I have been targetting UK market for specific product (and have .co.uk domain) and now I rank on the first page for main keywords in google.co.uk. Now I'm thinking of entering canadian market with the same product and content will be the same but want to have the same domain with .ca extention. If I copy .co.uk website to .ca it will duplicate content and thus no benefit. What would be the best way to target Canada with .co.uk domain? Will 301 redirect from .ca to .co.uk work? Thank you for your feedback.
Do some link building for .ca domain and using 301 redirect to your old site should be good enough... I guess. Regards, RightMan
Thank you RightMan, that's precisely what I wanted to do. Just not sure what Canadians will think when they get redirected to .co.uk domain.
Why not repurpose your co.uk content to use for your .ca web site? This way you'd have more pages and more content that is indexable?
301 redirect is the good and ethical way to redirect you site. If you want the product marketing but focusing on Canada, then you have to divert your efforts towards the Canadian market. It it is possible to have another domain with the .ca than it's good way to focus on canadian market but make sure all the seo optimization and fresh unique content for your site, information originated enabled with your targeted keywords. You have to search all the stuff about the canada and will do your marketing in canada like as forum posting, dir. submission and other things, all over the canadian online market. To get more benefit make sure your site should be hosted on canadian server and plan your keywords for the Canada.
I have quite a few local websites in a number of countries. Over the years I find that the best way to do it is just to have the content rewritten and if possible, link to other reputable .ca sites in your sector industry. You do not have to use a Canadian host although it is preferable. If you want to duplicate the site 100%, then a 301 would be your best option. And get some links from .ca sites to yours, especially .ca directories. Google will figure it out from there.
Yeah I would suggest to get a .ca website, as Canadian customers won't be too kind about going to a .co.uk website.
I would setup a new site for the .ca, customize the content a bit, to make it more Canada specific. Optimize things like the alt text for images, and some of the internal linking to make it more Canada specific. Also, make sure on your Canada page you list a Canadian address and phone number if possible.
I suggest to create new site it would be duplicate if you make a few changes on your site but offering same service or product it won't be a duplicate issue anymore.
Some responses in this thread are totally absurd. If you do any kind of redirect, you will lose your UK rankings. You do not want that! What you want is keep your UK rankings whilst promoting your products in Canada. So getting the .com version of your website can help you enter more markets and having the website point to the .uk or .ca version depending on the country the user lives in. This is more about brand building though. If you can afford to rewrite the content (product description) for the stuff that you sell, it's going to be better for you. If not, you can always copy everything to the .ca version but add uniqueness by allowing product reviews. Therefore Canadian people can rate your products (and it'll be good if UK people can do this too) and you will therefore have some degree of uniqueness within your product's content. Bear in mind that many ecommerce websites have duplicate content because they use manufacturers standard descriptions.
Make an unique template, content may leave copy/pasted. DON'T USE 301 Redirect, google will not index your site!
Don't do a redirect, you could do a subdomain but that won't be as effective, if the niche is big enough host on a canadian host and create a new site with unique content. That's the only way to know your efforts won't be x10 as hard