Over the past few months I’ve been working with a number of clients that are currently working on developing a website for an overseas market. There are many different options to achieve this with differing levels of success. The method that fits best for your business depends on budget and ease of managing.
Google have jus published a new blog post explaining the key aspects and reasons behind which route to go. You can read the Google article via this link.
Here’s a summary of the options:
- Localised Domain (ccTLD) – a local domain is automatically geo-targeted to the country of registration. Localised domains are.. .co.uk / .fr / .de etc.
- Non-Localised Domain (gTLD) – these domains have no geo-targeted area, unless you do this via Google Webmaster Tools. Example gTLD domains are .com / .org / .eu
According to the Google article and number of other sources, the best geo-located websites come from a localised domain with the website being hosted within the designated country. However this can prove difficult regards registration of the required domains due to restrictions on domain registration in certain countries and also the setting up of hosting accounts overseas.
An alternative that will give good results is to use geo-location within Webmasters Tools and register a gTLD. The use then of sub-domains or directory paths for international sites is the chosen route as carried out by Apple, with international sites being, UK – www.apple.com/uk and France – www.apple.com/fr. The article suggest and correctly that the use of sub-domains works but can easily cause issues with user understanding.
There are additional things to remember when creating a targeting International site for International search such as localised content crated in the users natural language and the inclusion of meta data to set language and location.
If your embarking on raising the profile of your company in International Markets the development of an International Site and SEO strategy is a must. I’ve seen companies attempt to carry out a directory structure strategy using localised domains, which will prove extremely difficult in the long term and probably never work.
