A UK/USA dilemma and Adsense traffic!

Target UK or USA?

[Member02]

A site needs traffic and adsense thrives on traffic, right!

I’m from UK, my widget idea can be adapted for both UK and US visitors and the the widget is popular in both countries equally, but I can’t target both country at the same time right now. It’s too complicated to even explain. It’s too much work for now, maybe in the future, but for now I can only target one country.

My question is, which country should I target, UK or USA?

The way I see it is:

- USA has a much bigger population logged on to the net, meaning more chance of people searching my widget, meaning more traffic?

- But, I’m British so I can give the widget a British touch and flavour, meaning more traffic?

I understand traffic is not based on those two factors alone, but given the choice out of the two which county should I target?

I’d appreciate any advice and love to hear your experiences if you were ever faced with a similar dilemma.

Thanks.

[edited by: Member02 at 4:26 pm (utc) on July 23, 2006]

[Khensu]

my_widgets.com

my_widgets.com.uk

Start which ever one will give you the best conversion/success rate. If you think you can influence the UK audience more and get a higher CTR over the volume of the States then that's your course. If the sheer numbers will do it play to the masses of the US.

10,000 page views with 500 clicks is better than

30,000 page views with 500 clicks

It all depends on what you are pushing.

[OptiRex]

but I can’t target both country at the same time right now.

I'm not sure how as a publisher you can even target one market for AdSense since this is the www. An Advertiser can, but a publisher?

It so happens I have a UK friend whose site's earnings seem to be 90% UK/European, even though he has US participants, however it was never developed that way.

Apart from a big index page saying "UK Visitors Only", I assume one would have to geo-target by browser location and throw up a different page for non-UK visitors?

[david_uk]

There are scripts available to geo target pages. As long as you can run .php, technically it's not a big issue.

My site gets a majority of US visitors, but I live in the UK. As regards advertising, Google selects the appropriate ads for the region, so there is only the content to worry about. My site is an information site, and my choice is to try to cater for everybody, and be "Midlantic" with the content. But if you are trying to sell something, and you need to pitch it to a specific market you may weel find that the US is a bigger marketplace, so that's where you should probably consider targeting to if you have to choose at all. I'd be inclined to make the page as appropriate for both regions as you can, and then let Google select and show the appropriate regional ads.

[Member02]

David, I am actually writing about a particular widget and promoting it in a way to sell it to the visitors. So you are right, it won’t be just adsense alone.

But the way the widget is, I have to only choose one direction, either UK or USA.

So you do believe I should choose USA since there is also a sell involved, and not just adsense alone?

Comments from everybody else are also very appreciated.

[OptiRex]

So you do believe I should choose USA since there is also a sell involved, and not just adsense alone?

What I do not understand is why, as a publisher, you are concerned from where your AdSense earnings are derived?

Forgive the analogy however you are turning MFA on its head and saying "I only want clicks from valid visitors" whereas they want clicks from all and sundry.

Am I missing something here?

Do you want to earn money from the advertising on your pages or not ought to be your "quandry"?

[jomaxx]

I think you need to return to the drawing board and figure who is going to use your site and how exactly they're going to find it. Just because your site is "about" British-style widgets doesn't mean that only Britishers will find it in the search engines.

I really don't think anyone can advise you on what market to cover, especially since we're limited to discussing "widgets". But what you need to do is figure out what your strategy is, how you will add value to what's already out there. Do a broad sweep of potential competitors and websites who do what you do in other niches.

Probably after suffient research the solution will become obvious. (Hint to get you started: You'll be publishing your site on the World Wide Web.)

[david_uk]

Your post rather implies (to me at any rate) that the page will be the "about" part, and the item is of equal interest to several markets, and the ads will be served by Google.

To clarify my eariler post, the article can be written in such a way that you include ALL English speaking markets - you don't need to tailor the page to be absolutely specific to one market. Google will serve ads for the local area.

Now if you are talking about where you should promote your page, that's a completely separate question! If you are thinking about using adwords to promote the page, then promote to all markets you think will buy the product. You might get better advice on that aspect from the adwords forum.

[webdudek]

The way I see it, you should think BIG and target both markets.
You already have traffic, why waste it? The American market is huge, and so does the UK.
Let's say that you are selling an electric device and there is a 220v version for Europe and 110v version for the US.
Why won't you use a script like David suggested, to determine the origin of the user and accordingly display the relevant info?
The majority of your site can stay the same, just the specific place that shows the different facts should be changed according to the source.

[DavidDeprice]

I've got the only correct answer. TEST, TEST, TEST. No one really knows what's better US or UK, but if you TEST, you'll find out. And don't forget that either or is never a complete choice. None and both are viable options as well.