2nd site in a different country

multinational site/s

[novustek]

Ive been thinking about increasing my companies internet coverage especially in the US I feel that we do pretty well thoughout the UK (google.co.uk)and europe but were lacking traffic and SERP's from the US (google.com). I read a post here a while ago, There was some talk on the best ways to achive this with a US domain, hosted on US servers etc.

Unfortuantely for us the terminology used for products and sales is very different from the UK market so with the current site we miss a lot of US customers.

I was thinking a new site (different/altered content) with a US domian hosted on US server targeted at the american audience.

Would this be the right way to go about it?

[bill]

Sounds like you're thinking about it in the right way. If you're only concerned about Google, then they have alleviated a lot of the local hosting and ccTLD requirements via their Webmaster Tools. You can set the target country there. However, they only let you select one country per domain.

Ideally a local site will take a lot of local factors like language and culture into consideration. You'll probably sell more to a US market with a .com than you would with a .co.uk domain, that's for sure.

[novustek]

Thanks for the reply bill, looks like i have to go about setting up sites in italy, germany and france now.

[novustek]

Well the project, as i expected evolved into 3 and 4 more websites, the plan for "global domination" is sound but how do we keep content updated , translated and marketed correctly.

Does anyone have any experience in maintaining & marketing multiple language sites?

[Fortune Hunter]

Interesting topic, I was wondering about going the opposite way. I am in the U.S. and would like to set up a site in the U.K., Italy, Cyprus, or Greece. My hope, if it is possible, is that I can create ad revenue on these sites, but be paid in Euro instead of Dollars and have the money deposited into a bank account in that country.

I would like to travel to these places more and given how crappy the U.S. dollar is right now I thought being paid in the stronger currency and having it in a bank account for trips to Euro member countries would be a good idea.

Does the idea stated above work in reverse order?

[novustek]

I cant see why the process would be any different in reverse. The problem only really arises with setup, marketing and updating in non-English speaking countries (thats my big issue). Shouldnt be difficult to setup the uk site though.

I guess your problem would be setting the bank accounts up. Never done that before

[Fortune Hunter]

I guess your problem would be setting the bank accounts up. Never done that before

Me either, but the good news is that problems are just another place to look for some opportunity. I am confident I can find the information out if I need to. Isn't entrepreneurship a beautiful thing.

[vincevincevince]

Just don't forget to pay your taxes on that EU income!

[TowerOfPower]

I'm planning for the future and have a similar situation.

After reviewing some factors I have come to the conclusion that the best way to handle other countries is through languages and not through separate TLDs like .de, .fr, etc.

You want to reach your target through the language they speak, as that is the main factor... Set up you main domain under .com with language hosts, such as de.example.com [for the Dutch speaking], fr.example.com [for the French speaking], ko.example.com [Korean], jp.example.com [Japanese], etc.

Thought do register the top ones like co.uk and .de. I'm not really sure if any others are worth registering. And some like the .fr have restrictions which will not allow you in unless you are a citizen of the country or have a registered business there or can provide an address in the country.

This method gets you around many problems dealing with TLDs. And personally, I don't see any downsides here. For example, with Dutch, you reach customers in at least 5 major countries where the Dutch language is spoken by the majority. Vs. a Gremany based TLD.

[edited by: TowerOfPower at 5:16 pm (utc) on July 31, 2008]

[ksumit81]

I have been working for promoting business in different countries, same products in around 14 countries like france, italy, hongkong, India, Australia, and others,

lets go point to point.

1. The domain name of a site for an online business plays a vital role, for example if i am selling for Australia then the domain mysite.com.au is more relevant than mysite.com.

2. For language issues you need to have separate site for that domain of visitors, for example if you are selling to China or Honkong, you need to write your site in Chinese simplified or Chinese Traditional. a domain namelike mysite.hk will add value to this.

3. The next part is the promotion part, if you go for affiliate marketing and link building exercise (hoping you are a online business and surely go for it) lot of search engines and directories will only accept mysite.hk, or mysite.com.au and not approve .com domains.(i don't think you like missing them)

4. Segregating the things is necessary so that you can individually focus on each element and take reciprocal measures to cater the market.

5. the targeted url puts an impact that you are a local business and instills reliability, i have felt this largely in australia, Hk, italy and other countries.

for TowerOfPower

Adding sub domains does not create a major impact, i have experienced it in my case, go for individual domains, hosted on servers in respective countries and restrict your other domains in those countries.

[TowerOfPower]

Those are all good points which I'm going to print out and make a note of. Thought it would seem that this is geared more towards a decent sized business.

There are still the problems of restrictive ccTLDs. And there might be cases where it is wise to have a language specific host/sub-domain; where the language covers many countries that you just cannot deal with individually or directly.

I was thinking more towards a commercial website, operated by an entrepreneur or small business, that has language translations on it that a user can select; or perhaps that you can target in some ways.

[edited by: TowerOfPower at 1:06 pm (utc) on Aug. 5, 2008]

[TowerOfPower]

@ksumit81

I wonder what your thoughts are towards a small business that wants to target other countries, but can only do so through English.

Would you still recommend registering ccTLDs where the countries are composed of primary/secondary English speaking populations...

[en.wikipedia.org...]

For example, if I wanted to target Germany and registered the .de ccTLD, but only had my website copy in English, do you believe this would return non-marginal improvements in sales?

[TowerOfPower]

With ccTLDs there are also the problems of SERPs, duplicate content, promoting multiple sites, hosting on multiple country-specific servers, etc.

This is way overkill and too much complexity for a small business.

Though you could use the ccTLD as a landing page or just 301 redirect it to the .com gTLD.

It would seem to me that a ccTLD shold only be used when you have an actual presence in that specific country.

[edited by: TowerOfPower at 3:02 pm (utc) on Aug. 5, 2008]

[ksumit81]

Nice Thought Tower. I agree you.
When i hear someone trying to expand the business to 3 or more countries, the thought is you are not at the basic level, and if you are planning it for other countries you can do so, if i am putting a website in HK or italy i will go for the most common language used there. and as for as language is different lot of changes will be there so no chance of duplicate content.

The idea here is to expand and segment the things in the beginning, i don't think i will start a business for a limited time period and i expect a growth also. So if i do not segment it in startup the things will mess up and get complex in long run. You have to analyze lot of cultural, language related and other problems which may be difficult to manage.

For example in India if you sell mobile products online, you need not to have partnership with service providers. But if it is Australia you have to see for a potential service provider so that you can offer you products on 2 year contract etc. do you think it is easy to sell in both countries through one website and if in those countries you have to look like a local marketer to establish in the market.

Its all what i personally feel, hope it is helpful, as i am in my 24th year maybe i lack much of the experience part. But these things made a huge difference in sales volume when i applied it for our business.

[Jack_Hughes]

We've got a uk site & sites with local tld throughout europe. Unless you get the sites translated locally I think you may be disappointed. it may be a webmaster fantasy to just take a .com site and dump on a load of tlds throughout europe but, from a ranking perspective, it won't work too well. google will view it as dupe and will not rank the dupes in the local serps. if you translate into the local language it isn't a dupe anymore and is then ranked normally. though you will now need to find links into each site if the sites are to have any chance of actually ranking. but, now you have translated into local languages you had better either have local representatives or have people who can speak each of the local languages for you. otherwise you'll be wasting your leads. :) it will very quickly feel like you are running a very complex business, not always for much money because a lot of european countries aren't actually very big outside of UK, france & germany.

[idolw]

many tlds - many sites, many eggs, safer business.
many language on one tld - if site goes down business goes down.

[ksumit81]

Nice Jack and more better Idolw....

But Idolw do you think someone will let the site down where that much of dependency lies.

Jack... I do not think that anybody will expand his business without a representative in other country where language is different.

I always recommend if the country is different, language is different, go for the site with the respective domain with the respective language.

The thing is either go for a full fledged approach or be ready to leave a large number of local customers... but then never think to be a established business in that country.

[Jack_Hughes]

@ksumit80

Jack... I do not think that anybody will expand his business without a representative in other country where language is different.

I see that quite a lot unfortunately. You may get away with it if the site is in English, but if it is translated into the local language then you've sent the signal that you can deal in their language.

[vetofunk]

I have a site that is an authority site in it's niche target market. They are pretty much #1 for more than a couple dozen of their main terms. They are an international company and want to start going after mainly Mexico, but some other Central and South American countries as well.

I am wondering if we should create a whole new domain or do something like es.site.com with the cirrent domain. Thoughts? What is best from an SEO standpoint?

Thanks!

[bleached]

Some people have been mentioning how to set up bank accountants in Europe. Myself, originally from the UK have found it extremely difficult to open accounts in different Countries within the Euro Zone.

Now living in Spain the only way to have a Spanish bank account is by having residence in this Country... So imagine the problems if wanting an account in every Country you hope to trade in. My best suggestion is to have a online payment system that does it all for you. Payment collection, currency conversion direct into your home country Bank Account (Itīs worth the commissions)

Another thing to mention, Bank charges in other Countries as well as interest rates can be to your disadvantage.