Im in the UK and have just created a site for the US market so need to show in the Google search results for US Google users, its a .com site, how can I make sure Google knows my site is for results for the US Google and get my site in results when people in the US search on Google.
Thanks, can you set different markets for each site in webmaster tools, also does having the site hosted in the UK or US make a difference?
Host the site in the US and you should be fine. Also get links from US based sites (if all your links are from UK based websites it won't work) If you are concerned about the results for yourself, just use google.com instead of google.co.uk and you should get approximately the same results as us based visitors (with a slight bias on UK results however due to your location). For a more accurate result you will need to use a US based proxy site to search your keywords.
If your target market is US, it is better to host your site in US. You can apply a google account and login to the webmaster tools to have a try. http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools Of course you can set different target market for different domains.
It does make a difference - but not much of one - google say they use that information in the absence of any other http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/08/server-location-cross-linking-and-web.html The main thing that's going to dictate how google sees the geo-targeting of your site will be the backlinks - if they come from US sites, that's the lead google will take.
Excellent thanks for the advise, anyone recommend a good reliable US based server hosting company with 24/7 support.
Host your site on a UK based hosting. Set the geographical location in google webmaster tools. Get backlinks from UK based sites, backlinks from sites that have uk extension will help a lot.
I dont think it matters where the host is, it just depends on your content and where you get your back links froms
I'd recommend HostGator. I'm based in the UK and use UK hosts for some .co.uk sites but the HostGator service is way better than anything I've come across in the UK and the cost is less too.
Check out my home site, i use a great hosting site that also doubles as a income. You will find it on my main page. It's support base is second to none.