Pubcon2019 Future of Digital Marketing Interview with Motoko Hunt, a Japanese speaker

 

We interviewed, Motoko Hunt, who was on the stage as a speaker at Pubcon Las Vegas 2019.

Japanese article▽ 

Pubcon2019　日本人スピーカー　ハント肇子氏に聞く、これからのデジタルマーケティング

Table of contents 

 

 

-Who is Motoko Hunt …

Motoko Hunt established her company, AJPR, in 1998.

 

AJPR provides SEO and the search marketing services to the enterprise corporations around the world targeting Japan, Asia and other markets.

 

Motoko travels around the world to speak and work with the companies. They value highly of her understanding of Japanese businesses and the culture.

 

Until around 2010, the Japanese market was the second largest market in the world by the Internet population, and attracted considerable attention by the global businesses.However, many US companies were satisfied with the domestic market at that time as it was “big enough” for them. Motoko pointed out to them that they were missing out a huge business opportunity by not targeting Japan. Her point got attention of number of businesses.

 

Since then, her “Search Marketing Consulting Services” with extensive knowledge of the Asian and Japanese markets are highly regarded and have a major impact on the search marketing campaigns of globally popular multinational brands.

 

 

 

Career as a speaker

 

Her career as a speaker is also quite long.

 

Since around 2000, she has been presenting at various Internet and online business related events. In 2006, she started to speak at SES (Search Engine Strategies) ,which were the largest in search marketing at that time,SMX and other more SEO and search marketing focused conferences and events held around the world. “I was out on the road visiting different cities and countries a half of the month back then.”she said.

 

Recently, she is also busy as a judge for the US / UK / EU Search Awards, and contributes regularly to industry websites. She said that she has been cutting back the number of conferences she attends to allocate more time to other businesses, but never skip Pubcon.

 

“Pubcon is a great event as it covers many aspects of the digital marketing. It’s also a special place for networking and meeting people who you may not see at other conferences.””Many of the speakers know each other for a while as we see them at different industry events. I think I see some of them more frequently than I get to see my family in Japan.”she laughed.

 

Ccome to Pubcon, and listen to Motoko’s session! ! ! ! !

 

For the contents of her session at the Pubcon 2019 Las Vegas, please read the session report by Nozomi Kubota from Creators Next Inc.

 

“Global Content and Multilingual Keyword Research Methods”

 

 

-What will happen to the future SEO industry?

 

“I think that there will be more differences between countries.

 

For the last 15 to 20 years, the United States was the leading market in many ways. Most of the major search engines were US born, too. Recently, the development and growth of technologies and ideas in Europe is remarkable.

 

SEO doesn’t change from one country to next, but there are more regulations and policies, which are different from country to country.

For example, because of the GDPR in EU for the privacy and data protection, you may have seen a message asking to accept the cookies when you visit a website.

These impact the website and how we do business online.

 

The accessibility policies are another one that impact how you design websites. When you decide to go global with your website, there are many things other than SEO that you need to consider.

 

In terms of content, considering the user persona and behavior patterns, using the same content translated on a local site may not be suitable for customers and users in another country.

 

(See my article about these points on SEJ. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/global-vs-local-websites/332347/)

 

 

She thinks the average level of understanding on SEO among the companies in US is much higher than that of companies in Japan and some other countries. Of course, the different budget and resource level make each case unique, but more busineses in the US seem to have a better understanding of SEO and actively taking the actions.

 

In Japan, a big corporation in Tokyo may have a good understanding and the importance of SEO. But not many businesses in small to mid size cities really get it . They tend to let the SEO agencies handle everything, and have no knowledge of SEO.

 

There are some great tools and solutions coming out in Europe in addition to the United States. There are also great tools and solutions in Japan, but you never hear about them since most of them are only designed for Japanese websites or for their clients. She said that she’d like to see Japanese tools and solutions companies to step out of the comfort zone, and expand the business to overseas market.

 

Pubcon is a big search marketing events in the US, so it would be a great way for Japanese companies to be seen by the people in the industry and to find a partner companies in the US and other countries. It would be nice to see more Japanese speakers, too, Motoko said.

 

 

 

-Why do you speak at Pubcon?

 

 

“Pubcon has an interesting mix of deligates from agencies and solution businesses to in-house people.”

 

At the beginning of the session, you ask the audience who are in-house and who are agency-side.

 

Knowing the audience is helpful. The content of the slide cannot be changed, but you can adjust what to enphasize and how to explain certain things based on the audience type.

 

SEO measures are the same. However, how it applied to one is different from another. For example, an in-house person may need to consider how to implement, while an agency may need to think about how to explain it to the client how and why they are making the changes for client. I feel I fail my session if my presentation is not usuful to the people came to listen so I do my best to make it relatable to them. Motoko said.

 

 

–What does digital marketing need?

 

“In regards to SEO, you need to think and plan it as a part of overall digital marketing process and plans.

 

Still, many companies have SEO, SEM, Social, and Website Operation set up separately. The problem is that there aren’t enough communications among them in many cases. It’s even more difficult when these are managed by different agencies. You need to have a system in the company to share the data and other information so that these channels are all visible and communicated. When other departments understand how their work impacts SEO performance, it may sounds like a lot of work, but it actually creates more efficient process and growth for the company.  

 

I really appreciate to Motoko.