About 2 months ago I switched on geo targetting for one of my sites in webmaster tools. I set the target as the UK as my site is hosted in Canada but the target audience is the UK. This site consistently ranks on the first page for a lot of it's keywords and still does except it is on the 6th or 7th page of results for the same keywords on google.co.uk only!! Anyone have any idea wtf is going on here??
Are you building relevant quality backlinks located in the UK? This will help boost your geographical ranking much better, your following the proper steps but need the backlinks in that region as well.
I am building links and do have quite a few good ones in the UK, including from professional associations and even a couple of universities in the UK. It just seems strange that my ranking would be worse in the country that my site is the most relevant whilst it is first page where it is least relevant.
Are you using the *.co.uk domain extension? Your site isn't based in the UK so you remove that possible factor to help in relevant geographical searches, but doesn't elimiate the possiblity.
It is a .com site, but I own all the cc tld's for the domain, so maybe it is worthwhile. I have created a .com.au version of the site with the front page unique but all the sub pages going to the .com site so as to avoid duplicate content penalties. I did this a few weeks ago and it is starting to show up in google.com.au. Also you cannot specify a country to target for .co.uk in webmaster tools, it will just go straight to the UK.
I know You should work on building more relevant backlinks from sites with the following criteria... Relevant to your site Hosted within the UK Contain the *.co.uk cc-TLD This is the best information I can give you at this time, also try using more proper british language on your site; there english slightly differs from the US with certain words and wording.
Thanks for the advice, and I agree with you, but really what I am after is to find out why 1 week ago I was no. 5 for 2 keywords but now I am no. 60 on google.co.uk but still am no. 5 on every other google site.....
This is either due to changes in the Google algorithm or data center issues, wait about 2 weeks and see if they come back to their normal rankings.
Just give it some more time, till it's fully updated and finally you will benefit on the targeted area... no worries
2 months should be more than enough for Google to update. Try another thing: get as many local (UK) links as possible. That helps a lot in geo targeting.
I have now switched off the targeting as things are getting worse, it is like I have some penalty being applied.