Targeting UK Traffic from US Website

[EliteWeb]

Heard it time after time, how you get in the search engines and local SERPs for localized traffic is to either have a .co.uk domain or have the site hosted in that country. For me its not an option to be hosted elsewhere and it has me pulling my hair out. The site in question has geo-targeted section of the site for the UK and it has all the users, its active and well hit but in the localized SERPs for the country it doesn’t show up.

After the Las Vegas conference I broke down and registered a .co.uk domain but am having issues figuring out how to handle it. The site in question this time is a forum but that doesn’t really matter, the ruling will help me figure out how to handle it for future sites.

How have people done this in the past? I am thinking of either moving the sections on the US site to the UK site and add extra sections totally removing the UK section from the US site not to trigger duplicate content issues. The second of the two would be to cross link the sections from the UK site so that they could click on the other areas and if not UK specific will take to the US site.

I don’t think its necessary to have two sites that could be the same site with geo sections. So I think Ill have the geo sections on the current site point to the region specific domain name. Pros/Cons from past experience?

[engine]

Yep, the dupe content could be a problem so that's a wise move.

I'd be very careful about the cross linking and would use it with caution. If it looks spammy, it most likely is.

Look for separate UK incoming links direct to the UK site.

[EliteWeb]

The links would all be organic but would it be an issue if the main site linked the uk forums to the uk site, and the uk forum linked to the us site. or would it be best just making a brand new site for the uk and not do the linking except organically from country specific and other links rather than linking from the main site.