Multi-Language site

same domain or not

[charlie lurker]

I have a tourist site a .com domain in the dutch language which is ranking high for some important dutch keywords.
Now i want to target the american market

What to do
Do i build pages in the English language on same domain?
and what is the best way to do this SEO wise
or
Buy a NL domain and transfer all the Dutch pages to this
And write new content for the .com domain in the English language
The latter will hurt my rankings for sure

What about a sub domain in the English language

[bill]

If it's just the US market then you could look into a .us domain.

Swapping the .com to .nl might cause some slips in your rankings as you note.

Subdomains are a possibility as well, but I prefer the ccTLDs when possible for the local boost they provide.

[charlie lurker]

Thanks for the reply

I will start with a new .com domain for the English site.
I guess a link on the dutch site to the English .com site and vice versa wont harm my ranking.

[caveman]

Your current site is a .com, which tends to be neutral to positive in the U.S. The current .com is already established and ranking so the site is building trust.

Given that, I'd just start creating different language versions on the same domain. That will give you a strong leg up versus starting with an entirely new domain, which in today's environment will take a fair amount of time to rank.

The key will be in getting good U.S.-based links into the new part of the site targeting the U.S.

My 2 cents.

[incrediblehelp]

Why not build out a .nl website and 301 redirect the .com (Dutch pages) to the .nl website. At the same time start building our US pages on the .com website so those get indexed.