How to Target Searchers By Location
We got a question this week from Steve Abey that’s about targeting users in search by their location.
Steve asked:
“I have a business site targeting Australia and a separate one for the NZ market. Most content is similar, but customised a little specific for each. In the eyes of Google is it better to have content unique on each site?”
What better way to show the content is for different audiences than by telling Google directly! While it really depends on the site, you’ve got a few ways to present localised content in a way Google understands.
These include:
ccTLDs or Country-Code Top-Level Domains
ccTLD’s are URLs with country specific codes on the end like .au or .nz. Having a ccTLD to deliver localised content is a strong signal to Google of who the specific site is intended for and will be matched up appropriately in local search results.
Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools
Head over to Google Webmaster Tools and click Settings under the Configuration tab. Here you’ll find Google’s geotargeting tool that can be used to explicitly tell Google that your site is targeted at a specific country. The geotargeting tool should only be used for sites that have generic TLDs like .com or .net and should be avoided if your site is targeted at users in other locations as well.
Other signals Google takes into account when determining who your site is for includes:
- Server location
- Local addressed and phone numbers on site
- Local language and currency
- Links from other local sites
- A Google+ Local page
Multilingual Targeting
For sites targeting different locations that have different languages, Google’s also got a few tips on some of the bases you should cover to ensure the right content appears in the right search location.
- Make sure your sites content is in the language of the region you’re targeting as Google doesn’t use any code-level information to determine language
- Use a URL that makes sense for the lanugage the content is delivered in.
- Make sure each language-specific version of a page is easy for Google to find.
Thanks for the question Steve! Hope that helps.
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
