What Should Be Done To Rank For A Specific Country Without ccTLD?

As the title says, I need some opinions on how I can rank for a specific country. I already know about site language, IP/hosting location etc. can help as per many articles published on various SEO blogs after researching on Google. But how about, if the language is also English for that country? For example, I am right now ranking a weight loss product on USA but that is not even ranking anywhere in Australia (as far as I have checked and found nothing). As both have the same language, what would be my point to tell search engine that I am targeting Australian people?

Many suggested to grab a ccTLD for Australia but it is little difficult to grab a .com.au domain as they have rules and regulations etc. etc. So this might not be a good choice.

Also I found that most of the domains/pages ranking on first page for that keyword, they are .com domains and they add the "australia" word in the domain name. For example, if the product is "weightlossproduct", the domain name they are using is "australiaweightlossproduct[dot]com" or "weightlossproductaustralia[dot]com" or 'weightlossproduct-australia[dot]com" etc. So is there any flaw there that makes you rank higher on any specific country when you include the country name on the domain?

Anyway, I will be very grateful if someone can give me some proper guidance on what would be the best path to rank for that country using .com domains.

Thanks in advance.

You can set your preferred geographic location on google webmasters.

Aside from everything you have already listed, here are 3 more options for you to try:

1. Use Australian English on your website in lieu of American English. There is a difference between them.
2. Get geo-specific inbound links from Australian ccTLD websites and websites hosted in Australia.
3. Set Australia as your target country is Google Webmaster Tools.

Thanks Zwielicht, for the excellent information. Seems logical for proper targeting option. I will try these soon in my next project.

Zwielicht said:

Aside from everything you have already listed, here are 3 more options for you to try:

1. Use Australian English on your website in lieu of American English. There is a difference between them.
2. Get geo-specific inbound links from Australian ccTLD websites and websites hosted in Australia.
3. Set Australia as your target country is Google Webmaster Tools.

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