Motoko’s weblog

Can a small site with a small budget be successful going against big sites in search? - This is one of the popular questions that I’m asked frequently. It is possible for a small business with a small website to successfully run a business online even in the overseas markets. In fact, there are quite a few of them out there doing really well. Here are my advices and tips to small business owners, who are considering reaching foreign markets through search.

Use your limited budget wisely.

It’s best to localize the site for the target market. It’s not just for SEO purpose, but also for the better customer experiences on your website. Now that the engines are pushing websites with the right signals (local language, local ccTLD, hosted in local market, Continue Reading »

I just posted my presentation about the Search in Japan from International Search Summit in London last month.

As you can see, my presentation shows bunch of numbers, which don’t mean much to you unless you were in the audience. Here’s what I talked about.

Market:
94 million Internet users
75.3% Penetration rate
4% access Internet from TV and gaming devices
73.4% on Broad Band
90% of Continue Reading »

It seems that Social Media market is still growing in Japan as both Gree and Mixi posted great Q2 results in October. In this quarter, Gree’s sales went up 94.3% from Q1, and Mixi adjusted their Q4 forecast upward by 3.3%. Since both are doing well, and attracting more advertisers, you may think that you should be at both places to get the most exposures. But, when the average advertising budget shrinking in US, you may not have a luxury of advertising everywhere you want to be. Even if you have, are these and other popular social media sites all good match to your services and the target market? When it comes to mobile sites, the user market seems to have clearer differences than web sites.

(Top: Male, Bottom: Female, Blue: Gree, Red: MobagaTown, Yellow: Mixi – 2009?C?UPDATE inc. MMD Labo. )

Continue Reading »

I just downloaded a tool bar for new Japanese bookmarking site called “Imakore” (beta). (I don’t like adding tool bars to my browser, but it’s the only way to use the service…) There are many bookmarking services out there already in Japan (popular services include “Hatena”, Livedoor’s “Clip!”, Yahoo’s “MyBookmark” and “fc2bookmark”, why did I decide to try this service?

What makes Imakore different from other bookmarking services is the function lets users to write and to read the comments right on the bookmarked page. With the tool bar, you can see how many Imakore users are on the same page at the same time, and read other users comments as well as leave the comments on the “particular area of the page” where you want to comment. It’s like a bookmarking version of Pop-up video. It’s definitely a fun way to bookmark pages and to socialize with other users. Continue Reading »