Website language vs country language / target-group language

[bgst]

This is my first post in here so hi all!

I want to create a website that targets mostly danes (95%) but also tourist (I live en Denmark). The danish target group speaks english very well so it makes sense to do the site in english. Actually, I think it would be better branding wise to do it in english.

But wouldn't it be a disaster in terms of SEO? Because even though the danes reads english they wouldn't search in english for this type of content.

I'm thinking to do the site in danish just because of SEO.

Any advise?

Thanks
Benjamin

[Robert Charlton]

Benjamin, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

Offhand, I would think that the language of the likely searches by your target audience would be the most important consideration. It doesn't matter what their reading ability is... it's what they'd search in.

Google doesn't search for translations of its search terms... it searches for the language used by the searcher.

Complete conjecture... I can imagine a future possibility where Google might very occasionally treat some very common translated words as synonyms... but, should this happen (and I'm only guessing that it might), it would be only in rare cases, where there's very common usage of the translated word. Possibly this might evolve via query modification by Hummingbird. I assume that, all other things being equal, an actual match would generally win over a synonym.

I'd stick to the searchers' language.

[bgst]

Thanks, I guess I have to make it in Danish. Or maybe both.

What about the domain name? I have googled this quite a bit and my conclusion is that it doesn't really matter anymore. Should I have any SEO considerations in choosing the domain name?

[JD_Toims]

Should I have any SEO considerations in choosing the domain name?

I'd go with exact match for a specific phrase [or limited phrases], otherwise, I'd go with brandable.

eg re brandable:

Amazon == Not about the river.
Kayak == Not about boats.
Apple == Not about fruit.

People tend to remember them and what they offer though, so even though "the domain doesn't match" the product, they're memorable.

[bgst]

I'm still confused about the importance of the domain. Does the domain name have any significant effect on the Google ranking?

Thanks again!

[netmeg]

Not directly. Indirectly it might affect how easily people remember it and associate it with your offering - people who are doing searches are usually more likely to click on something they recognize, and that should work to your benefit. But any boost from Google purely on the domain name language would be too small to notice (if it even exists - which I doubt)

[bgst]

Thanks a lot everyone. You have helped me a lot.

[EditorialGuy]

I'm still confused about the importance of the domain. Does the domain name have any significant effect on the Google ranking?

If it's a location-based domain name, yes. (E.g., widgetville-whatever.com.)

[netmeg]

I thought he was asking about the language of the domain.

[bgst]

Actually I was asking about the language, but are you saying that if I my domain contain the name of a city or a country, it will have a significant effect, whereas the rest of the domain isn't important?

[lucy24]

This may be less of an issue with Danish than with really major European languages (German, French, Spanish) ... but you'll find some users have explicitly set their computers to English purely to avoid dreadful auto-translated sites. Meaning that they really are comfortable doing their online stuff in English, and in fact expect it. So unless your content is very resident-oriented ("Best place to buy family-style widgets in Roskilde") it may not do that much harm to start out in English.

I say "start out" because once you're established you can always offer pages in both languages. Right? :)