GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 12 - April 2010

The relationship between the search filters and the resultingwebpages (i.e., Did they search forPages from [region] orPages in [language]?) Whether theend-user issearchingadif- ferent extension than the defaulted en- gine (they manually enter Google.com searching for U.S. or English results in anon-U.S. region) The other elements that will affect rankingswill beback links: Are the links from a TLD that matches the destinationURL (i.e., .nl linking to a .nlWeb site)? Is the IP linking website located in the same regionas the linkedURL? Page rank, linking anchor text, addi- tional outbound links on the page link- ing toyou On-page relevancy Language-basedmeta-tags Everything in theabove5 items relating to the linkingWeb site/page Anyoneof theseelements cangiveyouan edgeover your competition. SearchinganyofGoogle’s(non-U.S.)data- setswill generally return a variety ofWeb sites when no language or location filter is selected. These can include internal pages in aWeb site, subdirectories (www. yoursite.com/french), subdomains (www. french.yoursite.com) and various TLDs (top level domains like .com and .nl). All 11of theabove factorsarepresent (butnot exclusive) in theautomatic algorithm. The problem is that no one really knows whichapproach isbest, orwhichalgorith- micattribute is themost effective, sowhat canwedowith this? What we want to do is to look at the ex- isting results using the available search filters, and the existingWeb sites that are rankinghighanddeterminewhat thebest strategy for your Web site is. This takes deep-pageanalysisof your competitors. The important thing tonote is that there is a hierarchy between one and the other in terms of which is the best solution. Every Web site has its own individual solution based on demographics, site mechanics andavailable resources. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What youneed toconsiderare: Your targetmarket. Whether you need or don’t need geo- graphical targeting. Whether youneed language-based sub- domainsor subdirectories. Whether you shouldmovehosting. Whether you canafford todo it all. How &When to Use Geographical Targeting Here’swhat todo if youwish to: Geographically target aregion? Createasubdomainorasubdirectory in thenative languageanduseWebmaster Central togeographically target it. Host thesubdomainonaserver in thena- tiveregionandusegeographical targeting. Buildback links from similarTLDs. Target aspecific language? Create a subdirectory in the native lan- guage (i.e.,www.yoursite.com/nl/). Build back links from same language Web sites. Donot usegeographical targeting. The reason that you do not want to use geographical targeting along with a lan- guage-basedstrategy isthat iftheend-user searches in thenative languageonGoogle. com, a site using content in that language will be stronger than the same site with geographical targeting inplace. (This isn’t dependent on whether you use subdirec- tories or subdomains unless you hosted the subdomain in the target region.) The answer for me is that I want it all... andNOW!! I’ve recently had subdomains rank with geographical targeting turned on and in the native language rank top 10 in 6 weeks. I’vehadbrand-newWeb siteswith the appropriate TLDs (ie.,.nl, .de and .es) show up in8weeks. I’ve even had a .com hosted in the U.S. without geographical targeting showup in the top 10 results for “Hollywood” terms when they had never been in results in theU.K. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. Youcanstartwithsubdomains.Lookatyour log filestodeterminewherethecurrenttraf- fic iscoming fromtotellyouwhattodo first. Bounceratescanalso tell youa lot. Forexample, ifyoursecondarytrafficsource is Germany and you have a high bounce rate, start with a language-based subdirec- tory, thenmaybemoveon tocreatingasub- domain,hosting it inGermany,and thenset the geographical targeting to Germany in WebmasterCentral.Thengobackand start all over againusing the region that has the next-highest contribution. ImportantThings toRemember! To target a languageusingonly subdirec- toriesdonotusegeographic targeting. You can target a languagewithboth sub- domains and subdirectories, but if you havea top-levelTLD(.com)usesubdirec- toriesversussubdomains. You can use Google geographical target- ingonsubdomainsandsubdirectories. Yourtitleshouldbe inthenative language and/or use regional slang terms where theyapply. Use language-basedmeta-tagswhenever targeting language-basedsearches. Host subdomains that are for geographi- cal targeting in the target region. When you implement the subdomain strategy, link to it from the originalWeb site. Create new sitemaps for each subdo- main. When creatingmeta-tags and content be sure touse the native idiom. (If you sold pants in the U.S., in the U.K. pants are referred to as trousers. Sweaters are re- ferred toas jumpers.) Get back links from same TLDs (get a .nl link to your .nl site in the native lan- guage). If youhaveaTLD (e.g., .nl or .de) donot use geographical targeting. These do- mainsarealreadyassociatedwith itsdes- ignatedregion. ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► ► 41 Online Gaming Stories of the Decade 12 Top Secret SEO Tips