Geo - Targeting in Webmaster Tools

[daracreative]

Hey guys,

I was hoping somebody might be able to help me?

If I create a French sub directory of a website example "brandname.eu/fr" and submit this in webmaster tools to target France will the French version of the website appear in the search results?

What other factors are necessary for this to work?

Note: The website ideally will not be hosted in France.

Cheers

Rob

[CyrilWilson]

1.By geotargeting you are providing Google an indication that /fr is targeted for french audience but this alone is not enough and you may still see Google.fr showing your .eu in SERP result.

What extra needs to be done?

1. Get some local listings for your subdirectory

2. If you have the exact version of the .eu site on /fr you may use   rel="alternate" hreflang="x"

This annotations help Google serve the correct language or regional URL to searchers.

3. You may also add this meta

4. Gain some backlinks from .fr sites for your /fr pages

5. Provide option to Internally navigate users to other languages through the language menu

6. Based on Geo I.P filter you may also display a lightbox saying something like : "Hey, we have a french version of our website, would you like to use it?

[daracreative]

Hi Cyril,

Thank you for your reply!

If I was able to purchase a French IP address with my hotsting provider for the french version of the website would that help increase its rankings or should what you have suggested be enough?

cheers,

Rob

[CyrilWilson]

Yes, you can go ahead with that as this will be an additional signal for search engine and also positively affect the speed at which site will be accessed by the users from the targeted country.