How to market my site in two countries?

[Sarah@oe]

Hello everyone,

I am currently setting up an online accessories boutique styled website which is due to be finished a a couple of weeks. Based in N.Ireland I bought a .com domain in order to market myself to the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. How would I promote the site and gain rankings on google.co.uk and google.ie. Would purchasing a .ie and .co.uk domains redirecting to the main site be my best option?

Many Thanks in advance,

S

 

[omnivore]

Hello everyone,

I am currently setting up an online accessories boutique styled website which is due to be finished a a couple of weeks. Based in N.Ireland I bought a .com domain in order to market myself to the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland. How would I promote the site and gain rankings on google.co.uk and google.ie. Would purchasing a .ie and .co.uk domains redirecting to the main site be my best option?

Many Thanks in advance,

S

hi there

don't know too much about your seo question but i'd definately start up testing the markets by using adwords to begin. that way you start trading right away and you can guage the worth of the SEO activity in advance (ie is it worth seo effort in relation to your sites/products conversion rate to sale.

thats what we did

you get a speedy analysis of your best keywords too

 

[crossdaz]

you could have a uk and ie landing page

so have two folders - one uk and one ie. Create an index for both and link to both on your homepage. You only need an index page, you don't have to replicate the whole site.
Then register both as separate sites on webmaster tools and set the geographic preference accordingly.

Hope that makes sense?

In short - you'll have site site/uk/ and site/ie/

 

[Normansmith]

I agree with crossdaz, by far the best way to go.

 

[redtreeland]

if you're using ppc, you can target the campaigns to various geographic locations

 

[Sarah@oe]

Thanks everyone for their replies, I have already been looking at adwords and relevant sites to advertise from, but now I am thinking of how best to rank for organic searches on both google.ie and google.co.uk

you could have a uk and ie landing page

so have two folders - one uk and one ie. Create an index for both and link to both on your homepage. You only need an index page, you don't have to replicate the whole site.
Then register both as separate sites on webmaster tools and set the geographic preference accordingly.

Hope that makes sense?

In short - you'll have site site/uk/ and site/ie/

Crossdaz, I think I understand what you are saying, for example I would have
mysite,com and create folders to have
mysite,com/uk/ and mysite,com/ie/

Sorry for coming across so simple, but what are the advantages of doing it this way as opposed to purchasing separate uk and ie domains

 

[crossdaz]

Thanks everyone for their replies, I have already been looking at adwords and relevant sites to advertise from, but now I am thinking of how best to rank for organic searches on both google.ie and google.co.uk



Crossdaz, I think I understand what you are saying, for example I would have
mysite,com and create folders to have
mysite,com/uk/ and mysite,com/ie/

Sorry for coming across so simple, but what are the advantages of doing it this way as opposed to purchasing separate uk and ie domains

If you use two domains then you are running two independent sites. This may be worth doing if you have the resources but they would need to be unique otherwise one will always outrank the other regardless of location.

It wouldn't be so much of a problem with a foreign language because the translation would, by definition, be unique text.

The option I suggested is quite easy to set up and only effects one page.

Although I've been asked this question before it's not something I have ever tried to physically do - so please keep your options open on this one. Maybe try my way first because it's easiest?

 

[ms123]

The best options for this would be creating 2 index pages one for google.co.uk & another one for ie. & them purchasing a domain for one site with both this url targeting to one home page.