Using a .es cctld to be relevant to a South American consumer

[MakGer]

This post is deleted!

[MikeGracia]

Generally gTLDs allow you to set a target country in WMT (Okay, I'm old fashioned... Search Console), whereas ccTLDs don't. This tends to mean it's generally harder to target other countries with a ccTLD from another country. Not impossible, perhaps, but harder.

.es domains are Espana, of course - not Spanish language, Spain the country. Same with the others. When you use ccTLDs it's generally much harder to rank in other countries, regardless (to some extent) of the language. THAT SAID. I've personally seen several .es domains ranking in Google.mx (set to Mexico as the gl). In fact I just checked now and found a couple of .es domains ranking on page 2 for a moderately competitive term. They didn't have hreflang etc set either.

I'm more of a fan of a .com and subfolders (I'd pretty much always go with subfolders over subdomains) with geo-targeting in Search Console (you can target countries per subfolder) and hreflang, such as:

).

Also, as you mention marketing support, if you had a gTLD with subfolders, the juice would pass between the different country pages easier than with separate ccTLDs or even subdomains, meaning they'd stand a better chance of ranking without so much country-specific marketing spend, giving you an easier start in new markets due to internal links etc.

This is also partly just my own bias though, I fully appreciate that it sounds like you may have brand reasons for preferring separate ccTLDs.

I don't think there's a one-language fits all solution as it's not just about language, as with ccTLDs it is generally harder to rank in other countries (not impossible, but harder). As I say, though, I've seen evidence of es domains in google.mx.

As regards trying to target the countries but not being confident due to a lack of support in those countries yet... Tricky one! If there's not a huge time difference, if the language is the same for some markets, and being able to offer support is a concern, what about a web-based support solution, such as Intercom?

Personally, though, I'm a fan of starting as you mean to go on, or waiting until you're ready to launch fully. I'd be worried about going into a market and ranking there, if I didn't have the support to back up any queries, as it could hurt the brand. That said, I don't know your exact situation, so maybe you have a plan for this.