How much difference does .co.uk vs .com for SEO make?

[Marvellous]

My Website has a .com domain. However I have noticed that for local businesses all of them have a .co.uk (UK business) TLD (check plumbers southampton for example). I have also noticed that on checking my serp rankings, I'm on page 1 if searched on Google.com but page 2 if searched on google.co.uk.

Now being UK based I would assume most of my customers will be redirected to google.co.uk so I'm wondering how much of an impact this actually makes? Would it be worth purchasing .co.uk domain and transferring my website to that? Or run them both at the same time and set up 301 direct on my .com to .co.uk?

Thanks

[Marvellous]

Update to the above. Just checked that the results also apply in Yahoo and Bing, in that I rank first page for .com but 2-3rd page for .co.uk. As I understand setting geographic target in WMT would have no bearing on this? Seems .searchengine.co.uk really prefers .co.uk over .com?

[ClaytonJ]

yes correct - the major change you have already done on WMT's.  If you think people are typing in co.uk instead of .com then re-direct co.uk to .com.

From an SEO perspective it will make no difference.

Clear as mud!

[Marvellous]

Sorry, when you say keep .com and do a 301 redirect to .co.uk. Do you mean I duplicate the website at .co.uk and redirect all pages from .com to .co.uk accordingly? Would this cause a significant SEO drop as all my past backlink work have been towards .com?

Thanks

Edit: I misread, I believe you just said do a 301 from .co.uk TO .com. Correct me if I'm wrong

Thanks again

[ClaytonJ]

If you only set WMT's to the UK today you will have to wait a while for it to update. That would be the primary cause of the issue you have raised above - so you have solved it!

I would keep your .com do a 301 re-direct on the .co.uk.

Well done.

[Marvellous]

I bought the .co.uk a while ago and was actually debating which one to use, .com or .co.uk. In the end we went with .com.

Would it be worth transferring the website to .co.uk now and setting up a 301 redirect at .com to .co.uk?

Yes, I only just set WMT to UK today, will that suffice?

[ClaytonJ]

Is the geo setting in WMT's set to UK? You need to tell google what is your target audience in your case the UK.

If the .co.uk is available I would buy it to stop competitors buying it, and re-directing it to there site.