Nikkei newspaper SEM article

[Edwin]

I wouldn't be surprised to see a perceptible uptick in interest in SEM services in Japan.

The evening edition of today (Thursday)'s Nikkei Shinbun newspaper had a whole page about SEM, half of which was given over to an interview with SEMPO Japan and an outline of what SEM is, and the rest to ads. In fact, if you count the Overture ad on the facing page, there were 1.3 pages worth of SEM-related information.

[shorebreak]

Can you summarize the article for us? What interesting things were said about the Japanese SEM market?

[Edwin]

To tell the truth, I can't read enough Japanese to really do it justice - someone gave it to me because they knew I was interested.

Having said that, the broad thrust of the article was about 2/3 basics (introducing the concept of SEM, talking about the size of the US market (the article also said that $100 million is spent in Japan on SEM), explaining stuff like ROI and 1/3 of it was about SEMPO Japan, which I believe was set up fairly recently as a spinoff of the much larger US organization.

Oh, and there was a kind of pie chart with arrows explaining the PPC process.

Hopefully somebody with more fluency will be able to fill in the gaps!

Anyway, it was precisely because it seemed like an "educational" vs "situational" article (i.e. "This is what SEM is" rather than "The SEM market has been growing to...") that I thought it might have a positive knock-on effect. It may well be the first time many decision-makers have heard of SEM, and the Nikkei has impeccable pedigree.

[bill]

You got the gist of it right Edwin. It's a really short article actually. It's almost dwarfed by the ads. It's Koichiro Fukasawa of SEMPO Japan (who has posted here on WebmasterWorld) talking about the basics of SEM. I think this is the sort of stuff the western SEMPO was supposed to be doing...educating the public about SEO/SEM topics. It's a good basics article for the average Japanese businessman. I'm sure the half-dozen companies who put ads on the same page, including Mr. Fukasawa's company, will see a decent return. (I'm assuming they are all SEMPO Japan members.)

SEO/SEM has been dead in the water in Japan compared to the West. It really needed some high profile air-time to get it in front of the decision makers. This looks like a good step in the right direction. This Nikkei info-mercial was probably the best thing they could do at this stage.