Country-specific SEO

[lokito]

Hi, my client offers courses that whilst based in Manchester, England are mainly attended by people in countries such as Georgia, Libya and Nigeria etc. The people that attend the courses are fluent in English. We're looking at performing country-specific SEO and I have a few queries.

The plan so far:

• Obtain TLD's in each target country.

• These TLD's would be hosted on the same server as the core site based in England.

• Option 1: Each TLD would be a microsite with content specific to the country including geo-signals, in English.

• Option 2: Each TLD would 301 redirect to the core site, i.e. example.sa redirects to example.com/sa/ and this country-specific section would have relevant geo-signals.

So I have 3 questions at this point:

1. Most-all of the tips I have seen about country-specific SEO assume that the content should be translated to the native tongue although in this case, the audience are fluent English speaks. Does this make a difference? Is it okay to use English and still be able to rank in country-specific search engines?

2. Between options 1 & option 2 - which would be the optimum setup?

3. Last question, if we obtain the TLD's I hear that it's not necessary to also host that TLD in the target country, is this right?

Thanks.

[TommyTan]

Hi,

1. I believe if you  have the ccTLD for that specific country and change everything associate to that country such as dollar signs with the href=language tag, it should be ok.  It should signal to search engines that it is a website targeting that specific country and the site should only show in that country's search engine.

2. I would choose option 1.  Create content or change up content targeting that specific country's needs.  I thought about using option 2 in the past and asked a similar quesiton to option 2 and the answer I got is that doing option has no benefit in SEO.

3. Yes, it is not necessary to host the TLD in the target country; however, it has more benefit in doing so.  Although Google don't weight it heavily and not much of an important factor, but it does play a part in giving a signal to Google that the site is targeting that country since it is hosted there.  Furthermore, the load time will also be faster which is a better user experience.  It is not major important but good to do so.

Hope this helps.

[lokito]

Thanks Tommy.

That's a shame about Option 1 - that would be the preferred approach in order to consolidate the content into the same content management system for ease of house-keeping.

So with regards geo-signals - you think it's sufficient to use language tag / currency pre-fix etc or is the physical postal address a big influencer also?

[TommyTan]

Having the ccTLD should be good enough to signal Google that your site is targeting that country.  However, the lang tag and currency pre-fix do give Google more information.  If you have a physical address in that location, definitely include it.  If not, I am not sure how much of a factor it will play.  Usually the ccTLD should tell Google about your targeting location.