option, you'll get a much longer list of countries you could potentially operate in. Go ahead and remove the US as your home region, and you'll be left with Germany, the UK, Japan, France, and Australia.
When you take a look at the CPC results on Google, you will notice that they are relatively high for Japan. This means that initial market expansion in Japan could prove to be quite expensive. At the same time, a high CPC is a result of high competition , so this can tell you that the market also has many participants.
Estimate the size of a market with Google Market Finder
Google Market Finder is a great way to estimate the size of a market. However, keep in mind that you may need to adjust to different search engines. To do that, you'll need to use different market assessment tools as you look to expand internationally.
Here we are looking at Google data and the popularity of keywords that fall into defined categories. If the most popular search engine is different (like Yandex in Russia), you will need to take that into account when estimating the percentages.
You can also find market demand and research a potential customer base in a target region with the list of your competitors' top pages in SEMrush Traffic Analytics.
Take a look at the second line below. You'll be able to see statistics for the login page on Square's website, including the number of unique users from Japan who have visited this page.
This estimate can give you useful insights into how many customers your competitors have in a region, and in turn, allow you to better understand their behavior.
Research your competitors in a new market
Step 6. Evaluate the difficulty of doing business in a country
At some point you'll need to research how easy it is to do business in a specific country. You'll find this information in the third column of Google Market Finder.
Going back to our Square example, using Google's tool, Japan ranks 29th out of 190 when it comes to the relative ease of doing business there.
This should lead you to consider things like the state of your local economy, your overall position relative to the global economy, and your average disposable household income.
It's one thing to have a viable product, but it's another to find customers who are willing to pay for it.
In Google Market Finder, you'll notice that the average disposable income per household in Japan is much lower than in other markets, such as the UK and Australia.
In this case, it is advisable to consult OECD data or the OE