Does Keyword and Location Matter?
-
Hi Everyone,
I'm always learning, but here's a question. I would like to know if keyword and location truly matter. For example, I've been trying to rank my website for a LONG time for a UK English term. My site is hosted in the US. My site has great content and internal and external links using the keyword. I cannot seem to climb the SERPs although my "American" keywords do fine and I see results.
If anyone wants to take a look, that would be great. My website is JourneyBeyondTravel.com and I wish to rank for "Morocco Holidays" (I am at about #20 currently). I am also having trouble with "Morocco travel" although I have continuously ranked well for "Morocco tours" and "trips."
Along this same line, I've been doing some quality guest posting and blogging. I've used longer phrase-type keywords (3-5 words) in the article text that have keyword terms in them. Should keywords be varied like this? How long until I see results? And, should I look for blogs in different countries to keep things balanced (such as blogging on .co.uk sites so that I can get link juice for UK keywords).
Thanks again!
Thomas
-
Superb! This really opens up a huge discussion and is very interesting. We are a small-medium sized company, so I don't think I will go with different domains, although I own them. I have redirected them for now.
I have gone into Google Webmasters and changed my preference from US to 'unlisted.' This might help and give it that international understanding. Not sure.
I may very well set up a UK homepage, an AU one, and perhaps South Africa or Canadian one. But, that will be in the future. I just don't want to lose the links I already have. It seems that getting links from these countries to your homepage would help saying to Google, "Hey, this is an international site in English and is appealing to all of these countries." It may not make me #1 in the SERPS, but it cannot hurt.
Thanks again!
Thomas
-
Thomas, I've been doing a little research trying to support my hypothesis that the location of your hosting company can effect your SERP results and I found this:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday
This is probably a great starting point.
-
Wow - thanks for the response : )
Actually, most of our customers are from the US and Canada. We are hosted in the US and one of our offices is based in the US. Our other office is based in Morocco. We have an apparent UK base since we have a UK phone number (as well as US and Toll Free). I would consider UK hosting for another site, like our site ending in co.uk but I am not sure that makes a difference.
I do think where you are located is probably a factor, but I just don't know how much. Competitors are based in the US and rank well for the term. Perhaps I have some links that are not liked?
Thanks!
Thomas
-
Hi Thomas,
I am always learning too and am very interested by your question. Are you based in the UK but hosted in the US? Or are you based and hosted in the US? The reason I ask, is that if you are based in the US, I presume that your target market is US. If you are based in the UK I presume your target market is UK-Europe. If the latter is true, have you considered changing to UK hosting? Although I don't know the whole story, it seems from looking at your site that you are indeed UK based.
I am thinking that you are having a bit of trouble ranking for a more British term because you are USA hosted. I do think the location of your host is a factor in ranking for certain terms. The problem is, I can't point to any proof to support that opinion. I am interested to hear what others have to say about this.
Thanks Thomas!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Currency versus location
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that is rebuilding their eCommerce store. We are deliberating how to map the URL structure. My advice is and has always been to have language as the structure so the UK and US markets in English but separate pages with href=lang tags so the engines rank the correct page, the French page in French and tagged correct, German in German etc etc This way we have a clear page to optimise and build links into and the users select the currency ($ / £ / € or Ruble) They may want to have it by Currency, so rather than /UK or /US it would be /dollar, /sterling etc etc Have you any experience with both structures and what are the pros and cons as it seems clear to me language should be the way foreward They are using Magento 2 as well if that influences anything. Thanks Gareth This presents are tougher landscape to optimise for I feel and less clear for users
International SEO | | Bush_JSM0 -
How is Google determining location for geotargeting
Hello, I have a question related to Geotargeting.
International SEO | | Lvet
Let's suppose I have a website: mysite.co.uk
As far as I understand Google will consider this site targeted for the UK and will appear on searches preferentially from the UK. What happen now if I have a person located in Spain (with a Spanish IP) and searching in Google.co.uk. Will mysite.co.uk still appear in searches? What are the factors that Google takes into account for Geotargeting? Thank you0 -
Legitimatly handeling simmilar keywords without appearing to be keyword stuffing.
I'm running a sports supplement store in Brazil. Brazil (Portuguese) has absorbed allot of English, even when a very similar word is already in Portuguese. When a person searches for a product on google, the chanches are about 60/25/15 in terms of if they will use English / Portuguese, or a mix. For example: Soy Protein / Proteina de Soja / Soy Proteina I'm setting up the categories / bread crumbs etc in the store. Ideally I'd like to cover all these cases, but I don't want to appear spammy. How would you go about this? I don't really want seperate pages for the different languages, as it's all only targeted towrds portuguese speakers. The english just happens to show up in a portuguese language search. The problem is exacorbated, becase about 30% of the products are imported from the U.S. and these products have more of a 60/40 percent ratio of English / Portuguese searches. Should I just stick to Portuguese, and trust in google to be aware that 'Proteina de Soja' and 'Soy Protein' have a high correlation? Thanks in advance, -Eric
International SEO | | ForForce1 -
Can geographic location of web server affect in SEO?
I have server in Singapore. I need to target USA and Europe for my site. Whether I need to change server? Please guide me... Can geographic location of web server affect in SEO? If Yes, how it affect in SEO?
International SEO | | MayurChavda0 -
Redirecting users based on location
My site is available in EN, DE, SW, SP, FR, IT, CH and JP. However, the EN sites ranks much better than the other languages, and even when searching in another language the EN homepage is normally the result that appears. Would it be worthwhile to automatically redirect users to the site in the same language they are searching in or country they are searching from? If so, how do I go about this? Thanks!
International SEO | | theLotter0 -
How can I Get SE results as if browsing from a differetn location?
Hi, I would like to know if anyone has an easy way off allowing me to browse a SE and get results based on as if I was browsing from a different location. EG I am based in the UK and therefore google customises my result as such. However I am working for a client targetting the US, so I need to get SE results as if I was browsing from there. Thanks
International SEO | | James770 -
Does it matter whether you use /en vs /uk
I have a global site targeting many countries including the UK which is the only English language site. Does it matter whether I use /en or /uk for the UK sub-folder? If I already have /en in place, but my Google UK listings are struggling, will it benefit me to switch to /uk? I honestly don't think it matters too much, but given the choice would've gone for the /uk I'm trying to weigh up whether it is worth the effort of changing it.
International SEO | | Red_Mud_Rookie0 -
How to overcome server and WHOIS location
What if we published an address in the UK as the contact/WHOIS details but wanted to target the USA market? The server resides in the UK, the domain WHOIS resides in the UK - but what are the best methods to target the US search market? The domain is a .com domain.
International SEO | | Peter2640