SEO advice...

[Lupchiancristi]

Hello everybody...I am new to this forum and I would want to ask a question.

If I am located in Ireland but I want to build an ecommerce website focusing mostly on UK customers how can I do the optimization mostly for UK...?

Thank You and I hope my question make sense..

 

[ebroker]

The SERPs are heavily personalised these days, local results are given precedence.. In that respect, server location (i.e. host) and NAP (name, address, phone) will certainly help to start..

There are the usual considerations. On site needs to be up to scratch. Does it load fast? Does it validate? No broken links. Nice site-architecture. Appropriate titles and content. Etc. In terms of link building, quality over quantity. Demographic/Market and location are all weighed.

With all of the above the best place to start is by analysing your competition

Truthfully, SEO is a never ending rabbit hole (full of spreadsheets) that is constantly evolving. Unless you are willing to invest a lot of time learning you might do better to get to grips with the basics and find somebody with the expertise to deliver your strategy. Focus on your core business.

Hope this helps.

P.S. Unless you have very little in the way of competition, you would probably do better with paid advertising initially for a few reasons:

1. You can start optimising your site for conversions immediately, changes onsite upset organic results.

2. The data provided ensures you focus your SEO strategy correctly (..not to mention that when you understand your cost of acquisition, you can actually begin to project ROI for said strategy!)

 

[Lupchiancristi]

First of all thank you for your reply... I've done me research about the competition using Market Samurai tool... I think is reliable and the competition on the keywords I want to focus is low enough...I want to learn the basics for starters and after I will get an expert for the optimisation and in the same time paid advertising is on my plan as well. The thing is that I want from the beginning to do the SEO for UK. The hosting will on shopify, I don't know if is the best way to start but I heard good things about them...
Thanks.
Please. P. S. IF YOU know anything about Market Samurai tool I would appreciate.

 

[ebroker]

I haven't used Market Samurai, sorry. Truth be told, aside from 2 web subscriptions and excel, I only use 1 tool.. Best to learn how to do things manually to start off with, then build your own processes accordingly. There's no silver bullet.

Anyway, as far as products go, I can't really imagine you really need to bother with keyword research?! In terms of ascertaining the level of competition, I was more talking about a technical audit and analysing their backlink profile...

I don't mean to discourage you but ecommerce and SEO are both very competitive. The financial barrier to entry to launch a successful ecommerce venture is a lot more than you probably imagine. As I said in my previous post, I think you have got your strategy all wrong. IMO it's a better idea to spend some money upfront, find out what works/feasibility and then look to increase your margin from there.

For what it's worth, I've heard good things about shopify, but still expect to spend some £££ getting a developer on board to make it do what you need it to.

Good luck.

 

[Bart Simpson]

For getting data on keywords you might as well try Adwords which would also be helpful in getting your website known as SEO wouldn't give you results right away.

As far as website is concerned getting your own is better than a being with a third party sooner or later you'll have to.

About serving in the UK, as said hosting the site in the UK as well having content targeted at the UK audience with domain ending in .uk would be a good start.

 

[Lupchiancristi]

I am using adwords for keywords research as well, only Market Samurai is giving me information about the page rank of the first ten websites in Google for the keywords I am searching, number of backings, finding those back links, keywords that they are using for optimisation etc.
I know that sooner or late I will have to have my own website just having a limited budget would be easier to reduce the risks for starting, having the main support that I need not being very technical from this point of view.
About keywords research competition... If I want to get in a market which quite competitive I don't have to start with a narrow niche that doesn't have too much competition in order to be able to be successful?
Thank you for your replies... Useful information... I wasn't thinking about getting a UK domain name... I thought you have to own the business in UK or living in UK to do that.I see is not quite like that.
Thank you!

 

[Thesis]

Hi, use your targets language on your website, in your case this is already done since it is English anyway, focus on local news and trends if your website include a blog or a news part. Attracting links from the country your targeting is also nice. Optimize for universal search results.

 

[fisicx]

Use the Market Samurai information as a guide only. Just because a site ranks for a certain keyword doens't mean that something that makes them any money.

The only way to find out what works is to launch a site. If you only have a limited budget you will struggle as marketing and promoting an ecommerce site isn't cheap. Experience has shown it can take a long time to become established and turning a profit. There are exceptions (for niche products) but many people end up losing money for the first year or two.

 

[yottacom]

Hi, use your targets language on your website, in your case this is already done since it is English anyway, focus on local news and trends if your website include a blog or a news part. Attracting links from the country your targeting is also nice. Optimize for universal search results.

Sorry but it's not true, it's not "already done". It doesn't work that way, i'm an international SEO and i've seen spanish websites ranking in chile or argentina, just because they were written in spanish. And an english website may rank in south africa or new Zealand.

There are several "signals" that Google uses to properly identify your target audience:

- the Top level domain extension (eg: .co.uk, .it, .fr) it's the strongest signal
- the webmaster tool geographical target (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en)
- the href lang directive (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2620865?hl=en)

To answer the original post: the best way to be found in UK is to register a co.uk domain. The second choice is to buy a generic domain (com/net/org) and apply the geographical target.

Success is not guaranteed, but at least the basis are covered.

 

[Simon.P]

The second choice is to buy a generic domain (com/net/org) and apply the geographical target.

Hi,
Do you mean buy the .com in addition and point to the .co.uk, or just use a .com and have the content written for the local target?
Thanks
H

 

[yottacom]

Hi,
Do you mean buy the .com in addition and point to the .co.uk, or just use a .com and have the content written for the local target?
Thanks
H

if you don't have a company in the UK you can't register a uk domain, so the only alternative is the second scenario: .com/local content/geographical target using google webmaster tool.

 

[Simon.P]

if you don't have a company in the UK you can't register a uk domain, so the only alternative is the second scenario: .com/local content/geographical target using google webmaster tool.

Hi,
Sorry, i meant outside the context of the OP's question. So, a UK based company with .uk, .co.uk and .com domains - would it be good practice to buy the others and point the .com and .uk to the .co.uk one?

Cheers
H

 

[yottacom]

Hi,
Sorry, i meant outside the context of the OP's question. So, a UK based company with .uk, .co.uk and .com domains - would it be good practice to buy the others and point the .com and .uk to the .co.uk one?
H

Regarding "ranking" and "seo" it's practically useless empty domains pass no authority/pagerank to the target domain.

Regarding marketing and brand protection, it makes sense to register multiple extensions to protect your brand!

 

[Simon.P]

Regarding "ranking" and "seo" it's practically useless empty domains pass no authority/pagerank to the target domain.

Regarding marketing and brand protection, it makes sense to register multiple extensions to protect your brand!

Got it! thanks for posting back Yottacom.

Cheers
H

 

[Donna77]

Regarding "ranking" and "seo" it's practically useless empty domains pass no authority/pagerank to the target domain.

Regarding marketing and brand protection, it makes sense to register multiple extensions to protect your brand!

Sorry for hijacking an old thread - but this is something I've been meaning to ask. A .co.uk pointing to a .com site would need a 301 redirect, is that correct? Apart from setting the preference in GWT and the 301, is there any more that should be done to avoid google thinking it's duplicate content?

My thanks in advance to any SEO experts who can clarify.

 

[Tin]

I've moved this thread from the eCommerce Forum to the SEO and PPC Forum as it's talking more about SEO than eCommerce.

Ray

 

[yottacom]

Sorry for hijacking an old thread - but this is something I've been meaning to ask. A .co.uk pointing to a .com site would need a 301 redirect, is that correct? Apart from setting the preference in GWT and the 301, is there any more that should be done to avoid google thinking it's duplicate content?

My thanks in advance to any SEO experts who can clarify.

that should be it! a 301 redirection tells the spiders what is the new "url" to crawl: the spider (as any other client software, eg: a browser) cannot read further contents and is moved to the new location.

Let me know if you need further details.

 

[seomentor]

Not sure why all the complication. It has been said once in the forum already. Just tell webmaster tools where your audience is.
Yotta Com said it here
"To answer the original post: the best way to be found in UK is to register a co.uk domain. The second choice is to buy a generic domain (com/net/org) and apply the geographical target."

 

[FreeRangeWeb]

As well as moving away from Shopify and buying a .co.uk name, you could host your site in the UK (but this is not 100% guaranteed to make a difference).
It would be worth getting a registered address in the UK and using that for your Google Places Business listing too (as well as specifying the target area in webmaster tools as seomentor said).
You can also target specific areas in Adwords, but try and just target a few long tailed keywords first and see how well it works before blowing lots of money on your main keywords.
If you have a niche product it still helps to use the main keyword in the url, but don't do this if you are thinking of expanding in other areas.
My advice would be to focus on a less competitive niche first, as you will have a better chance of making money more quickly.

 

[StevePoster]

Define your website's target, objectives, goals, and competitions. Analyze the website of your competitors that are ranking high on Google.co.uk then generate a strategic plan to overcome them by giving new, interesting, and engaging content for the targeted users.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Ask a simple question and get complicated answers.
1) use .co.uk
2) geo target via Metas
3) Use a UK server
4) webmaster tools
5) Get links from UK sources (referals)

Your business cannot be listed in UK (domain registration and business locations) if your actual address is somewhere else. Maps/G+ wont allow it and if caught you get locked out.

 

[Russellwilson]

First get a .uk domain if you want to completely focus in uk. Then you need to seo with some high quality links to get ranking it's more better to have sitewide links.

 

[ukbf0001]

Adwords wont tell you everything you need to know - there is also info that samurai wont give you either. Rank Tracker for keywords, website auditor to check your onsite content against the competition and seo spyglass to dig out the links that your competitors have - spyglass uses it's own link database with god knows how many trillions of links and it also uses the webmeup database - these tools cant be beat in my opinion - or if you dont have the time or money for that use buzzbundle - to eek out anywhere on the net that is talking about your niche - and then interact wit them directly - powersuite tools or buzzbundle