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I am also not sure about the acceptability of our site as it is in English language and is not situated in Japan. But we do have some Japan oriented content, all other content are general and is for every one, not limited to one demographic region, which I am sure that Japanese people will love and enjoy.
This this respect I need some help to identify some of the major Japanese search engines and the way's to get a prominent ranking over there.
Looking forward for your advices.
That said, you can still submit your site to a few places. Google is the number one SE in Japan today. It may help if you hosted your Japan related content on a .jp domain name. Another place you can submit your site would be Goo. Most of the other search engines either don't have submit pages and/or they won't accept pages without Japanese content (e.g., infoseek).
For directories your best bet is probably DMOZ in the appropriate regional section. Since you don't have Japanese content I don't think a listing in Yahoo Japan or LookSmart would work. There are a lot of niche directories in Japan, but you'd need to navigate to them in Japanese and then fill out the forms.
If you have some money to spend you can bid on English keywords on Overture Japan or Google AdWords. LookSmart Japan has similar programs, but I don't know if they will let English sites bid.
That should get you started...
I also need to know where can I resources for Japanes keyword research? I need to know the populer keywords related to my site and subject.
Japanese keyword research
I know someone was working on a WordTracker type tool for Japanese keywords, but I don't think that ever got off the ground.
translation
I any body suggest me how to choose the keywords for Japanese market?You will generally get more traffic from Japanese language keywords. However you will need someone who knows the language a bit in order to select the keywords you need. Many times the dictionary translation of a word will not match up to the term or phrase a Japanese persion would search. Therefore you may want to get the person who translates your site to also help you develop a list of keywords.
Gotta partially disagree with this, Bill.
One of my sites is of relevance to Japanese searchers, but we haven't yet had a chance to translate any portion of it to Japanese. Nonetheless, we get a fair amount of traffic from Japan.
It is true that the Japanese are not that proficient at *speaking* Japanese, but their learning is focused almost exclusively on reading and writing. Many Japanese can read a simple sentence or prargraph - and they use alot of English in their own ads and sites, too.
And, of course, it depends on their motivation. :-)
My site's pretty niche and the people who come to it are looking for something specific. :-)
Fair enough - and with this I'll agree. If you're looking for sales from average Japanese consumers on your site - then yeah, you'll definitely need a high level of fluency.
If you've got some other kind of hook, you may be able to get away with less fluency - and I can definitely think of some cases where amusingly poor Japanese can be seen as a bonus, especially if you're going for "cute" over competent.
But if you're trying to break into a competitive widget market, you'd better be able to fluently explain why your widgets are better. :-)
There is not any easy to do Japanese keyword research. There are not really any tools for it. As Bill mentioned, Google and Overture are the best bet. SEO in Japan is just now becoming really popular so the demand for those tools has not been high.
The best way is to hire Japanese SEO's or educated Internet savvy translators. Be sure to tell your translator that you want the content optimized (you will have to explain it). This is a big problem with translations in any language. They are either direct translations and/or copywriter versions that read well and have marketing fluff but lack keyword density.
Since you are in New York you could stop by one of the Japanese bookstores or coffee shops and do actual direct research with Japanese natives based upon the translations.
As far as what copy to translate it has been my experience that the terms and conditions of the sale are very important to Japanese visitors in additionl to descriptive product information. Additionally, make sure your forms are compatible with their address structure and make yourself look reputable.
Hope this helps.
