websJapan SEO and marketing services

i finally got fed up with the crap choices of cell phones available to consumers in japan – totally throttled by the big few comms companies so i stuck my neck out and bought an E51 for use as a cell phone and bluetooth modem for my eeepc 901. here is the saga of how i got them all to work together and use a flat rate unlimited packets option on my softbank contract. I’ve seen a few horror stories of people getting $3000 phone bills because of incorrect settings and being charged for packets at softbank’s extortionate rates. this is a disclaimer: use this advice at your own risk – i can’t guarantee anything written here…!!!! first the phone bought a nokia e51 from amazon in the USA updated the firmware via the Nokia PC Suite

JAPANESE applications

unfortunately there dosent seem to be much japanese support for newer nokia symbian os which is partly why i chose the E51. I would have loved the E52 but seems you cant get japanese for it at the moment. anyways, i use this plugin from psiloc the reader software allows you to read kanji fonts in apps psiloc japanese reader however, to write mails etc in kanji you’ll need the japanese localization: psiloc japanese there also seems to be a free japanese IME which is written by a native, but i couldnt get it to work. anyways, the page is here if you want to try with some english instructions

SMS vs MMS in Japan.

Oh. Of course they have to be difficult and use a non standard texting system – a very interesting cultural manifestation of keeping everything closed off. Anyhoo, what this means for you is that you have to do some jiggery pokery to get the phone to work correctly with Softbank.

Originally I used some of the settings provided in various forums to setup my APN, but after they sniffed my packets and saw I wasn’t using one of their phones they banned me from sending mms. Happened twice – suddenly the mms servers rejected my emails and I couldn’t send any MMS; however I could send and get sms on the Softbank phone network.

So, the solution was something a little more complicated that entering some reverse engineered passwords – I had to install a proxy server using python which spoofs the mms headers to the server and hey presto everything works a treat!

It’s a bit of a faff to get everything installed correctly – the basic instructions are here, and the original source in Japanese for the proxy is here

So, up yours Softbank!

SOFTBANK PACKET SERVICE

i’m on whiteplan – i changed onto unlimited packet plan (via their mysoftbank interface) as an optional addon to my whiteplan. i downloaded about 10MB of data the first day i got the phone and set it up, which appeared on mysoftbank page the next day as a charge for about Y12,000 – but then mysteriously vanished the same day. i assume that his means the settings work fine. if you’re an iphone user then there are loads of other sites out there with the details you need to connect to the network – be carefull the apn is different!

BLUETOOTH MODEM SETUP

installed nokia PC suite on my eeepc 901 and chose the DUN (dial up networking) option on the list of things to install. (if you wanna use just wifi then try this replacement wifi application) the dun was a bit fiddly to setup – there seems to be some optional strings you can also to send to it in essence you just:
# Pair phone and computer
# Configure phone as a Bluetooth modem
# Create network connection dialing *99#
# make sure you enter the softbank username and password from the settings above
i.e.: user: opensoftbank pass: ebMNuX1FIHg9d3DA
or you will probably get “ppp error 734″

i found a nice nokia bluetooth modem setup here which also has some optional connection strings

fat lady sings

so there you have it – my complete guide to setting up your nokia E51 on packet free contract on softbank in japan, and using it as a bluetooth modem to get on the internet. good luck!

Although Japan is home to massive amounts of hitec computers, cell phones, laptops, PDAs, etc if you’re living here and don’t read or write Japanese then access to this technology can be limited! Of course you can just buy a PC and hope for the best, but many shops do offer alternatives, and there are also slowly emerging niche companies offering PC support in English. PCTokyo has a full online shop and range of computers and laptops sll in English. Ooh Japan also has a good range of PCs but offers a services where they buy for you from the manufacturer rather than build themselves, so the OS may not be available in English. GDEX dosen’t really have many PCs but has a range of video games (in Japanese). If you’re into shopping around then of course you can feast your eyes at the big stores like Yodabashi Camera, Bic Camera, and Softmap gigastore. While the default install operating systems for these is Japanese you can ask them to put an English OS on, but you’ll get charged an extra fee. Here are a couple more stores with English speaking service. http://www.primepc.jp/goods_pc/goods_pc.php http://www.laox.co.jp/store/df/index.html Softmap Gigastore has a lot of second hand stuff, especially laptops, and although the prices aren’t so discounted, they do usually only stock quality goods mostly from corporate clearances or unsold end of line. Sometimes you’ll find a PC or laptop there without any OS which makes it cheaper but also gives the the chance to install your own version which you can pick up on Ebay and get shipped over. Yahoo auctions are also a good place to find PCs and stuff, but again the OS will usually be in Japanese. Also, yahoo auction is a bit of a problem as you have to pay a monthly charge!!!! (grrrr). Alternatively you can just check out the local trash pile on trash day – a friend once picked up a fully working PC complete with operating system and programs just by asking a neighbor if it was trash, and it’s often possible to see lots of equipment left out for the gomi especially in downtown business areas. To get picked up the trash needs a pick up code attached to it, so if you spy something on the street with a bit of paper with numbers etc on it then there’s a good chance it being dumped. If you have the balls, just ask a local if it’s trash and if they say yes, you just yourself a new PC.

When considering a marketing service there are many things to think about. First you have to decide your goals and aims – what do you want the seo consultant to do for your site? Achieve higher conversions on your sales, get better rankings or better qualified traffic or simply overhaul your website tomake it more user friendly. Discount click offers a range of services with a genuine common sense approach as you can see from this quote:

At our company we do not guarantee you top search engine rankings listings. That was not a misprint. What we do offer are satisfaction guarantees on all of our internet marketing services including our search engine promotion service.

Any company which offers number 1 placements will have to use a lot of money or questionable practices to get you there.

First it was link exchanges, then link buying, then republished article writing and now the latest big thing in internet marketing is getting mentioned in blogs to increase your incoming links. Some things happen naturally, people see your site and you get linked or digged and traffic gets insane. However, a sensible marketing strategy should be focused on creating your own luck and this is where sponsored reviews or blog posts come in. A couple of sites are now offering the chance to connect marketers with bloggers in return for a financial nod, and the trend is set to boom. Getting a blog review done has positive benefits for your marketing. Firstly each review or article will be unique as it’s written by someone with their own style and opinions. This overcomes the dreaded duplicate content filter. Second, people read and click on stuff written by an author they return to time and again, much in the same way you have your favorite paper and tend to be more open to suggestion when you’re already half way sold – and by this I mean that you have already made a subconscious identification with the paper and its values so you are probably more inclined to align with its views and editorials. Thirdly, it’s cheap! Permenant one way links embedded in content is exactly what search engines are looking for and give weight to. No monthly fees, probably a small charge ranging from $5-50. Relative to a single mail shot or ad in a regular newspaper you’re getting golddust for a fraction of its real value! For example this site accepts sponsored reviews and benefits not only me financially but readers by promoting related relevant services. Check out this article for more info and some great reasons to start sponsored reviews.

boxes

Once you’ve got your Japanese website up and running you need to start getting links. One of the easiest ways to do this is to submit your site to web directories. There are quite a few directories in Japan that accept submissions so here is a brief list of some of the better ones I’ve found. Where possible I’ve included a link directly to the submission page as well! (I don’t know how good your Kanji is, but I was just about able to figure it out!) Here are two paid for submission services http://www.xlisting.co.jp/registration_goo/ http://www.jlisting.jp/jentry/biglobe/ And here are the free ones (some may require a recip). http://park18.wakwak.com/~directorys/ http://www.infoseek.co.jp/Help?pg=help_addurl.html http://web-directory.jp/ http://joyjoy.com/ http://www.find-out.jp/ http://hp-ranking.net/top/html/regist.html http://www.webranking.net/regist.html http://www.pvranking.com/regst/inputform.aspx http://bestranking.misty.ne.jp/link/ http://ninkirank.misty.ne.jp/url_touroku.html

If you’re new to SEO, or even an old hand, all the terms and jargon can cometimes be baffling. However there is now a really funny alternative SEO / webmaster glossary written by a UK consultancy. Some examples: Content Website: A site put together by someone so full of himself that he believes what he has to say is more important than the ads. CPM: It used to stand for Cost Per Million impressions. But now stands for Cost Per Thousand impressions, the M being the roman numeral for 1,000. It was one of the concessions the European Union had to make to the Italians to stop them gesticulating wildly at European Parliamentary sessions. Google: The company best known for its logo made entirely of radioactive earthworms. WHOIS: A word that prefixes “your daddy” to suggest I slept with your mother. There are loads more – well worth checking out the next time you’re wondering what the hell that acronym or bit of jargon someone is telling you.

With the advent of widespread internet use and ecommerce paying by credit card online has become an everyday occurrence for millions of people around the world. The problem faced by merchants who run ecommerce stores is how to integrate a credit card processor into their store so they can accept payments online. There are many credit card merchant services available to handle all the online transactions and rates and services vary according to the risk involved to the processor. When considering a payment gateway you should consider some of the following:

• What are their rates?
• Will they handle transactions for high risk industries?
• Will they transact outside of your country of residence?
• What are their security services like?
• How do they handle chargebacks?
• What cards do they accept?
• Monthly fees?
• Do they have plug and play shopping cart integration for their transaction services?

In Japan, there are a couple of online processors such as www.remise.jp but everything is in Japanese, and they require you to have your Japanese site as the first page before they will consider your application. Needless to say if you are looking for international markets you want to have a processor which will handle transactions from all countries, and have good security and rates. Paypal is an obvious choice but their Japanese support is very limited. Advantage processors handle all types of cards and work with high risk areas. Authorize.net is an established company in the field.

Pay per click is an advertising system used by search engines where you bid on a keyword term and you ad gets displayed on the search engine or affiliate websites and whenever someone clicks on the ad you have to pay for it. The amount depends on other bidders and the popularity of the ad, among other things. Here is a full in depth guide to pay per click management which shows how you can increase your revenues through more efficiently and effectively managing your campaigns. If you’re after another way to advertise to the Japanese market apart from the infamous Google adwords program, and the massively popular Yahoo system there here are a list of potential advertising systems which work in a similar way. You can sign up both as an advertiser and as a publisher for these websites (all Japanese). First up is Adconmatch which offers a variety of different models including banner and text link contextual adverts for your site. For publishers and advertisers the site is very simple to use and you can be up and running very quickly (publishers, the activation is instant!) and prices start from 10 yen a click. Next you can try Joyful click (I love the way Asians use Joyful and happy in business names! A building located near me translates to the Big Happy Building Anyways, this one is also focused on banner and text link advertising although I’m not sure how good their contextual placement is it seems to be a bit more of a key word matching rather than an algorithmically led system. I couldn’t find an obvious way to sign up as a publisher here, but I’m sure there is one. Matchsmart is the technology behind Yahoo in Japan and it’s fairly straightfoward to sign up with them as an advertiser or a publisher. Just follow the links from the bottom of the home page.

There are several different versions of the Japanese character set, three popular ones being shift_jis, x-euc-jp, and iso-2022-jp. Depending on the charset encoding that you use in your webpage a browser, especially older ones, will have massive problems displaying the text. Also, having your source strings and then converting between the charactersets renders them into meaningless babble. If you take a survey of popular? results from the search engines you can see that the three popular charsets mentioned above are all in play, so there dosent seem to be any particular problem in using any of the encodings and getting ranked. However, it’s not impossible that the older sets like EUC and shift_jis will become obsolete, while the UTF8 charset looks set to become the standard for non-roman sets. Google itself uses UTF8. In summary, although search engines don’t seem to have a problem with any of there charsets, you need to think about browser compatibility and futureproofing which is why I would recommend all Japanese websites to be encoded in UTF8.

When launching a new site or trying to promote it, a somewhat slow but cheap and effective method is to get backlinks to your website from directories. This means that you get a lot of one way incoming links which help with your search engine rankings. Sometimes the directories will charge for a listing, or require you to give a link back to them. Charging is ok (if you can afford it!) but link exchanges are now cast slightly in doubt as a method of safe search engine optimisation as Google and co can figure out that these are not natural links, and possibly penalise you accordingly. The internet is jam packed with website directories of all sorts, from specalist niche to gigantic all inclusive mammoths. It is possible to get SEO software to help you with the process of submitting links to directories but sometimes their list just isn’t big or good enough. You can also find various companies willing to submit to directories on your behalf, and these charge fees depending on the quality and number of links you want. However, if you’re a real cheapskate with a lot of free time then perhaps you’d like to check out this list of over 1000 directories which accept submissions. The list is a little out of date, but there is enough information on it for you to be able to make a good guess which ones are worth submitting to or not. So, here is it the directory submission list.