A fictional business. The figures are a modelled scenario, not a client result.
Case study · Local SEO
Hinoki Needlework
Acupuncture and moxibustion clinic · Osaka
+134%
new patients from local search
8-month engagement · Google Business Profile · Multilingual GBP · Review generation · Local schema
Select an acupoint to read the result it holds
Result · GV20
01 / 09
百会Hyakue
+134%
new patients from local search
New patients per month from local search rose from 29 to 68 over 8 months.
01 · The challenge
Japanese-only listings and no English content meant the growing foreign resident population couldn't find or trust the clinic.
Three treatment rooms, two practitioners with English, and a waiting list of Japanese regulars, yet the tens of thousands of foreign residents in Osaka’s Kita and Chuo wards were searching in English and meeting competitors. When they did find the clinic, an all-Japanese booking form asked them to trust a needle to a page they could not read.
english speaking acupuncture osaka
Hinoki Needlework not shown: no English profile data.
english speaking acupuncture osaka
02 · Diagnosis
ProfileCritical
Business name, categories and description existed only in Japanese; no English-language profile data for Maps to serve to English-locale users.
CategoriesCritical
Primary category set to a generic 整骨院 (bone-setting clinic); “Acupuncture clinic” and “Acupuncturist” missing, so English queries never matched.
CitationsHigh
Three spellings of the address across EPARK, Ekiten and the clinic site (丁目 written in kanji, numerals and romaji); the building name missing on two.
ReviewsHigh
31 reviews, all in Japanese, newest 7 months old; no request flow after appointments and no owner replies.
SchemaMedium
No LocalBusiness / MedicalBusiness markup, no opening hours in structured data, no hreflang between the Japanese and (non-existent) English pages.
BookingMedium
Booking form labels, confirmation email and intake questionnaire in Japanese only; 61% of English-locale visitors abandoned at step one.
03 · The strategy
Built on our Local plan: fix the profile first, then give it a second language, then let patients and markup confirm it.
Rebuilt the profile as the clinic's front door: correct primary and secondary categories, treatment-level services, attributes and a pinned entrance.
Gave Google a first-class English version of the business without breaking the Japanese listing that existing patients rely on.
Turned every finished appointment into a gentle, compliant review request in the patient's own language.
Made the site and the profile agree, in markup machines can read, on who the clinic is, where it is and when it opens.
04 · The course
Month 1
Profile, citation and site audit; English-language search demand mapped across Kita, Chuo and Nishi wards.
Audit
31 new patients
Month 2
Categories corrected, services written, entrance pin moved; Japanese listing kept intact.
Google Business Profile
35 new patients
Month 3
English description, services and Q&A published; attributes verified.
Multilingual GBP
41 new patients
Month 4
One NAP across 24 directories; schema and hreflang shipped on 18 pages.
Local schema
47 new patients
Month 5
Post-appointment requests start in both languages; first English reviews arrive.
Review generation
53 new patients
Month 6
Bilingual booking form, confirmation email and intake questionnaire.
Conversion
59 new patients
Month 7
Listings on two English-language Osaka directories; Q&A answers seeded from real enquiries.
Multilingual GBP
64 new patients
Month 8
Weekly posts and replies sustained; 22 English keywords hold the top three.
Review generation
68 new patients
05 · Results
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
English local keywords top 3
LI40 → 22
Phrases such as “english speaking acupuncture osaka” went from absent to the top three of the map pack.
Map views
ST36+246%
Profile views on Google Maps, indexed against the month-zero baseline.
Reviews (EN + JP)
SP631 → 143
Cumulative reviews; English reviews grew from none to almost half the total.
Booking conversion
PC6+38%
Share of profile visits that became a booked appointment, after the booking flow went bilingual.
Per month, modelled. +134% from month 0 to month 8.
| Query | Lang | Month 0 | Month 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| english speaking acupuncture osaka | EN | not ranked | 1 |
| acupuncture osaka | EN | not ranked | 2 |
| moxibustion osaka | EN | not ranked | 1 |
| acupuncture near umeda | EN | not ranked | 2 |
| fertility acupuncture osaka english | EN | 41 | 3 |
| acupuncture for back pain osaka | EN | 58 | 3 |
| 鍼灸 北区 大阪 | JP | 9 | 2 |
| お灸 梅田 | JP | 14 | 3 |
A local practice with an audience Google cannot yet place? We start with the same diagnosis, then treat the points that matter.