Forum Moderators: open
Method-I
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Do I promote my .com domain example.com for targeting UK, NZ, and SA by example.com/UK/web-development, example.com/New-Zealand/web-development..?
Or
Method-II
uk.example.com/web-development, new-zealand.example.com/web-development,..?
Or
Method-III
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example.co.uk, example.co.nz , and example.za for promotion?
I am bit confused about applying any of above methods because the problem is with contents. If I promote my site with Method-I or any of above then I have to write unique contents for each sub folder web pages or sub domains. Like for example.com/UK/web-development and I have to write content that includes keywords searched in UK for web development. Same for other countries. If I go for sub domain or separate .co.uk, .co.nz, or .co.za domains can I use same content that I have used for .com (example.com) domain? Also Do I need to host each domain to their geo targeted country? example.co.uk to UK, example.co.nz to New Zealand web server? Or on the same server (in US) where .com site example.com is hosted.
Another thing is if I target my website for Spain with method-I (example.com/spain/web-development) then I have to write content in Spanish language. Does my content on example.com/web-development will work for targeting Spain if I convert my English language pages to Spanish language?
I think if I go for example.com/New-Zealand/ then I can select New Zealand as geo targeted region in GWT. Does that way work for targeting my site to New Zealand? As the keywords are of very high competitions related to web development, web design, ecommerce application development, Microsoft .Net, Java, PHP, etc.
Please suggest me which method will work for me and what are the pros and cons of each method? Or any other method you suggest to promoting site to different countries.
Waiting for your kind reply. Thank you very much in advance for taking your precious time for my questions.
[edited by: makemetop at 3:14 pm (utc) on Dec. 17, 2009]
[edit reason] Delinked URLs and changed to "example". [/edit]
a) Use a local domain - .co.uk, .fr, .za etc.
b) Host locally.
c) Create unique content for each site.
d) Get links from the local area to your local site.
Now can you do the other things you suggested. Absolutely, they are all better than doing nothing to differentiate between countries but they are all, in my opinion, second best methods to doing the above (although the country sub-domain like uk.example.com etc is better than trying to do something at directory level off the main domain).
However, let me give you an example of a site that had a .co.uk domain and where the hosting company started by locating the site in the US, moved to the UK and then to Germany.
For a reasonably competitive term aimed at a UK audience, it got into the lower top 10 and stayed there for a couple of years when the site was hosted in the US, went up to the top 3 as soon as hosting moved to the UK and down to the lower top 10 when it went to Germany. Co-incidence? Maybe, but I've seen this happen to too many sites to just ignore a trend that has been repeated many times.
So, that is my recommendation - but, of course, it is the most expensive and difficult to set up. However in a competitive market gives you, I think, the best chance.
[edited by: makemetop at 4:03 pm (utc) on Dec. 18, 2009]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]
Usually the sentence structure is very bad, meaningless to the users and - sometimes just completely wrong.
So, the only way to do it properly is have it translated by a native speaker of that particular country.
Otherwise, you would be better off using English but designing the copy for that particular market.
For individual sites, you do really need individual copy, if possible.
