Writing SEO Titles and Descriptions for Your Japanese Website

It is important to set up SEO Title and Description tags for websites even though they are not visible on your website itself. They are used to show the Search Engine Result Pages as below. 

SEO Titles and Meta-Descriptions are really important for SEO, yet many business owners overlook them. Understand their nature, it is easy to understand why.

First, they are not visible on your website. But if you were to view a page's HTML source, you will see them.

Example of SEO Title And Meta-Description in HTML source

However, even though these tags are not seen on a page, they do show up on the "Search Results Page" of Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Not only are these fields seen, but they are displayed both above and below your competitors for each keyword. 

SEO Titles and Meta-Descriptions in Search Results Pages.

It's important to get these text fields just right to match the user's intent, otherwise people will never make it to your page from the Search Results Page..

Why are they important to do SEO for your website? Here are why.

  1. Improve discoverability of your website
  2. Improve the number of the clicks from searchers
  3. Improve the ranking on your website on Search Engine

You can achieve all of the above for free. It's a simple but effective way to improve your website presence online. 

4 Tips to get started

  1. Mind the length
  2. Find and Include the target keyword    
  3. Focus on creating good contents for human eyes
  4. Avoid duplication or plagiarism

1. Mind the length

If the contents are too long than Google or Yahoo prefer, they will be cut off at the end of it with “...” . 

When writing your own Title or Description, refer the below for the length to avoid this.

Optimal SEO Title Text Length:

  • English and other 1-Byte (half size) text: 50-60 characters
  • Japanese & other 2-byte (full size) text: 25-30 characters    

Optimal SEO Description Text Length:

  • English and other 1-Byte (half size) text: 140-160 characters
  • Japanese & other 2-byte (full size) text: 70-80 characters 

2. Find and Include the target keyword    

Before writing the Title or Description, think of the “Keyword” that users would type in Google to look for your contents. It will be the best to go through a keyword research process. Once you have the keywords, mind the following 3 points and create great title and description to describe the content on your webpage.

  • Include the keyword as the early part of the sentence as possible.  
  • Include the keyword at least once, but no more than 3
  • Avoid awkward sentence and focus on good contents

A benefit of doing the above is that if the keyword searchers use to match with the keyword in your contents, they will show up in BOLD.

3. Focus on good content for human eyes  

Title and description should make users want to choose out contents over other search results. Description Tags should be actionable for humans to click.

  • Create the title and description so that the searchers will resonate with the contents that you offer.    
  • Include Call-to-Action such as "Take action today" or “Find out more”.

Users always have other options. Creating Title and Description to resonate with the users will help them bring to your website.

4. Avoid duplication or plagiarism.

According to Google, they encourage not to have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant contents.

  • Make sure that no 2 pages have the exact same Title tags  
  • It is ok to get inspirations from other websites, but do not copy.

Summary

SEO Titles and Meta-Descriptions are tricky things. They are not seen on your website , but show up in the search results pages. It's important to get them write to attract visitors to your site. When writing these in Japanese, you have to attend with additional constraints, as Google further limits the number of 2-byte characters that are display. 

If you are looking to improve your website’s presence in Japan, reach us out to discuss how we can help you.

About the Author Jeff Crawford

Jeff Crawford is a Digital Marketing expert, technologist and Manager. He has worked for technology companies in Silicon Valley such as Apple, WebTV and Microsoft. He has lived in Tokyo Japan since 2004, working for companies such as Microsoft KK and Adobe Systems Japan. Jeff is founder of Zo Digital Japan, an SEO and Digital Marketing agency based in Tokyo. Jeff started the Tokyo Digital Marketers Meetup in 2016, which now has over 2000 members. He has also presented about Digital Marketing at such events as Ad-Tech Tokyo, WordCamp Tokyo, Japan Market Expansion Competition (JMEC), and the Japan Association of Translators (JAT).

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