Hi all, I am new here, I have been reading around the forums for a wile now and it sounds to me like a lot of you guys really know your stuff! I am sorry to make my first post a bunch of questions but I could really use some help. I have come to dead end looking for answers on country specific seo. I live in Australia and I would like to make a couple of Australia specific sites and have them rank well in aussie searches. My question is: Do I need to have a .com.au? And does it need to be hosted on an Australian server? What are the underlying factors that help you rank well in a specific country search? If someone could point me to some good info on the subject that would be awesome any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Looking forward to talking with you all soon. Kind regards, Simon.
The domain name I don't think will make any difference, but where your site is hosted will help in the .com.au version of Google.
ye i have gotten many conflicting answers to the question hence the dead end. i guess i will need to be safe and go both aussie server and domain name.
* Do I need to have a .com.au? (no, it will not effect. i will in turkey , hen i search a keyword on google.com.tr or google.com , it's not giving extra importance to com.tr domains) * And does it need to be hosted on an Australian server? (shortly no)
Hi Simon, I ranked my blog for SEO Montreal (my city) and Montreal SEO, so I've done a bit of this before. I'll go into optimizing for location names as though they're keywords (i.e. Montreal, or "Sydney, Australia") then discuss local SEO. So the first thing once you've figured out your keywords (best to focus on how people are searching for things, like this Montreal, Quebec Canada hotel I'm working for, where the first keyword is Montreal, and then the state... because people either search for Montreal hotel, Montreal, Quebec hotel, or the whole string in that link) is to check out the competition. By checkout, I mean look at the links they have in common to find out what your industry's hubs are. Then you aim to get those same sites to link at you or similar ones. webuildpages.com/tools has a common backlink tool you can use; just input the top 10 ranking sites for your keyword. Then you can go past the first 10 and try and get links from the less commercial ones. Point out broken links to webmasters, mention why their visitors would like your site (e.g. in the hotel biz, if you look at backlinks lots of it has to do with hosting conferences and their guests) etc... Basically you're doing SEO with a focus on "australia" or your locality as a keyword. As regards where your server is hosted, I know Google's returned slightly different results (26 v 32) on a site I was looking at buying. I'd say the closer you are to the server, the more Google figures that site might be relevant. Probably since many people get hosting+design from local folks. It shows you're part of that area's community I guess. But it's not a very important factor, if at all, so don't sweat it. If you can host it in Australia (plus that's another way to get a link, from your host's homepage...) it's a plus, but not the be all end all. I doubt a .com.au makes a difference, unless they're not open to public registration. Finally, as regards local search in teh sense of people using a local search engine, look at 1) having your address on the site 2) buying listings in internet yellow pages and other local directories; some will give traffic and they should all show you're relevant toa neighbourhood 3) get into google maps. apparently places near the city centre are favoured 4) repeat the steps above on finding hubs with local search 5) check out these great clickz articles: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625813 http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3624384 http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625114 and more on their archives: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=clickz_archive_experts&dir=search&type=local_search and that, ladies and gents, is how local SEO is done. courtesy of Montreal's sweetest self-promoting, fluently bilingual (french and english) bookworm, Bookworm-SEO :d
If you are a long-term player (not making the site just for selling or like), I would say go for both - a .com.au and an Australian server There are a few local factors in play too for country-specific searches, do search these forums for the specifics
Do I need to have a .com.au? Yes, it helps to rank well in local search engine And does it need to be hosted on an Australian server? yes. it also helps as one of the factors for SERPs What are the underlying factors that help you rank well in a specific country search? relevant keywords and content. check your competitors and see how they did. so i would say onpage-optimization is a must to consider for specific ranking in specific location.
thats awesome thanks for all the help guys you have saved me a great deal of time and frustration. i think i will stick with my current .biz site and i will also get a .com.au and an aussie hosting account (even though they are 5 times the price) it will take some time but i will definitly come here to let you guys know how it turns out. Regards, Simon.
In an ideal world it's best to be safe and get both a .com.au and also host in Australia if possible. It may be possible to do one or the other and still get picked up as an Aussie site, but I've seen Google making too many mistakes to be sure. There's a good thread on geolocation here
Google has been long telling webmasters to get country-specific TLDs for country-specific businesses. Having a local server is a good idea too - mainly for your customers, they'll get faster response time and will be happier with the site (especially true for AJAX sites). And focus on building links from .au domains.