2010

Most website owners appreciate the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for their website. What is sometimes under appreciated is that Google has regional versions and your website will rank differently in Google.co.jp than it does in Google.com. Your choice of domain name,  how you interact with Google Webmaster Tools and other factors  play a key part in your localized ranking success.

japanese-seo-geo-target

Google Japan now serves up the vast majority of search engine queries in Japan. Previously the search market  was evenly split with Yahoo Japan’s Overture but as of late this year, Yahoo Japan has switched to using Google Japan for natural search queries. So how can you optimize your site to rank well?  There are a number of “signals” which Google will use to determine the geographic relevance of your site.

  • Language - It stands to reason that Google Japan will seek to serve up those results which it determines as most useful to it’s users so the language of the pages is obviously important. For this reason be sure to set the language attribute in your HTML parent tag to “Japanese” so that search engines easily recognize the natural language of the page. The code inside your tags should look like this:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="ja" xml:lang="ja">
  • Links From Japanese Sites – Of course all incoming links are good but incoming links from other Japan based sites, using Japanese anchor text can be another important clue for search engines.
  • Server Location – The physical location of your hosting company can be an important indicator to Google that your target market is in the same country. But not all hosting companies are created equal so think carefully before choosing a Japan based hosting company for SEO reasons alone.
  • Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) – Google has stated in the Official Google Webmaster Central blog that the server location is regarded as irrelevant if the site uses a ccTLD (e.g. www.mysite.jp). Google sees the “.jp” extension as a clear flag that the site is targeted to Japan and Japanese speakers.
  • Google Webmaster Tools GeoTargeting - Google allows website owners and administrators to register their website and indicate via Webmaster Tools which country the website is targeted towards. One particularly useful feature is that Webmaster Tools allows you to segment your website into directories and target each directory at a different country e.g. www.mysite.com/ja for Japan, www.mysite.com/fr for France. This might be important for sites targeting Japanese plus one or more other languages from a single  website.

So having dealt with the issue of geo-location at the macro level, what if we want to target a particular city or regional area? Research shows that local search is one of the most common uses of the internet.

  • Google Places – Create a marker for your physical presence on Googles mapping service. For location based searches Google reserves up to four places on it front page of search results for businesses registered with Google Places (watch the video below to learn more).
  • Contact Details – Include your address and contact information in machine readable HTML format on your home page. Some webmasters report good results from wrapping address information within HTML
    tags.

Related Posts:

  1. Japanese Domain Names Ever wondered how many unique website domains are registered out there? Well a visit to domaintools.com reveals that at the...
  2. Google Japan Gets Rich Snippets Over time you are going to see more search engine result listings on Google Japan similar to the example below,...
  3. Japanese Social Bookmarking Services Unless you have been under a rock or in North Korea for the last few years you would know that...
  4. Can You Get Me On The Front Page Of Google? “So can you get my website on the front page of Google search results?” This is one of those “how...
  5. Internet Marketing in Japan Once you have your website up and running often the next challenge for website owners is attracting visitor traffic. Search...
Posted in Search Engine Optimization

Comments are closed.

Get a Quote

Client Testimonials

Jeffrey Allen Consulting
MacMillan LanguageHouse
Parts Agent Australia

Blog Posts By Month:

Choosing a Designer

7 Things to Consider

We hope these articles help you when choosing a web designer in Japan or abroad and that you will consider Tokyo Web Designs as your English and Japanese website designer consultants.

  • 1. Website Localization?

    • Localization means adapting your website to succeed in a specific country or region. If you are looking to create a Japanese web site design, there are good reasons to seek assistance from a Japan website designer with experience in the local environment ...continued

  • 2. The 0.05 Second Rule

    • "You don`t get a second chance to make a first impression". Most of us are familiar with that old advice. Recent research is revealing how quickly that first impression of your website is actually formed ...continued

  • 3. All That Glitters Isn't Gold

    • It`s easy to be impressed by many of the slick, FLASH and Javascript powered "eye-candy" web templates available for download at seemingly attractive prices. But there are some inconvenient truths which you should be aware of before taking the cookie cutter route ...continued

  • 4. DIY Web Building Pitfalls

    • Thanks to web page editors like Dreamweaver, putting a website online is now easy. Building a GOOD website is still difficult ...continued

  • 5. Don't Make Me Think!

    • This is Web Usability expert Steve Krug`s golden rule. He explains "..if Web pages are going to be effective, they have to work most of their magic at a glance. And the best way to do this is to create pages that are self-evident, or at least self-explanatory"...continued

  • 6. If a Tree Falls in the Forest..

    • This is the beginning to a rather well known philosophical riddle that raises questions about whether something can exist if it is not capable of being perceived. We'd like to change the question and ask "if a website exists in cyberspace but nobody can find it, does it really serve a purpose?" ...continued

  • 7. Standards-schmandards?

    • At Tokyo Web Designs we are continually surprised by the number of websites we see that appear to have been put together with no regard to valid web standards. This is disappointing considering that it isn`t really hard to do so and the benefits of "clean" coding practices are potentially great ...continued

Visitor Poll

Which is your favourite social media tool?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
Quote of the Day:
"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." - Marcus T. Cicero.
Free PDF Stuff:
Local News:
Eye on Japan Blog Feeds
Subscribe to RSS:

Via Feedburner

Subscribe to Newsletter
Subscribers only newsletter content.
Why not join our 1,533 other Twitter followers right now?
Site Map | About Us | Privacy | Links | Jobs

 

Copyright © 2008 - 2012. All Rights Reserved.


hostmonster