What is the best way for a UK company to source SEO Support to boost SERPS in USA Google?

[tomnivore]

We are a niche web retailer with a world leading product

and as such are probably the best option for USA customers (even though we are based in the UK)

up to 18 months ago google agreed and placed us high for USA searches and we had good business as a result

however since penguin (or around that time anyways) google increased our SERPS for more local markets (UK and EUROPE)

and decreased our ranks for USA with a consequent reduction in our USA sales

We want to improve rank again in USA (and Canada and Australia and Russia) but need specialist help

What's the best way to source that? (short of someone saying they know exactly how to do that)

ant recommendation most gratefully received

Tom

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Tom

Ideally, what you'll want to do (if you don't have this already) is create a version of your site for the US - specific content for different regions and not just the UK. I imagine you have a .co.uk for your website, is that a correct assumption?

You can also check your WMT to see where you are country targeting. Also, keep in mind if you do multiple sites or directories for different regions, you'll need to create WMT profiles for those sites/directories with country tagging, and you will have to look into hreflang tags, as well as language tags for Bing, if you keep content similar.

Lastly, I would look at the following resources:
International SEO (Moz)
The International SEO Checklist (Moz)

Those two resources can help guide you. You can also take a look at the Recommended Companies for help if you need a professional! Hope this all helps! Good luck!

[tomnivore]

Hi there

many thanks for that

we are at this moment looking for a WEB company/SEO to help us develop country specific versions of our site and this is what we want help to do

our current site uses the .com of our domain (we have the .co.uk version too available)
.

I will have a good rummage through this over the weekend many many thanks Recommended Companies

[gfiorelli1]

Not answering because I am one of the International SEO listed in the Recommended Companies :D, but for giving you few information about what to consider when thinking about going international:

1. As a premise... try to check out if your visibility loss in Google.com was due to Pigeon. That could explain better that your site lost organic traffic in the USA and not in the UK, because Penguin - on the contrary - would have meant a loss in every Google, UK included;
2. On the other hand, there could be the case that it's how Google is interpreting your website that can explain the USA loss. Even if you have a .com generic domain name, it may be that your link profile, your IP (British), your same use of the English language, and other "cultural" factor (currency? NAP?), may be telling Google that your real market is the British one more than the USA or Global one.
3. You have a .com domain name and (not used) a .co.uk one. Sincerely - but that should be confirmed by a deeper analysis - I would not suggest you to move the british site to the .co.uk and, at the same time, converting the .com to "American" or Global. Surely, that could be an option in the future, especially is the two markets have strong distinctive peculiarities, but in the beginning I would suggest you to opt for the subfolder solution (.com for UK and .com/en-us/ for the USA);
4. Remember localization. This can sound obvious, but it is usually overlooked. British English and American English have tiny differences, but Google sees them and looks at them.
5. Another thing... if you have a call center, try to have an American phone number (which you will eventually redirect to your main call center number). That is a classic geo-targeting signal, as well currency and, if exist a local office, the address;
6. Try to design a promotion strategy which target USA websites and influencers, so to start balancing the link profile and avoiding a dominance of backlinks from UK sites.
7. If you do Content Marketing, albeit creating content that is of common interest for both the UK and USA market, try also to create content that can answer to "american" needs. Again, Brits and Americans are different.

Ok... just that.

Ciao!

[gfiorelli1]

Hi Tom,

if you think your question had been answered, I kindly ask you to change the status of this Q&A to "Answered".

If it is not, please explain why you consider this question not answered.

Ciao