Targeting France Best SEO practices
-
I've got a client with a large e-commerce site with a .com domain and they want to start targeting France. Other than building another site in Frence with a .fr domain, what would be the best course of action?
I know that the obvious option would be to build a separate French site with a .fr domain but is there another more cost effective way?
I tried doing a search for one of their key-phrases using the Google Global app (Google.fr) and they are ranking in pretty much the same position as for Google.co.uk.
Your thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
-
I would say that you should first try to do this without building out a .fr domain. In your position, and with some experience of this already under my belt, I would look to build pages relevant to France in a /fr folder, and use Webmaster Tools to inform Google that this is where the geographical target for that folder is.
There are many other things to think about, just a few of them are;
1. Filtering of results by the user will have an impact i.e. the search for sites in French/ search for sites in France choice that users will asked to make. It's great that the site shows up in your tests, but maybe it would disappear to some users if it's not hosted in France?
2. You could still buy an appropriate .fr domain, build out a little relevant content hosted in France, link to this from your obviously reasonably authoritative main site and see if you can start to get the new domain to rank and "fill in the blanks".
3. You don't say if you translated the key phrase you used, and I'm assuming translation would be relevant. If it is, and excuse me if this is obvious, you'll need to do all of your keyword research again. Just translating from say, English probably won't cut the mustard.
I seem to recall there was a Whiteboard Friday on this topic quite recently, you should look that up.
-
Ahhh, France. The wine, the art, and, uhhh the French...that is the issue. Rand did a WBF on the cc domains and those French with their "French searcher problem." (They can be so damn....French sometimes)
This advocates using the .cc domain as the best solution in France. However, when cost isan issue you may have to go with what you've got. The advantage of a subdomain or folder is you are likely to get some of the juice of your domain over time.
Rand actually breaks out the advantages and disadvantages of each option quite well and I do not believe my condensing it will help you as much as that short WBF.
To those who would think I was being condescending to the French in the first paragraph, my favorite city in the world is Paris and my fourteen year old son was born there and is a dual citizen. Favorite movie (ok one of my favorites) Paris je t'aime.
Bon Jour -
Hi FishEyeSEO
That makes sense from István.
An example of structuring a website based on International location without a dedicated TLD and separate hosting is Nike, check out:
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/fr_FR/?ref=
you'll see the /fr_FR/ which is for France
and http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nike/fr_CA/?change where /fr_CA/ is also in French, though for French speaking Canadians.
I hope that helps,
Regards
Simon
-
Hey,
A cost effective plan would be adding an /fr/ sub-folder and target that folder to France. But if I had one possible way to build up a new website on .fr ccTLD I would go for that.
That is my pick.
I hope it helped,
Istvan
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Who is the best SEO expert in the World?
Hey everyone, i am creating a blog post on Top SEO Experts in the World. I need your recommendation who is in the top 10 list? Your suggestions is highly appreciated for me. Thanks!
International SEO | | gxpl090 -
International SEO
Okay, so I have read through the following link in respect to International SEO (https://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo), and I believe that the way forward it a ccTLD. My thought was to have .com, .co.uk and .eu. Currently my site is .com, but receives most of its traffic from UK sources. I'm concerned that when I switch over to ccTLDs, the .co.uk in particular, that my UK traffic could dry up. Switching from .com to .co.uk and then using the .com to target the US market makes sense, but I would like to know others opinions on the potential dangers of doing this. Also, are ccTLDs kept on the same hosting or would they require individual hosting? The link doesn't cover this question.
International SEO | | moon-boots1 -
Ecommerce Product Page Optimization & International SEO
Hello, I'm working on our website SEO optimization. We have a thousands of products pages with different structures for the languages (arg) and very depth folder path .com/[folder]/[folder]/[folder]/product1.hmtl So now I have the happiness of working on the optimization of the website with themajor risk of impacting all current ranking. But anyway, here are a few questions I have on the way. Part 1 - International URL Our websites target people per country and languages. We do not have shops per countries (not enough resources_) but we try to get at least website per languages. What could be the best option?_ Url Parameters +hreflang So we save one folder less and the proper setup. But I'm just scared it's gonna be too messy for Google URL:.com/product1**?lang=fr** Product page:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Language folder + hreflang one folder more but clearer structure URL:.com**/fr/**product1 **Product **page:****link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Part 2 - Product URL Our website is structure per categories so the product comes after. However, I've seen a lot of websites recently removing the categories to save folders space. What should be the most efficient option? Category folder It's obviously a good practice but this + the language folder makes already 2 folders URL:.com/categoryA/product1-{targetedKW} {targetedKW} = cheap product, best price or else All in url I've never done it but it somehow makes sense URL:.com/categoryA-product1-{targetedKW} Part 3 - Keyword stuffing As I'd like to get most of it automatically done, what could be the best places to add a few KW. **Markups:**All the ones we can **Meta Descriptions:**optimize one for Google + one for twitter + one for facebook Longer to do but then from google shopping and other automatic links, we could have the perfect or, at least, best description possible **All other option:**Reuse our product name + {targetter KW1 KW2 ...} Product description_ex: content_ Buttons (click to buy)ex: button title="Buy product_name cheap" alt="Purchase product_name"Buy Product name/button Images:same than above Meta:Titles and meta description Hn
International SEO | | omnyex0 -
Google Search Console "International Targeting" is reporting errors that are not present on my site
We are currently handling search for a global brand www.example.com/ which has presence in many countries worldwide. To help Google understand that there is an alternate version of the website available in another language, we have used hreflang tags. These hreflang tags are implemented only via the XML sitemap across all geo-locations. Under the “Search Analytics -> International Targeting” section, in Google Search Console, for the Malaysian website (www.example.com/my/), there are a number of “no-return tags (sitemaps)” errors arising. For example, for India as a geo-location, there is one ‘en-IN’ – no return tags (sitemaps) errors listed. The error is listed below: Originating URL - www.example.com/my/xyz/ Alternate URL - www.example.com/in/xyz/ When the XML sitemap for the URL – www.example.com/in/ was checked for the hreflang tags, it was noticed that the implementation of hreflang tags for the URL – www.example.com/in/xyz/ was perfectly fine and it was providing a return tag to the URL – www.example.com/my/xyz/. After the code level verification, it was identified that the implementation of hreflang tags was perfectly fine via the XML sitemap. Even though at the code level it was verified that the implementation is fine, the error still persists in Google Search Console. Kindly suggest a solution to this situation, and also advise the effects of these errors on search engine performance
International SEO | | Starcom_Search0 -
Geo Targeting & Geo Keywords
Kindly clarify the below scenario. I have set Geo Targeting for my Website to 'India' in Webmaster tools. So Google should give preference for the searches happening from India. Is there any preference given for the Geo keywords? Like 'SEO Services in India' or Web Design Companies India' while searching from USA. Thanks
International SEO | | FlavoursMedia0 -
Targeting International Markets on the Web
Hello Moz community, I have a popular news website that we are looking to target multiple countries (all English first). So I know (1) a hosting provided (ip address) in that country and (2) a target extension (.co.uk) will help us. Am I missing anything else that can help when targeting international markets? What I'm struggling with is the duplicate content. I can't copy the content over to the extension because of the bad practice of duplicate content. Is it possible to have the same content on both websites and let Google know that it lives at the .com extension? If so, would those websites containing duplicate content still rank? And we would want to target different languages later (for example Spanish). This would be different content because it is in a different language, correct? Thanks for your help Moz community! Cole
International SEO | | ColeLusby0 -
SEO in the UK
Will soon be starting to do SEO for a client in the UK and wondered if there was anything I should do differently for what I do in the United States?
International SEO | | hwade0 -
What's the best strategy for checking international rankings?
Hi There- I am looking to optimize sites serving the UK and Austrailia markets. I feel like I have a good handle on how to go about doing that, but what I am fuzzy on is, what's the best way to monitor the SERPs for the keywords I am targeting. I know based on experience that if I just search google.com.au from here in the states, my results will be 'americanized' and may/probably won't accurately reflect what someone would see if they were search from Austrailia. Are there any good tools or tactics for seeing what searchers in the countries I am focusing on woudl see? Thanks! Jason
International SEO | | phantom0