Strategy international websites

[malcolmcroucher]

So I have decided to open a website in another country and have been researching SEO with regards to these countries.

I have the following questions :

www.domain.com ranks well for country x for keyword x
does not rank well for any other country

do I

get www.domain.ie for ireland
and optimise for keyword?

or do i optimise .com domain for ireland?

[Quadrille]

Local registration will help - but to get the full benefit, you'll also need to consider local hosting and (genuine) local content. Local suffix alone will help - but not always enough.

The down side is the risk of duplicate content issues (which may negate all domains bar one anyway), and the duplication of marketing etc that all these domains will require.

For local languages, it's not a problem - for one language, .com is the nearest you'll ever get to an 'international' domain, and for many, persevering with that will be the most efficient way forward.