Multinational SEO

[DannyCarter]

Hi all

The situation:

We have a .com website that is the core of our business over the last 3 years we have built this into a very sucessful brand. Customers are able to purchase products from our website and have it delivered anywhere in the world.

As part of the development of our business we want to obviously rank high within serps regardless of what country our potential customer is from.

We understand that we will need to translate much of our website to achieve this and that is something that we have in the pipeline.

My question is more aimed at the English speaking countries and how we should optimise our website for these.

For example:

websitename.com.au and websitename.co.uk were initialy setup as 301 redirects to websitename.com, however, we have now set them up as their own domains which display the exact same content as the .com website.

So to clarify the content on websitename.com/product1.html is also on websitename.com.au/product1.html and websitename.co.uk/product1.html

What would the best way to ensure that our .com.au and .co.uk gain traction within the appropriate country?

Is duplicate content still an issue?

All our prices are displayed in USD will this go againts?

We use US English (with a sprinkle of chinglish) as our websites copy languange should we change spelling for AU and UK?

Does anyone have any case studies and or other reports I can read that may help me find the right solution for us.

Thanks

Danny

[Guest]

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[ZephSnapp]

First off, I agree with the advice that Charles has given you.  Keep them all on the same domain!  It means that your DA will help the authority of your pages aimed at other countries.  Now, let me address your other questions:

1. Yes, duplicate content is still an issue.  You can solve it using the rel=hreflang tag.  This will tell Google for what country the content is meant.  For instructions on how to apply it, check this post: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232347/A-Simple-Guide-to-Using-relalternate-hreflangx

2. Pricing your products locally can be helpful, in establishing your commitment to that market.  I just read this article that could be helpful when thinking about that strategy: http://searchengineland.com/how-international-pricing-strategy-website-forms-impact-global-search-marketing-147265

3. If at all possible, localizing the way things are written will also show your commitment.  We work exclusively on Spanish language projects, and I can tell you that we have to localize quite a bit depending on the market we are going after.

Let me know if you need any more help, I'll be glad to point you in the right direction if I can.