| |
| |
|
SEO Articles |
|
|
|
Can Google Really Deliver Country Specific Searching?
This is a serious matter, can Google really deliver top quality search results for other countries? The answer so far is "sort of". In this article I will use Canada as an example of the quality or lack of thereof, that is delivered by Google's search results. Let's take a look at Canadian search results by Google.ca: When you highlight "Canada" through Google search results and then start searching, you may be surprised at the amount of companies that aren't really Canadian. All of this also applies for the UK and other major markets as well... In fact, many of the "paid results" come from American companies. Now some would argue that this is to be expected, coming from American companies with large budgets but I would disagree because a lot of the bulk of the "Canadian specific" results are also American companies. It is quite evident that this is a growing concern with business owners residing in different countries. As an owner not from the US, I would rather compete with companies that are more local than not, simply because the results would then be relevant. Irrelevant results equal to poor results and less people take the search results seriously when they keep sifting through poor quality results online. For example; If you highlight "search in Canada" and search for "web design", the top 2 results seem not to be from Canada. This is a serious issue. What if people click on "I'm feeling lucky", they are redirected to a company outside of Canada. The average person won't know what to think about that and may disregard searching through Canadian results any further. The more content specific the results are, the more people will search through those results. The more people will tell their friends & peers to search through those results. See, as web marketers, we do have the power to create a search term that people get familiar with. Just look at "Blogging". A couple of years ago, if you asked people to search online for "blogging" sites, you would have had a lot of confused faces staring at you. Nowadays, if you search for blogging, there are more than 900,000 results found in Google and to top that off, there is more than enough paid advertisers as well. What do we see changing in Google? The #1 thing we are now seeing more and more is search results listing websites with country specific domain name extensions. Here's what I mean by that.... If you were Google and you wanted to deliver better search results for Canada, how would you go about doing that? I would look at 2 things: 1) Does the domain name end with .ca? (Ex. www.canada.ca) 2) Does the "contact" information about the company match the country - Street, City, Province/State, Country. Are all of these factors listed within the contact page? These are very important factors, evidenced to the fact that, I see Google weighing your "contact" page higher than anything else within your website other than your front page. So the moral is, make sure to list EXACTLY where it is that you do business within your contact page. Your website will rank higher for local searching when this technique is utilized. Second, make sure to buy a domain name(s) that is country specific. If you live in Canada, buy a domain with the extension (.ca). If you live in the United Kingdom, make sure to buy a domain name with the extension (.uk). If you live in the US, make sure to buy a domain name with the extension (.us). You may be asking, what if I don't want to concentrate on just local searching? Create a separate website to target different areas. There is nothing with .com, in fact most people automatically type in .com but, if you truly want to target locally, you have to play locally. The future of search engines is local searching! We are seeing an increasing amount of evidence to sustain this claim. Targeting locally is a great start and will ultimately help you to target internationally later on! I hope this article helps you out! About The Author: Martin Lemieux is the owner of the Smartads Advertising Network (http://www.smartads.info). Smartads helps companies to promote their business online and offline through time tested marketing strategies & design. Read weekly internet marketing tips by Martin Lemieux: http://www.smartads.info/newsletter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article within your newsletter or website as long as the entire article remains the same, including the author information.
MORE RESOURCES:
SEO - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Absolute Top Five Search Engine Marketing Myths Uncovered! It's no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant amounts of very qualified traffic to a web site - as 85% of Internet users utilize search engines to find/research for goods and services. The problem for many companies is the difficulty they face sifting through conflicting information and hyperbole! Here is my top five list of myths that need to be run to ground. The Modern Day Search Engine The first task most netizens do when they log on to the internet is to visit their favorite search engine to find information on various topics. Over the past few years the search engine has evolved to do more than list available websites on an entered subject. How to Get the Ranking You Always Wanted! Is your web site well ranked (In the top ten search results) in the results? If not, you need to read this and get the ranking you always dreamed of getting with your web site! I will show you how to get your web site a top ten ranking in the search engines with these few easy-to-do steps.Site Design - The web site's structure will decide how the spiders read your web site and the speed of them indexing the web pages. Search Engine Optimization and Web Site Usability Build a Web site and the people will come.Ha! If it were only that easy! The Web is the one sales environment where the customer has total empowerment. Search Engine Visibility - The Mantra of Corporate Profitability The corporate fundamentals are par excellence! The product is unsurpassable and the website is a web designer's dream in creativity and design - but there is a vacuum - of potential online customers! - The website lacks the basic ingredient of success - Search Engine Visibility! - which is what search engine optimization is all about.Increasing the search engine visibility is vital to any online business. What is the Google Dance? As with any good web developer, the ability to time the changes Google will update your website and refresh the content for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is in your favor. Welcome to the world of "Google Dance". How Do I Submit My Site To Search Engines? You've built up a good site, put in a lot of content, but none of the search engines lists your site? If you'd like to know how to go ahead with Search Engine Submission the right way, read on.How do I get my site to be included in search-engines? That's a question a lot of people ask me. Black Hat SEO and the Sneaky Redirect Are shades of grey SEO really Black Hat SEO?Black hat SEO is a strategy which gets a web page or entire site banned from a search engine.A shade of grey is when you use a black hat strategy but your site has not been banned yet. Search Engine Optimization --- An Overview Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking forward to increasing the online sales of their products/services, search engine optimization can be a very cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online. Search Engines Are Going to Love You for This What's the most potent free traffic source on the web?*** Search Engines! ***Surprised? Of course not. Why do so many people concern themselves so deeply with search engine optimization, positioning and ranking?In the United States, the follow FOUR search engines handle (*)94% of all search inquiries each and every day. Have You Been Dropped By Yahoo? Yahoo has fairly recently updated its guidelines. You can read the full list at:http://help. Whats the Big Hurry? Quite often I get asked what the magic solution is for getting better Google ranking. Sometimes the questions sound fairly naive, something like this:"I have recently established a site called wazooski. The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) If you're going to sell any type of product or service online, you're eventually going to have to optimize your Web site for the Search Engines, in order to boost traffic and sales.Many years ago, it was quite easy to draw effective traffic, as a good content-driven site, with good products, was enough to get a Web site ranked highly in the Search Engines. Content Management Systems Eyeball SEOs Content Management Systems and search engine optimization (SEO) used to be mutually exclusive terms. But the SEO community has been driving the developers of Content Management Systems to integrate more SEO-friendly methodology within their systems. The Google Sandbox - A Frustrating Inevitability or a Golden Opportunity? IntroductionThe Google Sandbox is a term applied to the phenomenon experienced by many new websites that delays the sites inclusion within the main Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) of Google. Often new websites can find themselves confined to the 'Sandbox' for 6-9 months, during which time traffic to the site is severely compromised. What is Search Engine Optimization? It is no secret that search engines are the number one traffic generating method for driving visitors to the different web sites. Search engines are very useful in helping people find the relevant information they seek on the Internet. Keyword Research And Overture Many of us who build websites get in the habit of using the Overture "Keyword Suggestion Tool" to do keyword research. It's convenient, and one of the few remaining such tools that is free. Optimizing For Visitors Not Search Engines Most people feel that optimizing is to target the search engines alone. In my opinion, this is not the only case. Website Submission - What You May Not Know About Search Engine Indexing Getting your website listed in the search engines is relatively easy if you submit it, but even if you don't you can still get your website indexed by the larger search engines by following a few simple tips. The reason for this is the search engines spiders search the web on a daily basis looking for new websites to index, old ones that are no longer valid, and the like. Fixed Point of Reference According to author Frank Peretti, "A fixed point of reference for human beings is always something that is found outside themselves. It has to be something to which we can always come back.
|
| Home | Sitemap | Forums | Contact Us | Advertise |
| © 2006 SEO Articles. A Real Web Talk Presentation. Network Sites : Index Rated Directory | SEO Care Directory | Humour Inc. | Free Mobile Ringtones | A1hosts | SEO Blog the four required words |
