International SEO - differentiating Meta data

[HiddenPeak]

Hi,

We are developing a website for a company based in the US, but that also distributes to the UK.

After careful thought, we decided to go with adding subdirectories for the UK pages on the site rather than creating content on a new ccTLD (though they own that domain).

1. How much of the Title Tags, H1, content, needs to be different for UK versions of the same page. Is it enough to simply Geo tag the EN subdirectory in Webmaster Tools?

Or do the Title tags and content need to be different in order to avoid keyword cannibalization?

2. Would it be better to create a Landing Page using the ccTLD .co.uk version with information that links to the .com/en version? This would allow the users to see the .co.uk version for trust-building purposes.

Or, would it just be better to 301 redirect the .co.uk version to the .com/en?

Thanks for your help!

Erin

[TommyTan]

Hi Erin,

1. I believe using the Geo Tag and the ref="lang" tag for the subdirectory will be enough to tell Google that it is a page that targets people in UK.  I believe that will avoid having duplicate content or keyword cannibalization even if it is the same.  However, since you are targeting UK, the spelling may be different or the terms may be used differently.  So keep that in mind and see if you can change the Title tag, H1 anc content a bit.  For example, in US, we spell Optimization and in UK I believe they spell it Optimisation.  Both have the same meaning but spelled differently in different locations.

2) I have asked a similar question before and the answer I got is that purchasing the UK ccTLD and then redirecting it to your .com page will have no benefits.  The ccTLD won't rank in Google.uk.  Mind as well just optimize the UK subdirectory and have it appear in the UK search engine.

Hope this helps Erin!

[HiddenPeak]

Tommy,

Thank you for the input! I really appreciate it.

Best,

Erin