Optimising a dot com domain for international datacentres
-
I've just been asked the question and didn't have a great answer, what a great reason to try the new Q&A!
We have a .com domain based in the UK but we'd like to optimise for Australian searches. Are there any tips about useful practices to carry out on the site to highlights it's relevance for Australian users?
-
Use words like: Kangaroo, Fosters, Wallaby, Shrimps, Barbie, Castlemaine XXXX, Strewth?
Ah, the double English problem (rising to the triple and quadruple when thinking about USA and Canada). I can give you a few things but I've not had enough success with any to say they are undoubtedly the way forward.
- Another site
a) Subfolder - /aus/
b) Subdomain - aus.domain
c) New TLD - domain.com.aus
Rather than hash out the pros and cons here's a recent Whiteboard Friday - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday
Also check the comments for some good suggestions and sites.
- Another site
-
There are a few things I would recommend doing to any website regardless of TLD to show geographic relevance.
1. Host your site in Australia. If you are in the UK and have a .com then at least make sure the site is registered with an Australian registrar and hosted on a server in Australia. That should be the first thing to do.
2. Be sure to put your Australian address and contact information on the site. Probably more than just the contact page...put that type of info in the footer so it is sitewide and Google definitely spots it.
3. Buy your .au domain name and 301 redirect it to your .com. I would even buy other .au domain names and redirect them to your .com. Be sure not to buy hundreds of existing sites and redirec them though, as this is creating doorway pages and is considered black hat SEO.
4. Focus all of your link building efforts on .au domain names. Make sure you are in Australian specific directories as well. If you have a location with a physical address, be sure to get into the local directories too.
5. In Google Webmaster Tools under settings you can specify your country and language I believe. Make sure you tell Google you are targeting users in Australia.
If you follow those 5 steps you should definitely increase your relevance in Google's mind to the Australian audience. Good luck!
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
-
Domain Masking SEO Impact
I hope I am explaining this correctly. If I need to provide any clarity please feel free to ask. We currently use a domain mask on an external platform that points back to our site. We are a non-profit and the external site allows users to create peer-to peer fundraisers that benefit our ministry. Currently we get many meta issues related to this site as well as broken links when fundraisers expire etc. We do not have a need to rank for the information from this site. Is there a way to index these pages so that they are not a part of the search engine site crawls as it relates to our site?
Technical SEO | | SamaritansPurse0 -
Which better to rank with 40 DA domain redirect the domain 301
hello, which better to rank with 40 DA domain redirect the domain 301 to my website or host domain and create posts with my website link + if i do the 301 redirect the Crawl Errors of old 40 da domain will display on my new website or not+how much links can i get from one website pbn
Technical SEO | | cristophare79
+
which better get links for home page or postsbest regards ,0 -
Similar Keywords on Addon Domain
Hi all, I'm looking at setting up a second website targeting some similar keywords to my existing blog. I host the site through bluehost and am considering hosting the other website as an addon Domain. Whilst the content on both websites will be different both will target the same keywords. Does anyone know if because I'm targeting the same keys words using an addon Domain this could impact my existings site google rankings? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | thriftypence0 -
Will this URL structure: "domain.com/s/content-title" cause problems?
Hey all, We have a new in-house built too for building content. The problem is it inserts a letter directly after the domain automatically. The content we build with these pages aren't all related, so we could end up with a bunch of urls like this: domain.com/s/some-calculator
Technical SEO | | joshuaboyd
domain.com/s/some-infographic
domain.com/s/some-long-form-blog-post
domain.com/s/some-product-page Could this cause any significant issues down the line?0 -
Spam flags for sub-domain
Hi Moz Community, I am reviewing our website via MOZ and found the following issues: http://shopwindowcleaningresource.com/ 1. No Contact (please refer to the attached image). However, we have an up to date contact info on our website. We have social buttons at the footer, our telephone number is at the top and we have a contact us page. Any idea, why we are being rated as such and how to resolve it? Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance. 327M9Fc
Technical SEO | | Shop-Sq0 -
Is an international redirect hurting my ranking
We're a small international company that redirects users based on their language identifier.
Technical SEO | | _entreprenerd
I've now taken a big interest in and also how it affects ranking. When I look at my MOZ dashboard the fundedbyme.com domain has a higher ranking than fundedbyme.com/en/ for example. Our company wants to target other markets such as Spain and Germany, I am imposing penalties on myself by not having rel="canonical" in place and redirecting to the TLD?0 -
Domain Hosting
I'm currently working with a client who provides products in Ireland Is it massively beneficial for the sited to be hosted on an irish server or will there not be much difference with it being hosted in England?
Technical SEO | | Sandeep_Matharu0 -
Internal website search
Hi, I'd like to index dynamically generated - internal website search pages - to Google. A mod rewrite to make the URL strings friendlier might be one way, but as these pages are created on the fly and effectively don't exist till the search keywords are inputted, is it even possible to index them? thanks
Technical SEO | | richcowley0