SEO consultant in Japan – a clear strategy and monthly guidance you can act on

What an SEO consultant does for you

At its core, SEO consulting decides what to do and in what order. Your team writes the content and edits the site; the consultant sets the direction and helps with the decisions. A typical engagement can include:

• Strategy: choosing target keywords, comparing you with competing sites, defining the action you want (inquiry, purchase, booking)
• Site structure: categories, page split, internal links, cleaning up duplicate pages
• Technical health: indexing, speed, mobile layout, structured data, redirects
• Content direction: which pages to write and which to rewrite, outlines, headings that match search intent
• Measurement: Search Console and GA4 setup, reading the monthly numbers, choosing next month's work
• AI search (GEO): presenting your information so AI answers can cite it accurately

You do not need all of it at once. Many companies start with an audit and a priority list, then move to monthly guidance once the basics are in place. Before you talk to anyone, write down who on your side can spend time on SEO and roughly how many hours a month – it makes the plan realistic from the start.

Signs it is time to bring in a consultant

If these sound familiar, a clear plan will usually move results faster than simply doing more work.

• You publish articles every month, yet search traffic barely moves
• Search Console is installed, but nobody knows which numbers matter
• An SEO tool lists hundreds of issues and you cannot tell which to fix first
• Several pages cover similar topics and it is unclear which one should rank
• A redesign or a move to Shopify or WordPress is coming and you want to protect search traffic
• Your SEO agency sends reports, but they never say what to do next

If even one applies, start by getting a clear picture of where the site stands. Our page on the SEO audit explains what gets checked and how.

Seven ways to recognize a good SEO consultant

Proposals can look alike on the surface and differ a lot underneath. When comparing consultants, check for these:

• Priorities with reasons: you get an order of work for this month and why, on top of a list of issues
• Interest in your business: early questions about your best-margin products, customers and how inquiries arrive
• Advice you can implement: specific changes and outlines your team can act on directly
• No ranking guarantees: search engines decide rankings, and an honest consultant says so
• Clean methods: no bought links or mass auto-generated pages that break search guidelines
• Reports that explain: each month you learn what changed, why, and what comes next
• Accounts in your name: Search Console, GA4 and the domain stay under your control

In Japan, SEO consulting typically runs from around 100,000 yen a month to several hundred thousand, depending on scope and whether on-site meetings are included. If you are weighing advice against a fully managed service, see how to choose an SEO company.

How monthly SEO consulting runs

A monthly engagement usually spends the first three months building the foundation, then settles into a steady cycle of review and improvement.

• Month 1 – audit: indexing, search queries, strongest and weakest pages, technical problems
• Month 1 – keyword map: pick keywords close to your business and assign each to a page
• Month 2 – priorities: a three-month plan that starts with high-impact, low-effort work
• Months 2–3 – implementation: titles and descriptions, rewrites of existing pages, internal links, new pages
• Every month – review: impressions, clicks, positions and inquiries, then next month's tasks

Search results often take several months to show in the numbers, so early on it helps to watch faster signals such as indexed pages and impressions for target keywords. Before each monthly review, jot down what was changed in the previous month – it makes the review far more precise.

Setting up your team to implement

Consulting pays off in proportion to how much gets implemented. A little preparation on your side speeds everything up:

• Name one person as the SEO contact, and a manager they can turn to for decisions
• Decide who writes articles, who updates product pages and who edits the site
• Make sure your team can edit titles and descriptions in WordPress, Shopify or your CMS
• Block 30 to 60 minutes a month for the review

If the long-term goal is to run SEO fully in-house, ask for the reasoning behind every recommendation so your team builds its own judgment. Our page on in-house SEO support covers how to set that up.

SEO consulting with UNANOBO: see the improvements first

Before you sign anything, UNANOBO builds a free demo based on your current site: your pages restructured around the keywords worth targeting, with headings and layout you can click through on a computer and a phone. After you have seen it, you receive a prioritized plan and an estimate.

The process is free demo, feedback, launch, growth. The founder handles every project personally, from the first strategy to monthly guidance, so you keep one contact throughout. Your team can implement, or UNANOBO can build and edit pages for you – or a mix of both. Everything runs by message, in Japanese or English.