Market News

5 SEO Tips For Nabbing International Search Real Estate

(SEARCH ENGINE LAND) - Though the housing market continues to plummet in the United States, “real estate” on the search results page is as competitive as ever as marketers try to nab as much as possible.   But accomplishing this in foreign markets can be challenging. For example, even if you have a dot-com version of your website that ranks well for branded terms in foreign markets, you could still be losing out on a lot of traffic because it can only occupy two places in the search results, and the balance is usually comprised of fan sites or Wiki type websites.

But what if there was a way to occupy more search listings in international markets, and to do it in a way that would directly appeal to the users who are searching for your brand in their local market? Fortunately, there is, and the five tips below should help you do just that.

1. Country-level domain name. Having a country-level domain name serves three purposes: First, it lets the search engines know what audience the site is directed to. Second, as search engine users look through the search engine results, it lets them see that this website is specifically for them in their market. Lastly, it helps to differentiate the domain from the dot-com domain. A great side benefit of that is that if your dot-com domain is already ranking, the country specific domain can help you nab additional page real estate.
2. Country-specific domain hosting. Having a well optimized, in-market specific domain has numerous benefits, including doubling your listings in the search results. In doing so, it increases your ability to capture a user’s click, and helps ensure that they will find your brand when searching on your most important keyword phrases. Moreover, an in-market specific domain also helps the search engines identify the website as relevant and located within that specific country. In fact, when spiders are determining which site is most relevant to a user in that market, this element is weighed heavily in its favor.

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