How To Rank A UK Website On Google.com (US)

[Webpresence]

Hi, I've done some research on this but couldn't find any definitive answer I can trust!

We have a client who resides in the UK. They have '.com' domain, hosted on a UK server, using UK spelling.

Their business objective for this year is to expand in the USA, including the opening of a warehouse over there.

They are wanting us to rank their website on both Google.co.uk and Google.com (North America); besides changing the geolocation settings in GWT's, and building links from .com websites is there anything else we can do to increase their visibility on Google.com?

Many thanks in advance, appreciated!
Lee.

[Webpresence]

That's the answer I was hoping for, thanks Tom!

[RobertFisher]

Tom,

This is very well stated. Thanks

Best

[TomRayner]

It certainly used to be a bigger factor.  And the annoying thing is that Google still has older videos up saying as much.

However, with so many new TLDs, server locations and CDNs in particular, I think the impact of server location has diminished quite a lot.  For example, on my UK sites I always try and use UK servers.  However, I often use cloudflare on them, which will be either US or Central Europe based.  It hasn't affected their performance.  Google alludes to this:

“Server location (through the IP address of the server) is frequently near your users. However, some websites use distributed content delivery networks (CDNs) or are hosted in a country with better webserver infrastructure; so, we try not to rely on the server location alone.”

So I wouldn't say a server's location will hinder a website's ability to rank in a certain country.  The only way that it might would be related to speed.  Obviously, the further away your user is from your server, the slower the website's response might be, and speed is considered to be a ranking factor.  However, if you get any decent hosting solution, the speed difference would also be negligible.

[Webpresence]

Sorry Tom, forgot to ask.. will the fact that the website is hosted on a UK server (having a UK IP address) hinder the performance of the US campaign?

We could move it over to a US server however this may effect the (currently very good) UK rankings.

Thanks in advance, Lee.

[TomRayner]

No problem Lee!

This is also a good article from SearchEngineLand on international SEO, including some pros and cons on different approaches.

[Webpresence]

Many thanks Tom, great answer!

Yes, the client would like to rank in both UK and US.. so your suggestions sound ideal, and pretty easy to implement.

I'll read Aleyda's article tonight, sounds interesting.

Thanks again Tom, much appreciated.

Lee.

[TomRayner]

Hi Lee

Would I be right in saying that the client would like to rank in both UK and US?

If so, this is possible.  What I would recommend is to create a new geo-location subfolder for the US site.  Something as simple as website.com/us/ would do.

From there, you would set up the US subfolder as basically its own website.  That starts with adding the right kind of hreflang schema code for the subfolder.

There is a fantastic guide here on Moz by Aleyda Solis on how to set up an international SEO structure.  You can find it here.

This hreflang generator tool, also from Aleyda, can help you generate the right code to add to the subfolder.

From there, as mentioned you're basically treating the subfolder as it's own individual site.  That means you can build new links to it, you should have unique content within it, and you can even set up its own individual GWT account - meaning you can set the geolocation settings in there too.

The benefit of this approach is that it would allow your client to keep the current site as-is, and not jeopardise it, while also setting up a site for the US audience.  Of course, you could do exactly the same thing on a new TLD - but that might be difficult as you're using the .com already (and besides, I like global sites using a .com /country/ subfolder setup)

Hope this helps, let me know if you'd like anything clarified.