Very fluctuating rankings

[nvs.nim]

For a couple of years we're doing internet marketing for  a local car rental company in Holland that operates at Amsterdam Airport and competes with players like Herz, Europcar, Avis, ... We started with SEO, SEA & Remarketing. With an overall conversion rate of 13% the results are pretty good, and our client is happy Whieee

End 2011 we  started with an evaluation of the efforts we did last year(s) and to come to new insights to work on in 2012. The SEA  & remarketing campaings have a (very) possitive ROI, and they give us lots of insights where we should focus on doing SEO.

We identified longtail keywords with a high search volume but when monitoring these keywords in SEOmoz we see they are fluctuating. Some keywords gain ranking positions in google.nl but lose positions in google.com and vica versa. That's pretty frustrating, because we want to rank good in both

I was wondering what's the best practice for these longtails... Do we make specific landingspages that focus on these longtails, or do we focus on linkbuilding getting links with longtail anchor texts to the homepage of the website?

An example: last week we rose 14 positions for a keyword in google.nl but for the same keyword we dropped 4 places in google.com (while .com is much more interesting for our client)

Any suggestions are welcome!!

[Njnbiure45r4]

Great explanation. I will surely apply these steps for my service company website to optimize it for ranking.

[nvs.nim]

Thanks,

I think you're right that people may be put off by the .nl We're experiencing the same thing for a webshop under a .nl domain but that has pages translated in french and german.

We do use PPC for driving relevant traffic to the website, so a redirect isn't in place here, and if we do change TLD we have to make sure everything get's done the right way.

I really hope those who are really into international SEO can contribute their opinions here, because operating in Europe still has some gray areas that aren't covered in the "standard" SEO blogs.

The thing we are facing here is:

1. a regional domain (.nl, .be, .de) can put off people, even if the website is translated professionaly.

2. a regional domain name makes it harder to rank in other countries of Europe. I see this everyday, living in Belgium and working in Holland, everyday I'm amazed by the big difference in search results for in Google.be and Google.nl

3. what about a .eu?? Is that the solution for companies operating in different European countries? At the moment we're planning some work on an existing .eu domain.

I read a Q&A here on SEOmoz that suggested adding the different subdirectories of the .eu domain to Google Webmaster Tools, so you can set a target country for every site you add in GWT. Can this be a solution? If so, what about #4?

4. does the location of your hosting have an influence? If it does the solution above with a .eu domain isn't good because everything will be hosted on the same server...

Let that be it for today I can go on and on, but I hope the ones with decent experience in international seo can share some interesting stuff here...

I really can't wait to get my hands dirty on those international sites, and tell you guys what things worked out!

Cheers,
Joris

[RobertFisher]

I would think the .com could have an impact and the easiest way if available would be to simply have the .com redirect to the .nl, such that those clicking on .com end up on the .nl. The reason I say this is living in Houston many international flights go through Schiphol as a hub. Many people in the U.S. could be put off by the .nl (I have no empirical evidence however) for fear of language issues. I am from a multi linguistic family and I have to understand that not all people here see things in the same way.

One question is are you doing PPC?  If so, due to the top level domain changing when they click, it will be disapproved and you would have to instead set up the .nl with 301's to redirect to the .com. AdWords Rules on Domains/URLs This could be more of an issue that would limit what you do with the TLD change. But, when they click on .com they end up on .com and you were able to transfer your linking to then .com. My point here on the original idea of changing the TLD is that if it increases traffic to the site, it will likely increase ranking of same. If you would like, you can private message me on moz with the study. I will not share it with anyone, but would love to read it.

I hope this is helping and there are several on SEOmoz who are big into international. Hopefully they will see the Q&A and answer as well.

Best

[nvs.nim]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for sharing your point of view. I will give you some background information on the project.

There are 2 versions of the website each with another domain name, one in English, one in Dutch, but both versions have a .nl domain name. Should we change the domain name of the English version to a .com? Do you think that would have an impact on rankings in google.com?

The text on the English version of the website is written by a professional translation agency, so they are written correctly but they can be optimized a little bit further to really target those long tails.

What bothers me most is that sites like http://amsterdam-schiphol.airport-car-hire.net/ or http://www.airport-carrentals.com/cities/amsterdam_nl_ams/ are outranking the site we're working on.

I hope this details will help you, every suggestion is welcome

In january we start working on a case study showing what we did over the years and what impact it had on his website, I'll be glad to share it with you.

[RobertFisher]

Nvs.nim

What an excellent, thought provoking question.

My first thought on reading it was that you build landing pages around the new long tail keywords you are using. Then, I had to ask: On the .nl site this is in Dutch, correct? Or do you have one site with two languages available or do you have two distinct sites? In the case of one site, are there separate pages for each language or is there a translation program you are using?

Being in an area of the U.S. where we have Spanish and English (and Spanish is important due to population size) we deal with the multi language issues. We have a larger client who does business in Africa who has site in English only due to multiplicity of languages and prevalence of English.

I think separate pages with the English written by a fluent English speaker who truly understands Dutch and the opposite for the Dutch pages is the best way. There is no duplicate content penalty for differing languages. I would have them all on the same site with separate navigation, etc. If, however, you already have two sites, I would not really want to change that. At the end of the day, I think using separate landing pages for the new long tails is the best way to go up to the point where the traffic is so low as not to justify it; sorry, that is going to have to be a judgement call.

As to the fluctuation in .nl vs. .com,  In highly competitive spacesI see it every day on sites that are all English when we haven't done anything to the sites. If, however, you are making changes at the same time: you are going to see wider swings in ranking and you have to stay calm. I just finished looking at all English sites for an hour where we were making content changes. I felt like i was on a roller coaster! Can't imagine with that type site (rentals) and two languages and content changes.

I would love the additional details as to site set up with the Dutch/English and to know how you resolved this so that I, too, can learn from it.

Best,