Getting the Japanese Salon Lond by Ciel Sowal Recommended by Google, ChatGPT and National Media

Lond by Ciel Sowal is a Japanese beauty salon with branches in Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, and a four-time consecutive winner of the Hot Pepper Beauty Award. In Jakarta, it competes with plenty of other Japanese salons in the same neighborhoods.

I handled SEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization, getting a business named in AI answers) and digital PR for cielsowal.com in Indonesia. The work ran on four tracks at once: blog articles, on-page and technical SEO, the Google Business Profile, and press releases to the media. As a result, Lond by Ciel Sowal shows up on page 1 of Google, gets named in Google's and ChatGPT's AI answers, and has been covered by national media.

The problem: "salon jepang" is a crowded market

People looking for a Japanese salon in Jakarta ("salon jepang" in Indonesian) have plenty of choice. The results page is full of other salons' Instagram accounts, beauty media listicles and competitors' websites. More and more people also skip the search and ask ChatGPT directly, for example "recommend a Japanese salon in Sudirman".

For a premium salon, showing up isn't enough. Potential customers also look for reasons to trust it: ratings, reviews, and a name they have read about in the media.

The approach: four tracks that reinforce each other

Google says local ranking comes down to three things: relevance, distance and prominence, meaning how well known a business is. In its guide Tips to improve your local ranking on Google, prominence is also judged by how many websites link to the business and how many reviews it has.

For AI answers, Google's documentation AI features and your website says there is no special optimization needed to appear in AI Overviews. The same SEO fundamentals apply. So I worked on every side that makes the salon relevant and well known:

1. 1Blog articlesAnswering what customers search for
2. 2On-page & technicalTitles, meta, structure, structured data
3. 3Google Business ProfileAddress, hours, booking, reviews
4. 4Press releasesCoverage in national media

What I did

Blog articles that answer real searches

I wrote articles on the cielsowal.com blog for the searches customers actually make, including a page about the best Japanese hair salons. In Google Analytics, that article ranks among the seven most-viewed pages, alongside the services and booking pages.

On-page and technical SEO

Every page got its own title and meta description naming its service and location, such as the home page titled "Lond by Ciel Sowal - Premier Japanese Beauty Salon - Jakarta". I also tidied the page structure, structured data included, so business details like the address and opening hours read clearly to search engines.

Google Business Profile

I completed the Sudirman branch's Google Maps profile and kept it consistent with the website: address, opening hours, WhatsApp booking number and services. That consistency matters, because AI answers pull the same details from several sources at once. The profile now carries a 4.9 rating.

Press releases to national media

I prepared and sent out press releases for moments genuinely worth covering. Kompas.com ran the salon's free haircut program at an orphanage in Menteng, and Liputan6.com ran the story behind its four consecutive Hot Pepper Beauty Awards. Fimela.com also featured the salon's private room service (all three in Indonesian). Besides building trust with customers, coverage like this adds mentions and links from other websites, part of that prominence signal.

Results

Page 1 of Google for "salon jepang"

For the broadest keyword, "salon jepang" (Japanese salon), the Lond by Ciel Sowal website appears on page 1 of Google's results.

Named first in Google's AI Overview

For the more specific "salon jepang sudirman" (Japanese salon in Sudirman), Google's AI Overview names Lond by Ciel Sowal first, complete with its address, opening hours, booking number and signature services. The source it cites is cielsowal.com.

Recommended by ChatGPT

Asked for a Japanese hair salon recommendation in Sudirman, ChatGPT includes Lond by Ciel Sowal in its list, with its 4.9 rating, website link and booking number.

Traffic that grows without paid ads

Google Analytics recorded around 11 thousand active users over roughly 12 months. Almost every visit came through unpaid channels: organic search alone brought around 3.5 thousand sessions, while the ad channels (Cross-network and Paid Search) added up to only about 360.

Sessions by traffic source(sessions, roughly 12 months)

• Direct~7K
• Organic Search~3.5K
• Organic Social~2K
• Referral863
• Cross-network (ads)322
• Unassigned97
• Paid Search (ads)35

On Google for the keyword “salon jepang”

Page 1

Active users over roughly 12 months

~11K

National outlets covering press releases

3

What I learned

For a local business like a salon, Google and AI don't just read the website. They match the website against the Google Maps profile, customer reviews and media mentions. When all four agree and reinforce each other, the business name surfaces more easily, both in search results and in AI answers.