Hi everyone, hoping to get some feedback on a question. I am looking to start an online business in Canada (where I reside) and have selected a niche market that I believe should see very well. The customers I hope to target are both Canadian and US shoppers. Being an online shopper myself when I am looking to buys something I tend to favor initially searching for any Canadian companies that sell what I am looking for e.g) If I was looking to buy a special Phillips BrandX Yellow Screwdriver, I would search for "Phillips BrandX Scewdriver Canada" at both google.ca and google.com. With my logic being that I should be able to save some money on shipping by shopping within my own geographical location and in general do some research on this item to see if there is another model within this product line that I might want instead. Keeping with this example, if I was selling this Phillips Brandx Yellow Screwdriver personally, and wanted to get into either SEO or PPC. Questions I have: 1.) Should I make sure that I throw either Canada or Canadian, e.g) "Phillips BrandX Screwdriver Canada" etc. into my keyword phrase for marketing. As the customers I believe I will convert the most will be fellow Canadians. Though at the same time don't want to loose any international (US) sales. 2.) If I was to use a Canada or Canadian keyword with my keyword phrase, do I need to treat Google.com and Google.ca seperatly. Or are they one in the same when it comes to searching??? Is Google adwords treated globally no matter which google country site the customer may be using using??? 3.) If I was going to do a specific PPC campaign with a very specific term that might not bring me as much traffic as say "Scewdriver" would but should convert better even with lower traffic. Would I chose "Phillips BrandX Screwdriver" (for US customers) on google.com. And "Phillips Brandx Screwdriver Canada" for Candian customers on both google.ca and google.com. Look forward to peoples insight, and belive my #3 question is a duplicate of 1 and 2, lol...thanks for the help!!! And I hope this is posted in the right location, if not I apologize.
Make your website exactly as you would to target the US customer. Get some links with "anchor + canada" and include a little bit of content about Canada on the website - If you rank in Google.com in the US it's very easy to rank in Google.ca for your key terms + Canada Although with this method you'll get less beneift from Google.ca - you'd need canadian hosting and a .ca address - so it's really up to you who you want to target more - US is a much bigger market which means more expense to rank - Canada is cheaper and less traffic. For the PPC you don't need to use "Canada" in your ad - it has no effect on the placement. Although it may be wise to say "screwdriver IN canada" since we would rather order in country than deal with customs.
I agree with pcoulters ideas and suggestions - although I don't think you need to have the .ca site hosted in Canada to really be indexed as a Canadian site on Google ... ? (not 100% sure.. is this documented officially by Google somewhere?) Rob