How to rank high on Google for your targeted country users
As you know search engines like Google shows different search results based on your country for many keywords. A few days back I was talking to my Chinese friend about this thing and those ideas today I am sharing with you through this blog post. Please note that the ideas mentioned here are just assumptions based on the search results we got while testing this trick.
Google gives different search results often based on the location of different users i.e A lot of keywords shows distinctive regional comparison. It has been seen that many times when you search for your keyword and you are living in countries like china or India you will see lots of sites which may rank very poor for US search results. For example, search for restaurants, banks, if I search in India right now, the vast majority of cases in India want to see the local restaurants, banks, rather than referring to the United States, even if I was in the Google.com search.
(When I searched for restaurant right now I saw that the result after the wikipedia was related to my own country which proves this thing)
This makes for a global target site, the need to optimize the ranking in different countries. There are several factors that may affect the site’s ranking in various countries.
Host location
Web server on the India, means a greater possibility of the site content is on the India or for Indian users. Then the IP address from India; when a user searches, the site is even more likely to be out front in the search results.
Domain Name Category
This logic is the same as the host location, the local country means that the website domain name for this country for example .co.in , . com.cn , .co.uk . Domain name suitable for Indian users – . co.in ,Chinese users – .com.cn or .cn and co.uk for United Kingdom users.
Many large companies in different countries would like to improve the rankings for that country, for which they often use this strategy.
Indexed local directory
If the website is indexed in the local directories and yellow pages of that country chances are that it would help Google in recognizing your site more properly for your country results. This is a very strong signal.
Website Contact
Web site address, telephone area code, zip code if provided through meta tags or any other means, the search robots will index it and it will make it easy to determine the site location for good user experience.
External Links and Internal Link
In order to improve the ranking for a country, we should try to link or get backlinks from the same country targeted website. If you are a website owner targeting specific country users like India or China you will be more likely linking to websites made for the same countries.
Text and spelling
English web sites (and there may be other text), different countries have different usage and spelling of words.
SEO – search engine optimization or search engine optimisation.
For example, SEO; Anglo-American spelling of the name is different, search engine optimization web site is obviously the United States, and about the use of search engine optimisation is a British website. So this difference in British and United States spellings also helps search engines determine the local characteristics of the site.
I hope these things would help you rank better if you are thinking of having a website for specific country or language users.
Do tell me if have any more ideas in your mind which could be important for ranking good for specific country results by commenting below.
Article Written By Typhoon
Yo! I am Typhoon a.k.a Sushant, a 17 yrs. old blogger from India and the owner of SmartBloggerz. Here I try to share useful Blogging related articles which would help a blogger to succeed. You can connect to me on Twitter.Typhoon has written 333 superb article(s) on this blog
June 17, 2009
11:51 pm
I agree with you! My ex blog was hosted on a NL web server, and most of my google (especially) visitors are from netherlands!
I feel lucky that my blog now is hosted on an US server, US visitors worth a lot
Twitter Tips´s last blog ..Real Twitter Insights Gained Through Personal Observation
June 18, 2009
1:46 pm
So we have real proof now that these ideas are true enough and helpful as it is working with one of my readers also
June 18, 2009
6:09 am
I never really thought about targeting specific countries for my traffic. But based on what you have suggested doing, I think my blog should be targeting US visitors more than anything (well, my stats program does at least).
Alex | Blogussion.com´s last blog ..When Blog Expansions Backfire: The Risks to Know
June 18, 2009
1:45 pm
Yes I also looked at your stats through other means and it also says that your site is getting US traffic more, than any other country traffic.
June 18, 2009
7:54 am
Great article, you write many part of the importance things, i try to increase my website in my country also.
June 18, 2009
1:43 pm
Hope your traffic increases for your targeted country.
June 18, 2009
1:53 pm
good article! My blog is hosted in US! and i think majority of the traffic comes from there! Second would be my home country
If i rememeber right, there’s an option to select this in google webmasters as well.
Cheers
Sandeep
Curious Little Person´s last blog ..Make Money Online Series Part 1 – Affiliate Marketing
June 19, 2009
2:51 pm
Yes it does have this option but don’t know if it is very beneficial or not.
June 18, 2009
9:40 pm
Good post! I will think about targetting the Uk abit more by linking to Uk websites.
sbunting108´s last blog ..Llandudno
June 19, 2009
2:53 pm
Hope it helps you in ranking well for UK search results.
June 19, 2009
12:32 am
Hi,
nice details. My site is hosted in the US, but most of my traffic is coming from other countries. I think I will have to check into this, thanks for sharing.
I agree with Twitter Tips that US traffic is king
George Serradinho´s last blog ..Review of Serradinho Site by Thesis Theme HQ
June 19, 2009
2:52 pm
Yes US traffic is currently is the king mainly due to its economic conditions.
June 19, 2009
4:25 am
@Curious Little Person – There is an option in Google Webmaster Tools that you can use to target certain geographical areas with search. I think they have strict limits on it though, like if you’re hosted on a US server, you can’t target India or visa versa.
Jeremiah Hoyet´s last blog ..5 More SEO Tips for Your Blog
June 19, 2009
2:56 pm
Thanks Jeremiah Hoyet for answering to Curious Little Person question.
June 20, 2009
11:34 am
@Jeremiah Hoyet – Thanks for the information!
Curious Little Person´s last blog ..Article Marketing for Traffic!
June 20, 2009
8:10 pm
As discussed by other commenters (above), I’ve selected “USA” as my geographic target in Google Webmaster Tools.
June 21, 2009
7:10 pm
OK.. So you have selected USA as your traffic source from Google Webmaster. So can you tell me does your site also ranks good in other countries results?
June 21, 2009
7:03 pm
Pretty good post dude.
Tech @ InkAPoint´s last blog ..A New Look For Tech @ InkAPoint
June 23, 2009
8:23 am
Nice article thanks for post
June 24, 2009
5:14 pm
Thanks for your Comment Bismillah.
July 5, 2009
8:23 am
submit to local directories or exchange link with local blogs are good way to get higher rank in Google.But i think you blog from your country then Google automatically rank you high in your local country.
July 25, 2009
6:27 am
Already read about this before but you write it more detailed. And all listed is so logic. That technique is called geographical SEO, you know?
But there is some problem on considering using local/international hosting site, because not all country have good hosting site. For example me, even it’s for local purpose, my site is hosted on international hosting file.
December 9, 2009
4:54 am
We can add this system that Google use to differentiate between countries like Google.com.eg or Google.com.uk , help to list high ranked sites or forums in your country first, and new information for me about hosting server location , i didn’t know this affect before for targeted traffic so i always get useful point that help me always understand what go around online …ALL Thanks to Typhoon.
March 30, 2010
10:19 pm
Great article, I have been testing this myself also, just found one of my sites is getting ranked in the canada search much higher than in the US search, even though this site is on a US host. I am thinking that maybe the whois information of my domain is causing this. That is the only thing I can think of.
Any thoughts?
March 31, 2010
4:24 pm
yeah it happens..Google have its own rankings factors and ranks it according to it. If you want to specifically target people in US then you can change the settings from your Google Webmasters account.
June 8, 2010
11:04 pm
I think the search return results are different between Google local and international search. You will find more regionalised results if you use local search than you would on international search like iGoogle.