Motoko’s weblog

I had a pleasure of doing an interview with Dr. Mathew McDougall of SinoTech (China). He is one of the active members of SEMPO Asia. Unlike most of my other interviews, which are focused on Japanese/Asian markets, he let me talk about SEO/SEM and industry in general, which I very much enjoyed.

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Interview: Motoko Hunt (Founder, Japanese Search Marketing Strategist)

One of the more enjoyable things we get to do on the ‘Digital Marketing Inner Circle” is interview interesting people I meet and get to know by being involved with the industry. This interview is with Motoko Hunt, Founder and Japanese Search Marketing Strategist. Born and raised in Japan, Motoko is now the chair of SEMPO Asia and has been the co-chair of SEMPO Japan Continue Reading »

When Google opened the R&D Center in Korea last year, they announced its plan to invest $140 million in Korean market including some of the IT company acquisitions. Their latest announcement to invest additional $10million in Korean market shows how eager they are to gain the market share there.

Since Google entered in Korean market in 2005, their search market share has been kept small at 5% level. Not even Google has been able to take the market share from Korea’s number 1 search site, Naver.

Google has R&D Center in Japan and China, both of which markets they were able to gain the market share in recent years. Now, Google ranks at #2 in both Japan and China. Being able to provide the services that work in each market through R&D Center rather than to push the same model used in US looks like the key to their success in Asian market.

Recent survey done by Japan.Internet.com shows that 70% of Japanese use 2 or more search engines. Yahoo Japan was the most popular search engine, and Google was the close second.

Not getting good search results was the top reason for using multiple search engines. About 25% said that what they want to search makes difference in which engines to use. Instead of looking at the page 2, they go to next search engine to search the same keyword phrase. (People looking for shopping and entertainment related information tend to use Yahoo, maybe? I know that B to B businesses usually do better with Google Japan.) Continue Reading »