How to rank same business in different countries

[MintM]

I have a consulting business running here in Australia. I also spend a lot of time in London due to family there, and would now like to have my business found in the UK, so I can generate new clients there too.
Currently I have both a company name website and a KW rich URL site here in Oz that generate traffic / leads for me.
These "local" sites are country specific domains ("au"), but I also own the non specific URLs for these.

If I want a business ranked both in Oz and UK, should I go separate sites with similar content, or is it possible / best to rank one URL in both countries?

What is the best solution? I'd love to just put all my efforts into one site, but will do what is best.

I have reasonable understanding of SEO at a basic level, and outsource anything big when it's needed - so have resources / relationships established to do whatever is needed.

 

[zivmaymon]

so maybe you should see what are the search term in the UK for you product- try G keyword tool - within the UK only- are these the same like for AU?
if not- I believe you have a good chance with UK traffic ,since you website is already recognized.
Look- when visitors see that you business is working in AU+UK it gives you the appeal of an international company thus more credibility.
Helped?

 

[qxxxp]

what I found out is that the location of servers can be important...

 

[MintM]

so maybe you should see what are the search term in the UK for you product- try G keyword tool - within the UK only- are these the same like for AU?
if not- I believe you have a good chance with UK traffic ,since you website is already recognized.
Look- when visitors see that you business is working in AU+UK it gives you the appeal of an international company thus more credibility.
Helped?

Thanks for that. I'm really wondering i should do SEO wise to get a single site ranked in both countries I guess, or if I should have 2 country specific URLs and do separate campaigns?

 

[stunning boy]

you should go for different countries directories

 

[Adam B.]

Thanks for that. I'm really wondering i should do SEO wise to get a single site ranked in both countries I guess, or if I should have 2 country specific URLs and do separate campaigns?

Having yourdomain.country for each country you want to attract customers in seems logical. Other than that it seems obvious you might want to run a different campaign for a different culture. Australia and the UK seem culturally quite aligned, but imagine if you wanted to conquer the Japanese market, it would require quite a different approach I bet.

Making a smaller but still significant campaign concentrated on the new market seems the logical choice.

If after some months you don't like the extra work, you can always redirect the new page to the old one, passing juice, and not have your efforts wasted.

 

[Hybrid]

I have a consulting business running here in Australia. I also spend a lot of time in London due to family there, and would now like to have my business found in the UK, so I can generate new clients there too.
Currently I have both a company name website and a KW rich URL site here in Oz that generate traffic / leads for me.
These "local" sites are country specific domains ("au"), but I also own the non specific URLs for these.

If I want a business ranked both in Oz and UK, should I go separate sites with similar content, or is it possible / best to rank one URL in both countries?

What is the best solution? I'd love to just put all my efforts into one site, but will do what is best.

I have reasonable understanding of SEO at a basic level, and outsource anything big when it's needed - so have resources / relationships established to do whatever is needed.

Thats actually a good question. Is there any settings in google webmaster tools where you can select the geographical location you are targeting? Also I would be targeting the right keywords such as consulting melbourne and consulting London as your anchor text...

 

[Windmill]

I understand I am in the same situation; wanting to rank in multiple google versions.

My advice? Have your website be a generic url. By that I mean .com .net or .org. These seem to rank very well amoungst any google version, whereas picking a url with a location specific url seems to struggle more. OR, get a UK specific one too, and have it redirect to your Australian one. The problem here is your users will potentially be put off by the .com.au one, but for a few clients its probably not worth it to lose your keyword rich domains which are working for you right now.

Also; target local keywords. So target Australia and UK specific ones Go after both so you can get traffic from both. Make sure your website's pitch is optimized for both; if you talk a lot about Australia your UK visitors will mistake it for a purely-Australian business and will be turned away!

There is nothing specific you need to do to get ranked in local search engines. I do the exact same stuff for them as I do for my sites targetting google.com. The only issue is that you will struggle to rank with a .com.au URL in google.co.uk so that is all that needs to be addressed.

 

[nickvincente]

if you use just 1 website, then you have to do backlinks from sites hosted in those countries that you are interested in.
or you can use 2 websites, 1 hosted in UK with backlinks from UK and another one hosted in AU, with backlinks from AU websites.
Good Luck

 

[MintM]

Excellent answers thanks guys. It seems the crowd is split though!
Ok let's say forget existing sites: go with one site with content optimized and backlinked for each country, or 2 separate sites that can always be redirected later?

How about using silos on one site?

I'm actually glad to hear the differences in opinion - makes me realize it could be a tricky one and there could be a few ways to do it.

Let me know what you think.