Recently, there has been a lot of discussion on the Internet about geo-location. In this post, we will share some observations, tips and tricks on performing SEO for the Japanese market. There is no doubt that Japan, being the second-largest economy in the world employs some of the best brains in IT, the SEO story stills lags behind the West.

Language
Undoubtedly, Japanese language is one of the most important ranking factors for ranking your website in the Japanese market. However, apart from the ‘mainstream’ Japanese language websites, there is a much smaller market for English language websites as well. Being one of the most lucrative market in the world, lots of foreign companies (mostly small to medium sized) come to Japan to grab their share of the pie. In many of these cases, these foreign businesses either do not pay attention to performing SEO or even designing their websites for the Japanese audience or take too long to respond to the need to establish online presence for their Japanese potential or real customers.

As a consequence, many of the websites owned by foreigners living in Japan, are solely targeted for the English speaking market in Japan. So, there is a still a chance for you to survive and thrive even if you do not make your website in Japanese from the start.