Targeting an Specific Country Audience - Domain Q
-
Hiya everyone!
I know this might entail a novice SEO question, but i am having some doubts. Hope you can give your opinions. Its kind of technical question regarding domain and country targeting.
I have a Steel Construction company targeting only the audience of the particular country. Last year, i bought the targeted domains for my brand (company name), as in domain.country specific TLD,
Should i use these domains, redirect them, or something? Would that help?. I currently use domain.com, but i am constantly being beaten down by websites with domain specific with overly thin content, no PA or DA, and 0 links to their site.
Should i use my country specific domains, would that make a difference? Note: I also run some marketing campaigns for charitable foundation i started, and i used country specific domain and server, and with little effort i ranked top 3 in most of the desired terms.
Any help or comment is appreciated,
Thanks!
-
Thanks for taking the time into answering these questions!
Regards!
-
Thanks for the answers! I will pitch that idea to the company!
Regards!
-
Ditto.
-
If you ONLY sell in the other country you can switch over to the ccTLD and redirect the old site to the new one.
If you sell in the US AND the other country you can keep both sites up and avoid potential issues with duplicate content by using the strategies mentioned above.
-
Casey, Everett
Thanks,
However, how should i do this?. I already have the ecommerce site on .com for about 5 years. Should i redirect this .com to a new one hosted and with a ccTLD? Have both?
Or redirect my ccTLD to my.com domain, or what is actionable strategy?
Thanks,
-
If you have access to a country-specific TLD (ie .com.au for Australia or .co.uk for the UK) and you are trying to target that country's audience then absolutely, you should be using a country-specific TLD. Google already automatically geotargets these for you and yes, you get a clear algorithmic ranking boost for using them over something more "generic" that you physically geotarget yourself within Google Webmaster Tools.
For example, if I'm attempting to target Google Canada (Google.ca) and I want to provide the best algorithmic ranking potential for my site right out-of-the-gate (based solely on a domain level), I'm going to choose a .ca domain over a .com domain every time. All you have to do is browse the country specific indexes yourself to see this in action. As you correctly pointed out, even a low-authority country specific TLD routinely trounces stronger generic sites or subdomains that have been individually geotargeted. And yes, as you stated, coupling a country-specific TLD with in-country hosting is just a smart practice since it reinforces a clear geotargeted preference. The more signals the better in that regard.
Bottom line: if you have access to both the country-specific and general TLDs, allows go country-specific. It's the recommended best practice.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your future efforts!
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
-
Targeting/Optimising for US English in addition to British English (hreflang tags)
Hi, I wonder if anyone can help? We have an e-commerce website based in the UK. We sell to customers worldwide. After the UK, the US is our second biggest market. We are English language only (written in British English), we do not have any geo-targeted language versions of our website. However, we are successful in selling to customers around the world on a regular basis. We have developers working on a new site due to launch in Winter 2021. This will include a properly managed site migration from our .net to a .com domain and associated redirects etc. Management are keen to increase sales / conversions to the US before the new site launches. They have requested that we create a US optimised version of the site. Maintaining broadly the same content, but dynamically replacing keywords: Example (clothing is not really what we sell): Replacing references to “trainers” with “sneakers”
International SEO | | IronBeetle
Replacing references ‘jumpers with “sweaters”
Replacing UK phone number with a US phone number It seems the wrong time to implement a major overhaul of URL structure, considering the planned migration from .net to .com in the not too distant future. For example I’m not keen to move British English content on to https://www.example.com/en-gb Would this be a viable solution: 1. hreflang non-us visitors directed to the existing URL structure (including en-gb customers): https://www.example.com/
2. hreflang US Language version of the site: https://www.example.com/en-us/ As the UK is our biggest market It is really important that we don’t negatively affect sales. We have extremely good visibility in SERPS for a wide range of high value/well converting keywords. In terms of hreflang tags would something like this work? Do we need need to make reference to en-gb being on https://www.example.com/ ? This seems a bit of a ‘half-way-house’. I recognise that there are also issues around the URL structure, which is optimised for British English/international English keywords rather than US English e.g. https://www.example.com/clothing/trainers Vs. https://example.com/clothing/sneakers Any advice / insight / guidance would be welcome. Thanks.0 -
Help! Choosing a domain for a European sub-brand when working as a partner in North America
Background: Let's say there's a European company ABC.com, they have some presence in the US already for a lot of product brands in a certain space (let's say they make widgets). ABC Co gets 1,600 searches a month and all of that volume centers around the widgets they are known for. ABC Co purchases a company that makes gears, let's call it Gears Inc (gears.com). Gears Inc. was known for making gears in Europe, but their brand is not known in the US (search volume 0). Ideally, I would keep the Gears Inc. brand and build up the presence in the US, separating it from ABC Co. ABC Co wants to maintain their brand and eliminate Gears Inc. But we've received permission to keep the Gears brand for bringing that product to the US ... we will have an uphill battle building up the brand recognition, but at least it won't get lost in what ABC Co is already known for in the US. (ie: we don't want calls for widgets). Domain Situation: ABC Co. has redirected gears.com (DA 1) to a subdomain: {gearmakers}.abcco.com (DA 66) ... they have agreed to place a landing page under that 301 that links to the regional domains (theirs in the EU and ours in the US/North America). They are unwilling to let us use or purchase gears.com OR 301 gears.com directly to our domain. What we're trying to do: build Gears Inc. as a recognizable brand when someone searches "gears inc", this domain would rank first create a simple "brand domain" that a less-tech-savvy users could easily navigate to needs to have recognition in US, Canada and Mexico
International SEO | | mkretsinger
I don't know if this helps or provides anything more? The question is what do we use as our domain name? Any feedback is appreciated!0 -
E-Commerce - Country Domains versus 1 Domain?
Hi, Just wanted to get some feedback and opinions re the idea of segmenting our ecommerce site languages under various domains, like .jp for japanese, .it for italian etc... I do understand the geolocation benefits that this could bring us, but on the flipside, it would mean that we would need to grow our domain authority, link buiding per country domain, which is quite a bit of work. Has anyone ever considered or implemented this and any thoughts? Thanks!
International SEO | | bjs20100 -
Getting A Sub Domain To Out-Rank The Main Domain
Hi, We have a prospective client who currently have a sub domain setup for each language, they all have the same content as the main domain. The problem is that the main domain is written in English (but not UK English), and they want the UK sub domain to outrank it (it's the other way round at the moment). Effectively, there are duplicate content issues here and as a result it looks like Google have chosen to keep the main domain (as it has more authority) and lower the UK sub results in its rankings. Is there a feature in webmaster tools where you can target subdomains to a location (I know you can do this with a main domain). Additionally, any other tips for the above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance,
International SEO | | jasarrow0 -
Geo-targeting a sub-folder that's had url's rewritten from a sub-domain
I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages. His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages. I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain? It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain? Thanks,
International SEO | | Leighm0 -
SEO for different English spiking countries
Hi, I'm trying to target my SEO to several English spiking countries (Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa and so..) and I came across a big dilemma: should I tray to build a local version of my website for each country, or perhaps I should stay with my one .COM website and re-direct all the English-local-countries with 301 (if anyone will tray to go into the local domain)? The thing is that obviously the best practice to get high ranking is to be local, but what should I put in those sites and who can I avoid duplicate content and user confusion? On the other hand, do you think I can really get high ranking with one website for all those countries, and how? Thanks, Itay Drory.
International SEO | | RAN_SEO0 -
Different country, same language
I have read the blog posts by Rand and other community members at YouMoz but i still have a question on trageting and domains / sub-directories usage. Suppose, my business is located in France but my prospects are in US and UK as well. The issue is, they are not English speakers but French. If i use ccTLD, i don't think it will rank well in US and UK. gTLD will not be a good option for prospects in France. What should i do? Regards, Shailendra
International SEO | | IM_Learner1 -
Google Webmaster Tools - International SEO Geo-Targeting site with Worldwide rankings
I have a client who already has rankings in the US & internationally. The site is broken down like this: url.com (main site with USA & International Rankings) url.com/de url.com/de-english url.com/ng url.com/au url.com/ch url.com/ch-french url.com/etc Each folder has it's own sitmap & relative content for it's respective country. I am reading in google webmaster tools > site config > settings, the option under 'Learn More': "If you don't want your site associated with any location, select Unlisted." If I want to keep my client's international rankings the way it currently is on url.com, do NOT geo target to United States? So I select unlisted, right? Would I use geo targeting on the url.com/de, url.com/de-english, url.com/ng, url.com/au and so on?
International SEO | | Francisco_Meza0