Articles
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Nov 12 2018
Crowdfunding Japan: How to Kickstart Growth in the Japanese E-commerce Market
Crowdfunding can be an exciting method of raising capital in order to realize unique and creative projects. The concept has been well-established in the west, with websites such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and Gofundme being recognized as market leaders in attracting community investment. Focusing on Japan, crowdfunding has only recently attracted greater attention in the media, with platforms being utilized by single women to fund their quest to find love, or even give individuals the unusual opportunity to date Hello Kitty. You may be reading this because you’re determined to secure capital for your impressive new idea, have an already successful overseas product that you believe is great for the Japanese market, or you might simply just be fascinated by the concept and intrigued to see how it fits within Japan. Whatever the reason, we hope you’ll be able to take away some key insights and useful information regarding the great potential of Japanese crowdfunding. This articl
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Jul 23 2018
Choosing the Right Japanese Translation Service for Your Website
This article is meant to help you select a Japanese translation service that will become an effective part of your Japanese localization strategy. Translation is often the first hurdle for companies looking to expand their web presence across international borders. Unfortunately, there are a lot of lasting problems that can come from choosing the wrong translation service. There’s also a lot more to localization than just a translation of your existing website. We hope this advice helps you avoid those mistakes when you enter the Japanese market, or any foreign markets for that matter. Three Questions to Ask Your Japanese Translator SEO results vary by language, be sure your translator can maintain your SEO rankings You should properly vet your Japanese translator before hiring them to make sure they have the skills you need. There are different kinds of translation services for different purposes. The following questions will help you find a translation service provider that ha
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Mar 13 2018
Our Keyword Research Process for SEO in Japanese
This article lays out our methodology for doing multilingual SEO keyword research for Japanese websites. The process can be used for virtually any language but there are a few things we’ve highlighted that must be considered for SEO in Japanese. If you’ve already got your keyword research covered, be sure to check out our guide on organizing your website for multilingual SEO to get your site setup perfectly. If you still have any questions about SEO in Japanese or English, check out our SEO Services or get in touch. Anyway, on to the process! #1 Keyword Brainstorming All ideas are worth jotting down, go wild with your brainstorming! Before doing any external keyword research we start with our client and our own team. The client knows the product best, so we gather as much information as we can from them and then start a brainstorm session from that. This is usually an offline affair, just pen and pad, getting as many raw ideas as possible for keywords and phrases. It’s best
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Jan 29 2018
Japan’s Top Social Media Networks for 2018
Welcome to our third annual Japanese social media report, where we bring you all of the latest stats and insights on the social media landscape in Japan. This article will highlight the most popular social networks in Japan, give insights on how users and interactions are different on each network, and give our take on where social media in Japan is headed for 2018. Please check out our reports from 2016 and 2017 If you’d like to see how things have looked in past years. Once you're up to date, let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the last year. Japan’s Top Social Media Networks in 2017 SOCIAL NETWORK USAGE IN JAPAN BY % OF POPULATION *Tap or Hover on the graph below to see details. Source: Pre 2017 Data, Nikkei, Gaiax(1), Gaiax(2), Twitter('17),Twitter,('16) Japan Statistics Bureau *2017 Twitter data reported in October 2017 **2017 Facebook data reported in September 2017 ***2017 Instagram data reported in October 2017 If you compare this year to last year,
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Nov 27 2017
Organizing Your Website For Multilingual SEO in Japanese
While search engine optimization (SEO) in a single language is challenging enough, there are even more challenges in keeping a multilingual site optimized for top search results. This article will provide tips on how to organize your multilingual website for SEO in Japanese. Although we will be focusing on sites with Japanese, much of this advice applies to multilingual sites in any language. For SEO, clearly organizing your content by language serves two important purposes: It allows users to easily navigate your website in their preferred language It allows Google’s website crawlers to easily determine which language you are targeting If users can’t find what they need in their native language quickly, they will leave the page and never come back. Nobody wants to stumble onto a page where they can’t understand anything. This is why Google promotes websites that have clear distinctions between content in multiple languages. Following these tips will make your we
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Aug 31 2017
Why You Should Sell on Rakuten, Japan’s Top E-Commerce Market
Rakuten is the biggest e-commerce marketplace in Japan, and serves as a great platform for companies looking to enter the Japanese market. Selling on Rakuten Japan gives you access to over 90% of the population on a network that is very familiar to Japanese shoppers. To be successful, you have to do it the Rakuten way. This article will give you solid advice on how to sell on Rakuten Japan and develop a strategy that works. Why You Can't Ignore Rakuten in Japan RAKUTEN IS THE BIGGEST JAPANESE E-COMMERCE SITE BY MARKET SHARE *Tap or hover on the graph below to see details. Source: PwC MOST PRODUCT CATEGORIES HAVE POTENTIAL ON RAKUTEN The Rakuten Japan Marketplace has a fairly even spread of product categories. The top selling categories in Japan regularly include clothing, electronics, food, and health supplements. There’s a good chance that your product will fit within one of it’s main categories, giving you a chance to tap into an existing pool of customers who are searchi
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Jun 30 2017
How to be a Successful Amazon Seller in Japan
E-commerce marketplaces like Amazon and Rakuten are some of the most lucrative places to sell online in Japan, giving sellers access to great benefits such as: Access to Japan’s biggest e-commerce market share (Amazon and Rakuten) A streamlined buying process for your customers Secure purchase exchanges (especially important for cross-border shopping) This article will explain why Amazon Japan is one of the easiest Japanese e-commerce sites to sell on, and give advice on how to make the best of your efforts there. To learn more about E-commerce in Japan, Please check out our previous article which will give you a more overall outlook on the industry. Why Choose Amazon Japan? Amazon has been active in Japan since 2000, making it an established and trusted name for e-commerce shoppers and sellers. Though Rakuten has beaten Amazon for the number one market share spot, Amazon is actually the most visited e-commerce site in Japan when measuring by unique visitors. Addi
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Mar 10 2017
How to Advertise on LINE Messenger in Japan
LINE is Japan’s most popular social network and its most popular messenger, all built into one app. This article will explain how to get started as a business on LINE in Japan. We will highlight proven ways to build a network of followers and give advice on how to plan content for LINE users in direct and group contexts. Though mobile messaging apps haven’t caught on as a strong marketing tool in the west yet, platforms such as WeChat and LINE have become hugely popular among marketers in Asia. As for Japan, LINE is its number one messenger and is installed on over 90% of smartphones. As a result, LINE serves as an amazingly effective tool for creating genuine and useful connections with Japanese consumers. If you’re looking towards the Japanese market, it’s impossible to ignore its potential. If you’re unfamiliar with LINE or how it is used, check out our previous article that goes in depth on LINE’s general usage in Japan. If you already know how it works, then let
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Jan 12 2017
Japan's Top Social Media Networks for 2017
Welcome back to our annual social media Japan report! Though the main players in Japanese social media haven't changed since our 2016 report, their positions and users have. This article will take a look at which networks are most important in Japan, how they’ve changed over the past year, and what you should be ready for in 2017 to stay ahead on social media. If you're looking to get the freshest stats, please check out our latest report on Japanese social media for 2018. If this is your first look into Japanese social media, we also recommend checking out our 2016 Japanese social media report. Reading it will give you a good understanding of how social media in Japan is different compared to other markets. If you already have, or are already aware, then let's get started! Japanese Social Media Indicators in 2017: Twitter has a big lead on Facebook in Japan and is still showing strong growth Instagram is taking off just as we expected, pushing beyond 10 million users
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Nov 01 2016
LINE—Japan's Favorite Mobile Messenger App
Since its inception in 2011, Naver Corp's LINE app has grown to be one of Japan’s most popular mobile apps. It’s found on over 90% of all smartphones in Japan, with just under half of the entire population signed up. We’d say it’s virtually impossible to have a social life in Japan without using LINE to connect with friends. This is the first of two articles that will focus on LINE in Japan. First we will go over how LINE became so popular and how it is used among Japanese people. In part two, we will elaborate more about how companies use LINE in Japan for marketing and advertising. LINE’s Rise to Popularity Total LINE Monthly Active Users (MAU) in Japan (in millions) *Tap or hover over the graph for more information Statista LINE began as a project in the Japanese office of Naver, a Korean tech firm, as a solution to communication problems that Japanese people experienced after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. The outcome of that project was a mobil
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