Multi region stores, one domain

[WonkyDog]

hi all

Wondering if I could get some options on the pros and cons of using one domain for two stores targeting different regions. My website is a fashion retailer, targted at the female market. In addition to the stores the site has a number of blogs, articles etc on. At present we have a co.uk domain and a .com which targets the US market.

The trouble with this split approach is having seo two sites at once, in addition to adding content to two sites etc. we are considering combining the stores into one domain and the having the U.S. Shop at /us and UK store at /UK - in wmt we will specifiy the directories as targeted to a specific location, the hotel language etc will be showing UK and U.S. English to further help geo targeting.

we are thinking that, in theory, managing just one site will mean it's easier to build the authority and brand name. Pretty much all of the blog and article content is non region specific so it is relevant to both markets, it will also reduce the need to generate unique content for two sites at once.

Is there any major downside to merging the sites like this. At present the UK site is da 4 and U.S. site da 0 - they are both pretty new and one of the problems we have at the moment is building up two sites at once.

i welcome any opinions.

thanks. Carl

[katemorris]

Hi Carl,

You just pointed out one of the reasons I don't always like having a .co.uk and a .com. It really does depend on each business. I'll do the pros and cons for you and hope that helps. Both ways will work, it's going to come down to your preferences. And don't go by how many there are, just look for what matters to you.

Pros of One Domain:

• You can geo-target subdirectories (domain.com/uk) and have specific product pages for that content that needs to be different but share the overlapping content like About, Blog, and other material that doesn't change.
• Domain authority condenses and gets stronger overall over time. All of your marketing is to one site rather than two. This is paired with the Pro before are why I'd go down this route if I were you.
• Don't have to rewrite all content like the blogs and articles if they don't need it.
• Expansions to other countries later would rank faster since they would be a part of the main domain rather than a brand new one (ccTLD) every time.

Cons of One Domain:

• Regional differences (personalized vs personalised) cannot be accounted for in all site content. This might not be a problem for your audience though. You'll still need to maintain and write region specific content sometimes, but not as much as the other way.
• Users outside the US or UK could land on either product versions depending on a number of issues. Again, this might not matter to you. You might not want that traffic.
• It'll take some time to get the targeting right, be prepared for the change over and seeing US/UK content ranking over the other sometimes. It happens, but the search engines get it right about 80-90% of the time in the wild.

Pros of Two Domains

• Can target content, all content on the users in that area. Only useful if that is needed.
• ccTLDs are the strongest country specific marker. It is not make or break though.

Cons of Two Domains

• Maintaining two sites, two domain names, two sets of content. Cost and time factors.
• Marketing needs to be done separately for each site.

[WonkyDog]

Kate, many thanks for the very detailed response. Many thoughts in there seem to agree with my thinking, so that's good. We have decided to push ahead with the merging of sites. You raise a very valid point of the 'wrong' people landing on the wrong product pages. This is an issue we face now. Even though the site is a .co.uk domain, at least 40% of the traffic coming to it is from the US.  We will be investing in a geo redirect plugin which will take people to their local list of products when they click through from the serps.

Again. many thanks for your advice.

Carl.

[katemorris]

Make sure it isn't an IP based forced redirect. Google only crawls with a US IP address (which would cause indexation problems) and any automatic redirect could make some customers mad. As an American in the UK for the last 10 days, I can promise this is true.

[WonkyDog]

Good point, thanks. Will choose a geo prompt instead, similar to what Amazon use. Will advise the user that there is a store for their location and offering a link to click.