We all know the power of SEO, how useful and ubiquitous it is in online marketing. However, what people tend to forget is that most of our SEO efforts are rather general, in the sense that they mostly target the UK and America. Now, this isn’t that big of a deal – these countries have residents with strong purchasing power, people have money to burn, and money to burn often. However, sometimes, it can actually be effective to target a specific country. For this, you need country specific SEO.
Now, the reasons can vary. Often, it might be a matter of getting a good supply-demand ratio. Other times, you may simply have a product that should only be placed on a certain market. The point here is that you want to be specific, and you want to be efficient while doing it.
Choose the right domain name
Now, we all know how important SEO is for eCommerce business, but sometimes it’s the basic little things that matter. One of these is choosing the right domain name. Namely, top-level extensions, like com and org, usually help you rank much higher when it comes to global search engines. However, these are all well and good, but if you want to make the most out of your country-specific SEO traffic, you need to go with a country-specific domain.
So, if you want to rank higher in, let’s say India, you need to add .in as an extension. On the other hand, if you’re looking to rank with Australian users, you add a .au extension. You get the drill. It’s a very simple thing to do, but very effective. Of course, if you want to go global primarily, then yes, go with the .com extension. You might also make several versions of your website, each one catering to a different county and audience.
Your Web Hosting Server location matters
A big factor in geo-targeted traffic advancement is the location of your server. So, if you want to target the US, you want to use US servers. And if you want to target China, you go with Chinese servers.
You can also use CDNs to speed up your website for specific countries, but it’s still best to go with a specific server. The servers IP will lead to the website loading faster in the country that hosts it, which is recognized by Google’s search engine algorithms.
Use Backlinks
And speaking of algorithms, since the launch of Google Search, backlinks determined the popularity of the content you provided. And while much has changed since Google search was introduced, backlinks are still a very important factor in all your search engine optimization efforts.
Now, as far as what you are supposed to do here, try to be specific. Work towards getting backlinks that are based in the UK, if, in fact, your target audience can be found in that same very area.
If this is too much for you, delegating some of the work may help you. For example, transferring some of the work to a professional WordPress development agency, for example, while having your employees deal with the grunt work. Or, just hiring, part-time another company to help you with another area, all the while still keeping some of your energy to focus on things only you can do.
So, while some of the work has been delegated to one of your employees or to another company, you can focus on contacting bloggers, getting guest blogging opportunities, or even learning how to comment.
Local SEO and Search engines
Now, this may not be relevant to a generic blog. However, if you’re running a website that provides certain services and products, we suggest you try out local SEO. Namely, submit your company to Google My Business, create an account, and input all the information you have there properly. Using location-specific keywords will also give you great results. Instead of competing with the entire world, you only have to deal with local competitors.
Namely, general, standard SEO puts you at odds with the entire world. Let’s say you own a Sports equipment store. If you have everything set up in a general way, you will be competing with every store in the world. However, if you specify, for example, Sports equipment stores in Brisbane, then you only have to deal with a competitor in this area. This simple change can, in fact, push you forward, and make you rank higher, in this area, then a conglomerate with an almost unlimited budget.
Then, remember how important search engines are. Many countries have their own search engines, and if you submit your website to their engine and local directories, you will have much greater success at getting conversions.
Set up your content properly
Now, we all want to get conversions from content, that’s a given. But, if you’re targeting a specific country, your content needs to follow suit. So, the language, the content, the themes and topics you are covering, these all need to be in accordance with the culture of the country. Furthermore, you need to take this into account when it comes to keywords, meta titles, descriptions… So, place keywords in tags, your headings, titles, meta descriptions…, anyplace that can give you some good SEO results.
And remember that readability is always a factor when it comes to SEO. So, if you’re sticking to Chinese standards when it comes to your writing, you won’t really achieve much in America. And of course, keep the content smart, and of good quality.
Conclusion
And there you have it folks, the best ways you can set up country-specific SEO. Now, it will not be easy, but with a bit of elbow grease and some hard work, we’re pretty sure you can have it set up in no time. So, don’t forget about Google trends, and just how useful they can be for SEO of this nature. Take care of your content, don’t be satisfied with simple, hastily written articles. Take website hosting into consideration, and be picky about your domain name.