Is it necessary to choose local server?

[LeoWu]

Our business was in US and planed to start new business in UK.

From our research,  *****.co.uk domain get higher ranking in google.co.uk. So, we choose domain *****.co.uk.

We can set up target area in Google Webmaster tool.  Is it necessary to choose local server in UK?

Thank you in advance!

Leo

[Theo-NL]

It is not absolutely necessary to choose a local server in the UK. However, these servers will serve the content faster to visitors from the UK than servers from (for example) the USA will.

There was quite a good Whiteboard Friday on the subject on international SEO a couple of months ago, you might wanna check it out: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

[oznappies]

In webmaster tools in site configuration you can set prefered domain (if you have .co.uk and .com for the same site) and you can set the prefered local for the .com site and set locale to united kingdom. Since you will be keeping the US site and adding a new one for the uk, the .co.uk domain is automatically set to the uk and is not changable.

So, but choosing a .co.uk domain name Google does that setting for you. You should also set locale in your tage of the pages. That should make it clear to search engines that the site is designed to show to uk visitors.

[JoshGill27]

You may also want to consider using a hosting service with a Content Delivery Network (CDN). This simultaneously has your content on multiple servers in various locations close to your visitors. It then servers up the the site using the server closest to your visitor causing it to load faster. It is becoming more popular to provide users with a better experience.