Different Countries, Same Site

[marcelo-275398]

Hi All,

I have recently been given the task of working on a website that sells products in the UK and America, at the moment the site does very well in the UK but does not perform very well in America which I believe is partly down to colloquialisms and difference in language.

At the minute the site is a .com and is hosted in the United Kingdom,

Does anyone have any useful tips on how to have 2 different versions of the site targeting different locations but using very similar language (Probably would be considered duplicate)

Thanks in advance,

[RyanKent]

Does anyone have any useful tips on how to have 2 different versions of the site targeting different locations but using very similar language (Probably would be considered duplicate)

I would suggest the following approach:

• use mysite.com/us for the USA site and mysite.com/uk for the UK site. You can change the 2 letter designation as you deem appropriate. You could also choose to leave the uk site without a folder and use the /us folder for the United States. It's up to you to determine which method would communicate the options most clearly to your users.

• use flags at the top of the page to help users understand their option. An American flag for the US site, a British flag for the UK site, etc.

• use the language meta tags to differentiate your site's pages: EN-US, EN-GB

• be sure each version uses the correct monetary versions and measurements

• be sure each version uses the correct language. There is actually quite a bit of difference between the languages and readers from the US who have not previously read a UK site will often not understand the verbiage. A simple statement like "the prices are much dearer" is not understood by most Americans.

• use appropriate cultural references on each site. There are sayings and references commonly used in daily conversations which are different between each country, along with different laws. Be mindful of these differences.

• Use Google and Bing WMT to designate each section of your website as being specific for each country

• Use geo-targeting so users from each country automatically land on their country's page. Keep in mind occasionally you will have a UK user who wants to access the US site and vice-versa so I only advise geo-targeting for the initial visit and not forced throughout the entire visit.

• hosting in the UK is fine but consider a CDN or similar service which can serve images, videos and other content up faster to your visitors.

By using the above methods, your content would not be considered duplicate. Search engines understand the same content is being customized for each locale and will present results accordingly.