Would other TLDs (Top Level Domains) be helpful?

[AlanMosley]

This is a hard one, going local is always better, global is hard, but haveing duplicate content is not going to help, if you use a 301 or canoical tags only one site is going to rank.

I would think that duplicate content in anther lingo is usefull and should not be a problem, but in english it would.

Maybe a site for each lingo, not country

[Eladla]

For languages other than English, I would opt for a local domain, and I agree that it should not be a problem. As for TLDs for English speaking countries, I would still like to have a local TLD. I was thinking of maybe making a local landing page for the TLD, which gives some country specific content, and links to the .com site for further information and registration. Any thoughts on that?

[AlanMosley]

That will get you around the duplicate content problem, but how about seo for so many sites, are you in a commpeditive industry?

[Eladla]

It's a moderately competitive industry, but most sites are global and don't make any local effort. On-Page SEO is very powerful even for the global site. I'm guessing the local site will have even more weight put in the on-page factors. The questions is, will having a .com.au site give me an advantage with searches on google.com.au, for example.

[RobertFisher]

As to the English translation to French, Japanese, Spanish, etc. this does not count as duplicate content in the eyes of google. From Google webmaster blog:

What isn't duplicate content?
Though we do offer a handy translation utility, our algorithms won't view the same article written in English and Spanish as duplicate content. Similarly, you shouldn't worry about occasional snippets (quotes and otherwise) being flagged as duplicate content.

So, in my opinion you are going the right direction. The question about having a different TLD for each English speaking country assuming the content is different, I would think that it would depend on the benefit you derive from localization beyond having Places locations should you include bricks and mortar sites in your business model. If the cost in time and money is such that it is very small, then it probably helps to localize the TLD. (If not from an SEO perspective, potentially from a customer acquisition perspective.) My opinion is that if I have a site that is .AU and another that is .com and appears to be U.S., I am more likely to buy from the one where I live. So, for me, the US site is preferable as a consumer.

Without weighing the costs involved, I do not think you can make a determination of value for the other country specific TLD's.

[Eladla]

Thank you for the detailed reply!

We are an Internet only business. We will not be taking advantage of Places and localized listings, etc.

I agree with your customer acquisition perspective, given a choice, I would opt to first visit a local site.

In terms of cost, it will be negligible. The cost of these domains is less than 10$/yr. and all our English content is done in-house, so it's bought and paid for anyway.

But still, would localized landing pages, with just several pages (or maybe even just one) of content and links to the main site hurt the main site in any way or render the localized domain useless?

I'm currently leaning towards giving it a try, I just don't want to end up shooting myself in the foot.

[RobertFisher]

As with any landing pages, you should always be testing. So, test the localized pages. Create a landing page that is .com.au and test it against a .com (both identical in every other way) and see how each converts. 
With your snippet showing .com.au versus .com, you could likely test the does the .au improve your chances with Google.com.au

You can PM me when you have results as I would be very interested in them.

[AlanMosley]

Yes it will, but when you have so many sites, how to get the links.
Getting quality links is hard.

What is best, getting 100 quality links each for 5 sites, or 500 qualitty links for 1 site, i think the latter.

so we have a trade off, more links, or the benifit of local?

Toss a coin

[Eladla]

Oh... but the proverbial rabit hole goes even deeper 

If I have local sites, with better local search results, I have more local linking opertunities. Since these landing pages will be linking to the main .com site, this will also be giving some link juice to the main site. So these links not only boost the local results, but also boost .com site, no?

[AlanMosley]

Yes but still not as good as promoting the one site.
You seem to like the local idea, so go with that, if at some stage you think its the wrong stratigy, you can always stop promoting all, and concentrate on the .com only