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 since 2005.  She’s been active in this industry for at least ten years and seen a lot of changes happen.  Over the years she has found her niche in Japanese Search Marketing, including SEO and Paid campaign. I was fortunate to be able to take of her time and posed a number of questions to her.

Q: How did you become involved in the search industry?

Back in mid 90’s, I used to localize US companies websites and handing their online marketing such as site registrations, banner ads and press releases targeting Japanese market. As the market shifted and technology advanced, I started to focus on the SEO/SEM, and established AJPR in 1998.

Q: How can you use search to benefit smaller clients?

Apart from the budget size and maybe the manpower, the great thing about the search marketing is that it’s a fair game to everyone regardless of the company size. The search marketing can expand their market reach (from local to nationwide or even worldwide), improve the communication with their existing and potential clients, and help business owners to make an efficient and smarter decisions on investment. I believe that the search is the most effective marketing tool for your money, if you execute it right.

Q: Do you think it’s more difficult to keep up with industry trends in search marketing than it was a year ago? Why or why not?

I don’t think it’s more difficult, but I think that the type of the changes in trends are different in recent years compared to what we experienced in past. Up until a few years ago, the trends were mostly about the engines and the search. Now, integration of the different marketing outlets (web, search, social media, press releases, off line ads, etc) became more important than ever. It’s not just about SEO or Paid campaigns anymore. It’s like, “Ok, we have some experiences with the search marketing, and know how it can benefit us. Now it’s the time to coordinate it with other marketing outlets to create a campaign that will really benefit the business.”

Q: Tell us about a successful search marketing campaign that you’ve run…what made it work? What made it fun? How did it benefit the client?

One of the success stories of my clients is that they increased the conversion rate from the website by 130% within 6 months after the campaign started. We optimized the site to rank within top 3 in both Yahoo Japan and Google Japan with 95% of their target keywords, improved the landing page content and the internal linking. The fun part was being able to show the great results in ranking, increasing number of accesses to the site from search, and the conversion rate to the client to make them happy and to feel that they made the right choice to invest in the search marketing.

Q: How important is it to be “visible” in the industry these days?

Very important even if you are only targeting the local market. Various survey results show that most people search the web to obtain the information about the services or products that they plan to purchase. More visible you are in search, better chance you have to interact with the potential customers to influence their buying decision. Even in the markets where people still transact off-line, they do research online. I think visibility in the industry is very important.  Many potential customers tend to gravitate to “industry experts” they see at the various conferences.  Even more important is to have your thought leadership represented with blogs and articles.

Q: How does link building fit into social media? Does PPC fit in at all with what you do?

I don’t like using social media as a link building platform to improve your PR. When people use it to build links, it often leads to link spam, and destroy the user experience. If the users don’t like what they experienced there, they won’t come back, and it would defeats the whole purpose of “social media”. The links to your site/pages in social media really become valuable when the links are put on the page content such as blog body from a relevant site, and not in the comment section. The paid campaign could bring some successes through both keyword match and the content match on social media sites. Be selective with which social media sites to run your content match campaign.

Q: Have you used any “questionable” techniques in search marketing?

Nope. I don’t chase the algorithm, either.

Q: What industry trend leaves you cold and why?

Not a particular trend, but when a new trend comes in town, many people stop what they were doing and start to chase that new trend. It frustrates me. New trend simply means there is one more thing that you may need to consider. Those companies have successful website and the paid campaign know the importance of covering the basics and of having a solid project goal.

Q: What is the best part of your workday and why?

End of the day? LOL. One of the best part of my workday is to reporting the improved results to the clients. SEO and SEM are continuous efforts as the market changes and your competitors always improving their sites and campaigns, it’s very important to be able to bring the continuous improvements to all aspects of the success measurements such as ranking, conversion rates, and saving client’s money.

Q: What advice would you give to young women trying to make a name for themselves in SEO right now?

I’ll give the same advice that I give to my son and daughter. Whatever you decide to do, work hard and study hard to become very good at what you do. There’s no short cut. Networking definitely helps especially in this industry, but if you don’t have the knowledge and the skills, you won’t go much far. Believe in yourself, motivate yourself and push yourself. You are your best cheerleader!  A blog is often a great way to start making a name for yourself.  If your ideas resonate with people they will follow you and the more you are followed the greater your exposure.

Tags: Interview, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optomization (SEO), search marketing