How to rank for a location/country without having a physical address in that location/country
-
How do I go about it if my physical address (office) is in Country A but I want to rank my website in Country B, C and D (without having an office or physical address in the countries B, C and D)?
I am aware of people setting up virtual offices in other countries/cities and adding them to Google Places/Maps with toll free phone numbers, but I don't wish to do any of that. I know Google will catch up with this one day or the other and punish me hard for trying to play games with it.
Is there a way rank a website in another country without actually having a physical location there? If yes, please guide me how to go about it.
-
Hi Miriam.
I agree with your gut feeling. What is wrong is wrong and one should not play games falsify facts and present them as true.... not at least with Google. They are smarter than everybody of us out here.
I'll stick with the following tactic:
-
Find a person or a partner in these countries who is ready to genuinely partner with me... or at least is willing to take calls, talk to leads and direct them to me. A local listing will be created for this/these guy/guys when we have genuine NAPs.
-
Focus on organically promoting my website for these locations without local listings.
Thanks for your help everybody.
KS__
-
-
Hi KS!
Unfortunately, that's not really a practice I would recommend to my clients at this point. There's been some indication in recent times that while Google is completely fine with a single-location home-based business, it's very easy for them these days to see that a string of houses is being used to indicate locations in more than one place. It's my gut feeling that they don't approve of this practice and that they would take action against Google+ Local listings created in this scenario. But, in any case, your lack of in-person contact with customers means that the business does not qualify for Google+ Local listings or local pack rankings, regardless of whether you have legitimate business offices or are using the addresses of your friends. So, this may be kind of a moot point. Virtual businesses need to compete organically and utilize PPC, social media, video marketing, etc. to earn visibility - but Local SEO is not the right marketing discipline for them.
Hope this helps!
-
Will it be fine if I add my friends' residential addresses in multiple cities across Country A in Google Places and buy toll free numbers for each of these addresses/cities? So all locations will have different NAP.
-
Hi KS!
Thanks for the clarification on this. So, if you are not making in-person contact with your customers, whether here or abroad, then this means that the business is not a 'local' business in the eyes of Google. Face-to-face transactions are the prerequisite of this particular type of marketing. So, as you would not be able to go the local business route of building a Google+ Local page for each location in hopes of ranking in Google's local packs of results, then your two options would be:
-
Building organic content on the website that showcases your virtual services in each of your target cities and countries.
-
Participating in PPC that enables you to pay for placement in your target cities and countries.
I'm afraid international SEO is not my area - the links Patrick has shared will be your best bet for learning about this marketing discipline. Wishing you best of luck!
-
-
Thanks Miriam.
Here are my answers:
- Are we talking about other countries ... or maybe other counties? I want to be sure I'm understanding if the business is national or international.
Other countries, not counties.
- Are you meeting face-to-face with customers in the various cities and countries? Can you describe this in as much detail as possible?
No personal contact. I have international numbers listed on the website, so they just give me a call (I use VOIP and Magic Jack) or fill up the form. The conversation begins there.
Hope that answers you.
-
Thanks for all the help John.
-
Awesome links Patrick. Thanks.
-
Hi KS -
Got your note on my older post and so am popping by here. I have some questions.
-
Are we talking about other countries ... or maybe other counties? I want to be sure I'm understanding if the business is national or international.
-
Are you meeting face-to-face with customers in the various cities and countries? Can you describe this in as much detail as possible?
-
-
Hi there
If you are trying to rank a certain location or country, you can look into hreflang attributes and language tags for your site.
You can also geo-target specific URL variations in Google Search Console. You can read more about International SEO here, as well as an International SEO Checklist.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
www.mywebsite.com/chicago is better.
A website we instructed down this path is www.cottonon.com - It is more complicated - but that is a retailer that rolls out new shops in each country. Hence Australia is www.cottonon.com/au etc. Go to their website and from a practical perspective watch it operation, this may help in clearing it all up for you. Note the power CO is in the store finder - where you get to use google maps...
-
Ok. www.mywebsite.com/chicago is better or www.chicago.mywebsite.com? The only negative with the latter is that all pages (FAQ, How it works etc.) within the sub-domain website will have to be re-done with fresh new content while in the first option there's only one page for the location while other pages like FAQ etc stay the same for the root website as well location specific pages.
What say?
-
Yes, in a nutshell. That is one way - but Google maps for each location would save you alot of work.
The key ingredient missing on the above is on the pages you make - ensure your meta title reads "Flowers | New York | Mywebsite".
Then your H1 is also location keyword rich. Then find links preferable local. Maybe some local directories etc. I would also be trying to make a cracking page - with great user friendly content. Whatever you do do not duplicate content swapping location names - that is an easy way to "never be found on google"...
So it is hard work... for each location.
-
So if I want the website to rate well in Chicago, California and New York, the pages that I should create will be www.mywebsite.com/chicago, www.mywebsite.com/california and www.mywebsite.com/new-york. Is that right?
And when I'm done with that, I have to build location specific links like ' <keyword>in Chicago', ' <keyword>California' etc.?</keyword></keyword>
-
It can be complicated - and without alot more information & countries etc.all answers could be wrong. There are several paths depending on the answers. So everything I suggest is dependent on unknown factors.
Because of the weighting to google maps it is difficult if you do not have an address in each country. I would strongly urge you to change you outlook on this position. Then you could consider subdomains. If you only want to use one domain (which is what I recommend) and no subdomains - you could make a page for each country you are targeting. Have you considered that? Then you have to action each country page uniquely and obtain links and build DA to same. On the link building it should be page specific ie if targeting chicago get chicago based/centric links to that page.
I hope that gives you something to think about.
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
-
Visibility for https://goo.gl/gJH7eh
Hi Mozzers, I am wondering if anyone can help me with the following. At the start of May this year we really lost visibility for the homepage of this site https://goo.gl/gJH7eh. This was particularly noticeable by tracking rankings for the term 'oak furniture'. We previously ranked on page 1 for the term 'oak furniture', but since May the homepage has struggled to make the top 100 positions for this term. We're confident that we have done everything within Google's guidelines, but it seems something is really holding the homepage back. The site ranks on page 1 for 'oak furniture' on Bing. The site had previously had a manual penalty for unnatural links (warning received several years ago). These links had a particular emphasis on using the anchor text 'oak furniture'. When we took over the site we did an extensive link clean up and disavow and managed to get the penalty removed at the end of October 2013. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Karen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OFS0 -
Why my site not ranking
Hello everyone, can anyone suggest me, where i am having problem in my site www.suntechengineers.com, i know content is less,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | poojathakar
but any other things that i am missing in my site? Is There any on page query please let me know, i need urgently getting up this,please help thanx in advance0 -
Checking Rankings Again & Again Can Drop Rankings
Is it possible that if i check my google rankings again & again it can drop ranking?Like checking where do my keywords rank every hours rank drop the rankings? Because this indirectly affects the CTR. Might be because of it? No one has faced such an weird thing before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Page disappears from search results when Google geographic location is close to offline physical location
If you use Google to search georgefox.edu for "doctor of business administration", the first search result is http://www.georgefox.edu/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA homepage from here on. The second page is http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/sfs/grad/tuition/business/dba/ - I'll refer to this page as the DBA program costs page from here on. Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration+site%3Ageorgefox.edu This appears to hold true no matter what your geographic location is set to on Google. George Fox University is located in Newberg, Oregon. If you search for "doctor of business administration" with your geographic location set to a location beyond a certain distance away from Newberg, Oregon, the first georgefox.edu result is the DBA homepage. Set your location on Google to Redmond, Oregon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RCF
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration But, if you set your location a little closer to home, the DBA homepage disappears from the top 50 search results on Google. Set your location on Google to Newberg, Oregon
Search: https://www.google.com/search?q=doctor+of+business+administration Now the first georgefox.edu page to appear in the search results is the DBA program costs page. Here are the locations I have tested so far: First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA homepage Redmond, OR Eugene, OR Boise, ID New York, NY Seattle, WA First georgefox.edu search result is the DBA program costs page Newberg, OR Portland, OR Salem, OR Gresham, OR Corvallis, OR It appears that if your location is set to within a certain distance of Newberg, OR, the DBA homepage is being pushed out of the search results for some reason. Can anyone verify these results? Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?0 -
Dramatic Ranking Changes
Hi, My website is ranked on the 2nd page of Google for the /ncr. Last week suddenly it climbed up to the first page and I let my boss know about it with a quite enthusiasm and happiness 🙂 Then my boss didn't look at it on that day and next day our site was on the second page again and still is. Now I kind of lost reputation in the office, and people start questioning my comments. It wasn't a delusion but I would like to know what it was. No one does any SEO for this 10 years old site, and I've just started an SEO campaign about 1,5 months ago. And I really thought this is it, we are on the first page. But now we are back in to the 2nd page. Is waiting for couple days or weeks to Google to settle right approach for such cases? Or it was just a random bounce or coincidence? Never seen such thing, so I'm quite curious about your opinions or experience if you have.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nunobaronio0 -
Blocking some countries and redirecting that traffic
Hi there, I have a video site, which is on CDN and is really expensive to run. So I want to block most of the countries and only keep HQ ones. I wonder if there's a difference if I just block them and show blank page, or if I show them a page with text and let's say a link to a different site or if I just simply redirect to some other site. Do you think I can still get good ranking on google on countries that I don't block?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | melbog0 -
Local Search For Multiple Locations With One Physical Address
I have a company that works in multiple locations but only has a physical address in one location. Is it possible to get this type of business listed in multiple locations? What is the most ethical way of doing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Christina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Suggestions for good ranking
Hello, My blog http://www.pakearning.com/ was having page rank 1 and now its doped to 0 and less ranking, please review my site and help me how can I improve ranking and traffic ? Suggest me what to do for best ranking ? Directory submission ? articles submission ? also for home page, how much keywords are good ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | softcorner0