International SEO Query
-
Hi All,
I have an international SEO question and was wondering if you could help.
My client runs a website in the UK (www.example.co.uk). The site is ranked well for it's collection of keywords, my client now wishes to target the US market.
He wishes to use the same web structure and design in new site www.example.com as we know this converts well.
My questions are:
What would be the best practice for setting this up? I know there will be duplicate content issues if a website is duplicated.
If we use the same design and website structure but re-word content, would this be acceptable?
Thank you for all your help in advance.
-
As Maurice wrote,
I urge to remember that American English is different from British English, therefore it would be useful to revisit the content in order to make it fit to how English is spoken/written in the USA. That would have an impact in how Americans perceive the site, for localization and, obviously, for SEO geo-targeting.
Then, yes, use the hreflang annotations in order to clearly suggest to Google what version must be shown to whom, geo-target the USA site on Google Search Console (and do not forget to do the same in Bing).
Regarding what to choose between a new domain name, subfolder or subdomain for the USA website, that choice must be taken considering not only SEO factors.
- For instance, if your UK website is already receiving interesting volume of traffic, when you can reasonably think to go for an independent domain name (it should be a generic, because in the USA the ccTld .us is not even considered "american"), so that you could create also a very geo-targeted experience for the USA audience.
- If you have traffic, but not in great proportions, and if your website is not an ecommerce or one with a very complex and big URL structure and database, then you can think opting for the subfolder option.
- On the contrary, if your traffic from the USA is not big already and the site architecture is complex and the database very big, then it would be better going for the subdomain option.
In the last 2 cases, though, the ideal would be to finally migrate the USA site to an independent domain name once the visibility in the USA, both in terms of Search and Brand recognition, has reached sustainable levels.
Finally, remember that the .com is much harder than the .co.uk, so be prepared to struggle more than you have done until now for earning in the USA the same results you earned in UK.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ecommerce Product Page Optimization & International SEO
Hello, I'm working on our website SEO optimization. We have a thousands of products pages with different structures for the languages (arg) and very depth folder path .com/[folder]/[folder]/[folder]/product1.hmtl So now I have the happiness of working on the optimization of the website with themajor risk of impacting all current ranking. But anyway, here are a few questions I have on the way. Part 1 - International URL Our websites target people per country and languages. We do not have shops per countries (not enough resources_) but we try to get at least website per languages. What could be the best option?_ Url Parameters +hreflang So we save one folder less and the proper setup. But I'm just scared it's gonna be too messy for Google URL:.com/product1**?lang=fr** Product page:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Language folder + hreflang one folder more but clearer structure URL:.com**/fr/**product1 **Product **page:****link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href=".com/product1" / Part 2 - Product URL Our website is structure per categories so the product comes after. However, I've seen a lot of websites recently removing the categories to save folders space. What should be the most efficient option? Category folder It's obviously a good practice but this + the language folder makes already 2 folders URL:.com/categoryA/product1-{targetedKW} {targetedKW} = cheap product, best price or else All in url I've never done it but it somehow makes sense URL:.com/categoryA-product1-{targetedKW} Part 3 - Keyword stuffing As I'd like to get most of it automatically done, what could be the best places to add a few KW. **Markups:**All the ones we can **Meta Descriptions:**optimize one for Google + one for twitter + one for facebook Longer to do but then from google shopping and other automatic links, we could have the perfect or, at least, best description possible **All other option:**Reuse our product name + {targetter KW1 KW2 ...} Product description_ex: content_ Buttons (click to buy)ex: button title="Buy product_name cheap" alt="Purchase product_name"Buy Product name/button Images:same than above Meta:Titles and meta description Hn
International SEO | | omnyex0 -
International SEO & Duplicate Content: ccTLD, hreflang, and relcanonical tags
Hi Everyone, I have a client that has two sites (example.com & example.co.uk) each have the same English content, but no hreflang or rel="canonical" tags in place. Would this be interpreted as duplicate content? They haven't changed the copy to speak to specific regions, but have tried targeting the UK with a ccTLD. I've taken a look at some other comparable question on MOZ like this post - > https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/international-hreflang-will-this-handle-duplicate-content where one of the answers says **"If no translation is happening within a geo-targeted site, HREFLANG is not necessary." **If hreflang tags are not necessary, then would I need rel="canonical" to avoid duplicate content? Thanks for taking the time to help a fellow SEO out.
International SEO | | ccox10 -
Google Analytics Search Console for International Countries
Hi Moz Community, Our e-commerce site is trying to gauge the opportunity of certain queries for specific countries. I'm trying to use the search console data presented in GA to do this. I'm looking at the top queries filtered by each country and also the top landing pages for each country as well. The non filtered data for queries and landing pages is completely different than by country and some if it looks wrong. For instance, our most popular query by impressions shows 0 query impressions in the US once filtered by country. Our site is based in the US so this doesn't make any sense, the same is true for landing pages. Is the queries and landing page data in GA under search console a combination of all countries? Since our target is set to the USA in search console is this data technically US based? How is this data so off? Thanks for answering!
International SEO | | znotes0 -
Best International Rank Checker?
Anyone have a recommendation for the best international ranking tool. I'm looking to gather accurate ranking trends and am looking for a service that will return rankings in as many localized countries as possible.
International SEO | | marcbn0 -
International Link Building Vendors
I'm working with a large enterprise site with many international domains. I have most of the markets covered but am having trouble identifying link building specialists/vendors in APAC - specifically Japan and Korea. Any recommendations from the community? Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
Local Strategies For International Business
A client of mine is in a field that Google (correctly) recognizes as international, and does get traffic and leads for this but they are bound by sales covenants to sell only in regional geographic territories in their country, Other than PPC is there a strategy I can use to increase regional traffic? As mentioned, Google does not recognize this business as local.
International SEO | | waynekolenchuk0 -
If I redirect based on IP will Google still crawl my international sites if I implement Hreflang
We are setting up several international sites. Ideally, we wouldn't set up any redirects, but if we have to (for merchandising reasons etc) I'd like to assess what the next best option would be. A secondary option could be that we implement the redirects based on IP. However, Google then wouldn't be able to access the content for all the international sites (we're setting up 6 in total) and would only index the .com site. I'm wondering whether the Hreflang annotations would still allow Google to find the International sites? If not, that's a lot of content we are not fully benefiting from. Another option could be that we treat the Googlebot user agent differently, but this would probably be considered as cloaking by the G-Man. If there are any other options, please let me know.
International SEO | | Ben.JD0 -
Best Practice for International Website with Two Versions
I have a client in the medical industry, and the company's product has been approved in various countries in Europe yet is awaiting approval in the US. That means we can share certain information in some countries that we cannot share in the US. Therefore, we plan to use an initial landing page that will ask what country the user is in (using a drop-down list to choose from if not located in the US) and then push him or her to the appropriate version of the site. Here is my question: What is the best way to ensure search engines can crawl the site beyond this landing page? Thanks for your time.
International SEO | | mollykathariner_ms0