SEO Ranking – Can Geographical Factors Significantly Improve Your Ranking?

9 SEO TIPS that will dramatically improve your SEO Ranking

• The importance and development of Local Search.
• See why your competitors are ranking higher then you.
• An explanation as to why your website is not reaching your target audience.

A lot of people can get confused when it comes to SEO rank inconsistencies across different geographical locations.

If I’m looking at the rankings for Interleado.com, I would  “Google” keywords relevant to our industry to see if our URL appears in the top Goolge search listings.

What a lot of people forget is, that because our primary target market is in the UK, I would initially use Google.co.uk. to see how well ranked we are.

If we used Google.com or Google.ie our website may not appear as high in search listings.

How do you ensure that your website is appearing to your target audience?

….Here’s are a few pointers!

1.   Country code Top Level Domains (CCTLD) and Location of Searcher!

Having the country code in your TLD (top level domain) can be a big factor for SEO ranking. It may impact the search engine ranking of your site depending on the geographical location of the person who  “Google’s” a query related to your website.

For example, lets say you have a website called: “www.myinvestments.co.uk”. It’s ranking  for the key term “financial investments online” would  vary based on the location of the searcher and whether he or she is using different Google country-based search engines.

If a searcher is located in the US and using www.google.com for the search query “Financial Investments online”, www.myinvestments.co.uk might rank at position 50. This is because the domain uses the .co.uk TLD, which is a UK-based domain, so Google indicates that it is not relevant to US-based searchers/results.

Instead, Google returns mostly US-based website. (.com’s). So, when targeting a specific country with your website, and to give your self the best chance of success, getting the appropriate cc tld  will help your cause!

If a searcher is still located in the US and using www.google.co.uk this time for the same query (Financial Investments online),  “www.myinvestments.co.uk”  might now rank at position 5. This is because the user wants to see UK-based results, as indicated by using the google.co.uk search engine.

If a searcher is located in UK and is using www.google.co.uk for the same query, www.myinvestments.co.uk could then rank even higher, as it’s more relevant.

If you are targeting a specific country, then make use of the country code TLD of your targeted country. However, if you do target several countries, using a country code TLD is not advisable; instead, use a generic TLD such as .com, .net, or .org.

In this case, depending on strength of your business, your competition will be much greater and any website content you publish no matter how well optimized it is will be competing on a far larger scale.

For brand protection and geo-targeting strategies I would recommend implementing a Permanent 301 redirect for your different domains.

For example, I would buy “mywebsite.ie” and have it redirected to my main website called “mywebsite.co.uk.”

I could then start to build back-links to the .ie domain as well as the .co.uk domain. This would give me more visibility in Google.ie search listings. By doing this I’m telling Goolge that I’m targeting the Irish market now too as well as my core UK market.

I would also highly recommend setting your domains up in Google Webmasters and allocate specific pages on your website to target different countries.

2.   Server Location in your Target Country!

When you are registering your domain name there are two important factors that may influence your rankings in the search engines.

The first is the address you use to register the domain. If you are targeting Spain with your new domain and you register from an address in the UK, Google has access to this information and it may deem your website not as relevant as a domain registered with a Spanish address.

Is this an absolute ? Are you always going to be at a disadvantage when registering an address outside your target county? NO, but it is a signal that Google looks at.

The second factor is server location. If you host your website in your target country, again you are sending a signal to Google that this is where you want to appear for searches. Again, you obviously can get good rankings for example if you are targeting the US and are hosted in the UK, but in general, hosting in your target country is another strong signal to Google as to where you want to appear.

3.   Google Local Search – Register with Google Local Business Center.

Registering with Google’s Local business center is important for website visibility for local search. This will give you a chance to be ranked first for any local search query relating to your business!

Up to 40% of all searches have been shown to have a local intention. If anybody types in a search query followed by a geographic location, you want your website optimized so it will appear in the  local search listings . By registering for local search, Google will pick up all traces of your business in any local directories and use this information to boost your ranking.

If you “Google”; “hardware stores Dublin” you will see a good example of what Google thinks are the 7 most relevant hardware stores in your vicinity. This may not be the reality in terms of service or product quality but these businesses might just have their wits about them when it comes to online marketing.

If your business isn’t set up for local search you’re going to lose more and more customers to businesses that may not be as strong as yours but have succeeded in reaching their target audience by optimizing for local search.

To register for Google business Center, you just enter your Business address, name, description and category. Make sure your address is consistent across the web as having multiple addresses makes it harder for Google to figure out which one is the correct one.

Having your business present in local directories is of huge importance for Google’s Local Search indexing algorithms. It will increase your chances of getting into the original 7 pack listing. If you are part of that listing, their is no telling how fast your customer base will grow!

4.   Spy on your Competitors:

If you click “reviews” (on the right side of all the search listings above)and you scroll down to where it says:”More about this Place” (see below) you will be able to see exactly which directories different companies are registered with. This is a great way to see how your competitors are building their inbound links and from which directory sites. This is  a great way to find reputable directories that you can register your website with also.

5.   Sponsored Local Search listings in Google Maps

Google AdWords also offers sponsored ad listings in Google maps. If you go to Google maps and search for a “hardware stores” in your locality, you will see that people have paid to be seen at the top of the Google map listings of hardware stores. They appear above the 7 pack listings on the left hand side of the page.

If your website is properly optimized for local search and you have registered with the Google Local Business Center and other various local directories, then you shouldn’t have to take out a sponsored Ad for Google maps.

6.   The geographic nature of back links and external links.

If your target market is the UK and you have a back link profile of UK-based websites, it will significantly help your rankings in www.google.co.uk. The same is  true with external links; if you are linking to mostly UK-based websites, this also helps Google see that you are targeting the UK and further optimizes your site accordingly.

You can check how many back links your website has by typing “site:www.anywebsite.com” into Yahoo’s search bar.

To get a full breakdown of your website’s authority you can run a free trial of Interleado SEO Workbench.

7.   Google Webmaster tools.

In Webmaster Tools,  you can specify the geographic target of your website. You can also target different countries with different pages on your site.

8.   Contact us page

Even your address and contact details on your “Contact us” page is taken into account by Google. Make sure you have addresses set up that coincide with your target country!

9.   Social media location

Make sure your location on all your social media profiles are consistent. It’s very easy to forget this when filling out registration forms to just automatically put the country you originally come from. It has to be the country your target audience is from! All these small details add up and could be the difference in a first or a fifth Google page ranking!

Other well known directories:

Regional Listings in Yahoo directory and DMOZ are well known directories which you should register your website with. While these well known directories will help improve your SEO ranking on a larger scale, it’s very beneficial to register with as many local business directories as you can so you will be easily found by your target audience.

What about you? Have you had challenges targeting multiple countries? What strategy did you employ? What worked?

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