**by Sean McCarthy**
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.
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.
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 users 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.
In-market external linking. While it is important to make sure that
your website is optimized for the local language, it is crucial to
have in-market external users pointing to it and endorsing it as it
will impact how the search engines assess its authority and relevance.
Fortunately, there are several options to quickly gather quality
in-market external links, including utilizing directories like Yahoo!,
and leveraging existing in-market business partnerships. Either can
help you quickly jumpstart your optimization.
Language revision. It is important to make sure that the content and
language of the website is geared towards how users search within a
particular market. For example, depending on the brand, product, or
service, users may search in the local language, or they might elect
to use English. Understanding local market search behavior is not only
important to developing relevant content for the search engines, but
also for tagging and descriptions that can appeal to users and entice
them to click. Ultimately, you want to be able to speak to the users
in a specific market in the language that they feel most comfortable
communicating in.
Localized Blogging. One of the biggest advantages of having a local
domain is being able to speak to your audience in their specific
language. The nuance of how local users search and identify content
plays a large role in their willingness to continue to engage with a
website. Beyond translating your existing content into the local
language, one of the best ways to create fresh local content is
through blogging. A local blog updated on a fairly frequent basis can
help to create a significant amount of local content quickly, show
users and search engines that your website is committed to providing
content specifically for that market, and give users a reason to
continue to engage your new website and thus helping to create
external links.
Securing search page real estate in foreign markets can be a
challenge, but savvy marketers who follow the above five tips will be
off to a good start. Not only will they help marketers occupy as much
page real estate as possible in their foreign markets, but these tips
will also help them capture more traffic and increase their chances of
getting in front of their users in their international markets.
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.
Sean McCarthy <http://searchengineland.com/author/sean-mccarthy/>
is a Client Services Manager at iProspect <http://www.iprospect.com>
. He oversees the activities of Search Marketing Specialists and
Search Marketing Analysts responsible for natural search campaigns,
paid inclusion, shopping feeds and pay-per click campaigns.
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