SNS Sites in Japan
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Japanese Websites and Online Environment
Just as important as having qualified traffic coming to your site in numbers is how well you convert that traffic. If you have a website that is visited by scores of visitors every day but yet fails to encourage anybody to act on the information on it, it is as good as if no one comes at all.
Effectively guiding your visitors through the final off your sales process or quantifying them as prospects is a whole separate field of online marketing. SEO Japan can help you tune your company’s website so that it performs its functions and the optimal level. Feel free to contact me and I will access your site and point out simple and effective ways in which you can improve your conversion rate substantially. Now, let’s have a look at the environment in which your company’s website will find itself in once it is geared towards Japanese visitors.
How well your website will perform in Japan will depend on several factors:
Japanese Page Structure / Design
Japanese pages differ vastly from their Western counterparts in more ways than one. Their visual style is similar to that of Japanese newspapers: they are cluttered with images and copy that often seems confusing. It is often a shock to a Western online marketer, such as myself, to see so many companies using websites that are contrary to every book on online usability and design. However, one should also understand that Japanese Internet surfers are used to this sort of design. This is simply acceptable and whereas an American immediately exit similarly designed page, a Japanese person will most likely find it normal and continue to read on.
Payment method
Unlike US, and Japan that credit card payment method is not the most popular option. Japanese prefer to pay via bank transfers or via a special service that allows them to pay that person who delivers the merchandise to their doorstep. This fact alone significantly changes that kind of online shopping Japanese people do in their way in which they shop. Unlike Americans, Japanese cannot impulsively reach for their wallet a pay right then and then. The process will involve them going to the back and on the way home during their decision. Your combination strategy for your company’s website should take this into account.
Usability does work
Despite the fact that Japanese pages are often cluttered and confusing, Japanese scale and appreciate a page that is clean and well thought out. Although Japanese eye may be used to seeing an overload of information, it still gets lost when it comes to unintuitive navigational menus or confusing design. None your pages out carefully. SEO Japan, can help you both in localizing your site as well is performing usability analysis on your current site and / or incorporating the best usability practices to your future design. SEO Japan also works with tested and proven copywriters and web designers who integrate these principles into their copy and design.
The uncharted territory
I often think of the Japanese online environment is an uncharted territory. While US online marketers are busy outdoing one another in their online conversion tactics and strategies, Japanese seem to be still in the discovery phase of the affiliate or PPC seem to have reached their break even point (when the company spends $1000 on PPC to get $1000 worth of business), there is still substantial room left for the improvement in the conversion strategies and tactics. If your website sells 40 widgets for every 4000 visitors each month and your goal is to sell 400 widgets amount, then you would have to multiply your traffic by 10 – effectively rising it to 40,000 visitors. Although this can be achieved through aggressive SEO and PPC campaigns, the cost of buying even half of this traffic made likely outweigh the profits you will gain from selling the widgets. Another solution is to simply increase your conversion rate. Instead of converting your 4000 visitors at 1% you could raise this to 10% - essentially achieving the same result. This, of course, is a steep increase in your conversions in such jobs may not be easy it is nevertheless part of the equation for your success. SEO Japan can help you increase your conversion rate substantially by performing a usability and conversion effectiveness study of your current website and / or incorporating the best practices to your future design.
