Canadian site ranking well in states
-
Hello, one of my clients has a site that ranks well in Google.com but is a Canadian company and therefore has a canadian address. They have not yet done any local optimization so if I was to add them to local directories, would that hurt their ranks in the states or anywhere else?
-
It's probably set in GWMT to the default geo targeting in USA.
FYI - I have have excellent success with .ca sites ranking in Canada. The competition is SO much less than in the USA. It takes very little work to get a .ca domain ranked in google.ca, but then again the traffic is just not there.
You say it is a Canadian company, but is it a local type business or is is global, do you ship to the US?
If you ship to the US you will find a lot more business there and ranking in Google.com in the US is much more beneficial. If you do ship to the US, then I would suggest not being obvious about the fact that you are a Canadian company or people will be more hesitant to purchase from you. But in reality a Canadian company can easily ship to the US unlike some further countries where shipping cost is much higher and time takes much longer. It all depends on your type of business.
-
Why would adding the site in local directories hurt the US ranking? Doesn't make sense to me unless you spammed the heck out of a few hundred Canadian directories.
An additional thought...some people believe that getting backlinks from dot ca's will benefit you more on G.ca than G.com. I don't know that anyone has tested it, but it makes sense to me.
-
Have you checked in Google Webmaster Tools where this site is set to target?
-
From what you say it seems you are talking of a canadian site that does not have .ca territorial extension.
In fact, that way, it would have been ranking for the Canadian Google and probably not so good for the .com/USA one.
And it seems that never the site, being probably, a generic domain (.com, .net...), has been geographically targeted toward Canada.
I say this because geotargeting seems an objective for your client.
If it is so, then optimizing the site with geotargeting signals (and saying to Google that your market is Canada), then there is a chance the rankings in google.com will start to be lost
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
-
I'm not ranking locally.....
Hello, We own the business BIM Fitness and Performance in Fort Myers, FL. However, when we do a search near us, we are down at the very bottom of the page. Can anyone provide some insight as to why this may be? I know SEO is the long game but is there anyway we can at least appear higher up locally?
Image & Video Optimization | | ash.gray0 -
Ranking 3 times in SERP for non Branded Keyword
Anyone else seeing this? It just changed as of a few hours ago because it wasn't showing up this morning. One of our competitors is now ranking 2 times in the 3 pack and once in the regular SERP for a non branded keyword. "service/product + city." They have different: Names phone numbers - 1 local, 1 -888 addresses it looks like they don't have a rel/301 set up on the home page and they have a www site and non www site set up as 2 different accounts. One of the results is a Google Plus page and one is a Google Places/local page.
Image & Video Optimization | | BenGMKT0 -
Ranking Report - Universal Placements Data Count Issue
is there any Mistake for Number of count on Universal Placements Data because in My Campaign i checked Ranking Report and there is available Local result data 34/52 but if i will count manualy than its 24/52 may i know the correct reason?
Image & Video Optimization | | E2LOGY0 -
Google maps places - 3rd party review site's link not showing up
An example: https://plus.google.com/103109773317419974914/about?gl=us&hl=en This doctors place shows up with reviews from yahoo.com, citysearch.com and local.com. Our business has reviews from yelp, citysearch.com and couple of other places. What am I missing and how I can make sure those links show up? Thanks RYWwZZk
Image & Video Optimization | | nashk0 -
What is the best way to host a video on my site from a SEO perspective?
Hi, we are in the process of creating a video about a topic that is highly relevant for our customers. Once it is completed we want to offer the video to our customers so that they can embed it into their own websites for free. What is the best way to do this and still receive maximum SEO juice? If we use a a video service like youtube or vimeo, then the link will go to vimeo or youtube and not our site. One thing we are thinking about is asking our customers to link to our site in return for embedding the video, but if there is an automatic solution then this would be a lot better. Any tips will be highly appreciated! If you have anyother tips regarding video content then the same of course! Many thanks! Daan
Image & Video Optimization | | daan.loening0 -
How quick do you see google places rankings update
We have submitted allot of citations over the last 60 days for a client. A very prominent business in their city. Pretty good SEO rankings considering we just started doing SEO a couple months ago. Over the last several weeks we have fixed all listings and removed duplicates. Site is optimized properly and etc.. After how many weeks should I see a change in places rankings? Right now they are not moving up at all.
Image & Video Optimization | | waqid0 -
Multi-site listings in Google Local/Place pages
I've had problems with a client that is a local medical center with multiple sites/addresses. We've created a Place Page for each location and linked it to the location page on the client's website that matches the address on the Place page. But that means we're not linking to the medical center's home page -- and Google Places doesn't like that. I know this because after we'd owner-verified each Place Page, Google went in and just changed the website link that was a deep link to a location page and replaced it with a link to the home page. But now there's not an address match. How should we handle this? Related question: Does it make sense to claim a separate listing in Yelp and other local directories for each of the separate locations since they each have a unique address? Will Yelp & other local directories allow for links to non-home pages on the client's website?
Image & Video Optimization | | DenisL0 -
Ranking Penalty in Google Places for Primary Cell Phone Number?
Say a business runs out of a home (so, technically, the address of the business has a land line). But the business owner works outdoors all day long and so really runs his business off his cell phone. Is it OK in Google Places to list the mobile phone as the primary contant number, and list the home phone as a secondary number? Or will Google penalize the business's ranking in local search results for using a cell number as the main number?
Image & Video Optimization | | keethgee0