Expanding to other countires - opinions needed on domain names/website structure.

[luckyg]

Hi all.

I want to move into other countries with my product. Plenty of competition so it will be hard.

My question is which is better for me and the customer?

1) A global website www.sample.com and just like the apple website or Abercrombie & fitch, the country you log on from defines what version of the site you see for example www.sample.com/gb for Uk or www.sample.com/fr for France, so each country will see the site in their own currency and language.



2) create a separate website for each country with a domain name more relevant to the country for example, www.sample.eu for France ( i know .eu may not be the best tld but the .fr is gone), www.sample.ca for Canada, www.sample.com for USA etc.





I am not sure which is best myself so any opinions will be greatly appreciated. My concerns mainly are for SEO and being found in the countries search engines. For me, no 1 will be more concise and easier to manage, but if i can find keyword specific domain names in each countires language my sites may be found easier with option no 2.

 

[webtappeti]

I believe SEO is the last of your problem.
A research dd. 5.3.09 carried out by a commission of the European Community shows that only a minor percentage of the people who have bought products or services online have bought in 2008 from websites non-domestically based.
The percentage of the people who did conduct trans-border transactions goes from a low of 1% ( Bulgaria, Hungary ) to a max of 38% in Luxembourg and a couple of others Scandinavian countries. In my own country -Italy- only 4% did: I guess mostly from Amazon as it is not available in Italy yet
Besides the obvious reasons that can be traced back to the visibility of the website and competition related issues, the most important reasons are the cultural differences and the lack of confidence or stress level involved ( will I receive it? what if something goes wrong? will the customs clear the shipment without extra costs? ).
So your real question is "why should they buy it abroad if it is available domestically?"
If you are not selling something really unique that cannot be found anywhere else or at a price much lower than anybody else ( 10% won't do it ) or have an internationally known name-brand my suggestion is that you "camouflage" your site to make it look likes as close as possible to the main websites you will be competiting with.
I.e. perfect transalation, customised usability and grapich, local language speaking customer service, a local domain name and suffix - in France even if available you cannot buy sample.fr if you do not have a local address. Same in a couple of others countries-.
In other words, minimize any references that point to your company being in the UK.
Then think about SEO .......by the way: a local suffix ( .fr , .it, .de ) will help in this department as well.

 

[luckyg]

I believe SEO is the last of your problem.
A research dd. 5.3.09 carried out by a commission of the European Community shows that only a minor percentage of the people who have bought products or services online have bought in 2008 from websites non-domestically based.
The percentage of the people who did conduct trans-border transactions goes from a low of 1% ( Bulgaria, Hungary ) to a max of 38% in Luxembourg and a couple of others Scandinavian countries. In my own country -Italy- only 4% did: I guess mostly from Amazon as it is not available in Italy yet
Besides the obvious reasons that can be traced back to the visibility of the website and competition related issues, the most important reasons are the cultural differences and the lack of confidence or stress level involved ( will I receive it? what if something goes wrong? will the customs clear the shipment without extra costs? ).
So your real question is "why should they buy it abroad if it is available domestically?"
If you are not selling something really unique that cannot be found anywhere else or at a price much lower than anybody else ( 10% won't do it ) or have an internationally known name-brand my suggestion is that you "camouflage" your site to make it look likes as close as possible to the main websites you will be competiting with.
I.e. perfect transalation, customised usability and grapich, local language speaking customer service, a local domain name and suffix - in France even if available you cannot buy sample.fr if you do not have a local address. Same in a couple of others countries-.
In other words, minimize any references that point to your company being in the UK.
Then think about SEO .......by the way: a local suffix ( .fr , .it, .de ) will help in this department as well.

thanks for your post.

so all other things aside (they are obvious business issues I have to address due to entering other markets and believe i can address them confidently-even the buying of a country specific tld such as .fr domain), you prefer option 2?

 

[webtappeti]

thanks for your post.

so all other things aside (they are obvious business issues I have to address due to entering other markets and believe i can address them confidently-even the buying of a country specific tld such as .fr domain), you prefer option 2?

Yes. By far Option 2.
More complex to execute but will pay off dividends in the long run.

 

[ORDERED WEB]

I believe SEO is the last of your problem.
A research dd. 5.3.09 carried out by a commission of the European Community shows that only a minor percentage of the people who have bought products or services online have bought in 2008 from websites non-domestically based.

This is the perfect example and reason for correct localisation of a site

Correct localisation includes:
- Land line phone numbers and address in target country
- High quality translation (and that uncludes USA vs UK). Not only for the product and general info, bu tfor ALL the sites texts, buttons, seo, source etc..
- Localised photography
- Localised template (come countries dont use some colours / designs)
- Localised product offering
- possibly localised shipping/warehousing

If you opened a new shop in the target country, you would have to do the bricks and moret equivelent of the above. It is sheer lazyness and tightfistedness that store owners assume they can lauch to a new market and not localise properly, and/or skimp on it

 

[ORDERED WEB]

Hi all.

I want to move into other countries with my product. Plenty of competition so it will be hard.

My question is which is better for me and the customer?

1) A global website www.sample.com and just like the apple website or Abercrombie & fitch, the country you log on from defines what version of the site you see for example www.sample.com/gb for Uk or www.sample.com/fr for France, so each country will see the site in their own currency and language.



2) create a separate website for each country with a domain name more relevant to the country for example, www.sample.eu for France ( i know .eu may not be the best tld but the .fr is gone), www.sample.ca for Canada, www.sample.com for USA etc.





I am not sure which is best myself so any opinions will be greatly appreciated. My concerns mainly are for SEO and being found in the countries search engines. For me, no 1 will be more concise and easier to manage, but if i can find keyword specific domain names in each countires language my sites may be found easier with option no 2.

Depends on your product, and the strength of your brand. if you have an international brand, tou will get away with it. if not, then where the language / culture is different, having a clean new localised site, will pay you back dividends

 

[luckyg]

This is the perfect example and reason for correct localisation of a site

Correct localisation includes:
- Land line phone numbers and address in target country
- High quality translation (and that uncludes USA vs UK). Not only for the product and general info, bu tfor ALL the sites texts, buttons, seo, source etc..
- Localised photography
- Localised template (come countries dont use some colours / designs)
- Localised product offering
- possibly localised shipping/warehousing

If you opened a new shop in the target country, you would have to do the bricks and moret equivelent of the above. It is sheer lazyness and tightfistedness that store owners assume they can lauch to a new market and not localise properly, and/or skimp on it

My op, assumes everything else is ok. Phone number and local addresses is a no brainer as is research into local tastes and keywords etc (simplest example....shopping cart versus checkout!). I agree it would be stupid to make any of the mistakes you mention.

Assuming everything else is ok, and as per my op which option do you think is better?

 

[luckyg]

Depends on your product, and the strength of your brand. if you have an international brand, tou will get away with it. if not, then where the language / culture is different, having a clean new localised site, will pay you back dividends

cool, thanks.

 

[Pab]

Some excellent advice from Place of Design. Having everything appropriately localised will pay dividends. Your chances of success in overseas markets is drastically increased when your content is locally targeted and culturally sensitive.