brightonseo 2016 - domain strategies for international success

INTERNATIONAL DOMAINS

Getting search engines to see you as international

Getting visibility!

Getting potential visitors to think you’re local

WHY DOMAINS ARE IMPORTANT

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

WE ALL KNOW THE OPTIONS

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

www.mysite.CO.UK

ccTLD

www.mysite.com/UK

Sub Folder

UK.mysite.com

Sub Domain

ccTLD STANDARD PROS AND CONS

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Pros

Seen as local by search engines

Good for usability

Can host locally

Cons

New website

Lots of different URLs

Extra costs

SUB FOLDER STANDARD PROS AND CONS

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Pros

Easy to set up

Benefits from existing SEO

No extra costs for domains

Cons

Can’t host locally

Not automatically seen as local

Doesn’t work if you’ve got a ccTLD

SUB DOMAIN STANDARD PROS AND CONS

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Pros

Some connection to existing SEO

Country code at front looks good

No extra costs for domain

Cons

Can’t host locally

Not seen as local by search engines

Doesn’t work if you’ve got a ccTLD

WE ALL KNOW THE DRILL

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Blah, blah, blah!

WHITEBOARD FRIDAY TOO

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

DIFFERENT SEARCH ENGINES

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

REAL WORLD DOMAIN SELECTION

BUT REALLY….

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

How do you choose?How do you know which

one is right?Does one solution fit all?

Leading phone brands in 5 markets

Seed list of a couple of hundred

keywords

Russia, China, South Korea, Germany,

UK

What can we learn about domain

strategy and local rankings?

LET’S DO A TEST

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

WHAT DID WE FIND?

CHINA d

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Most of the domains we found were TLDs

Local sites accounted for most Baidu results

and most of these will be native .com sites

with no sub folder or sub domain

CHINA ddddd

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

ccTLDs vs generic TLDs

Small number of not local ccTLDs. This

accounts for 52 of the 12,000 results

though!

CHINA SUMMARY

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Evidence generic TLDs work in this sector.

Non-natively Chinese sites a ccTLD seems best.

Stand alone Chinese language site work well.

Non local ccTLDs don’t work – SHOCKER!!

Most of the sites we found were local sites.

As always Baidu sites rank well in Baidu – 10% of results are Baidu domains.

SOUTH KOREA

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

.com domains fair the best in Naver

ccTLDs work well

SOUTH KOREA SUMMARY

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Not local ccTLDs hardly rank accounting for just 1%.

Naver results are varied and about more than websites.

Remember local based sites such as Naver Café and Naver Encyclopaedia

to help promote your site.

Domain strategy less important.

RUSSIA

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Yandex has always favoured .ru

domains and this is still the case

RUSSIA SUMMARY

Interestingly Yandex also shows a high number of non local ccTLDs

Most of these are sites from the Ukraine

GERMANY (A CLOSE NEIGHBOUR)

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Big bias towards ccTLDs in the German

market

GERMANY SUMMARY

.de domains rank the best in Germany.

Usability shows that the German market is more likely to click on these too, so

Google is supporting this.

Only 1% of domains were not local ccTLDs – split between Austrian, Swiss and

UK domains.

Not local ccTLDs generally rank outside the top 10.

UK (JUST BECAUSE IT’S HOME!)

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

In the UK .com domains fair better than

ccTLDs

UK SUMMARY

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Interestingly the UK has a higher number of non-local ccTLDs.

5% of the rankings we reviewed were ccTLDs from outside the UK.

Lots of Australian sites rank well in the UK on .com.au sites.

Some of these Australian sites rank in high positions including in the top 5.

ONE SIZE FITS ALL?

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

One size clearly doesn’t fit all here.

Some markets favour .com sites, some a local ccTLD.

In our experiment sub domains and sub folders don’t work as well.

SO HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?

RESEARCH

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Research is key – our research was one industry and only five markets.

What ranks at the moment?

What’s the prevalent domain strategy winning in the local market?

YOUR INTERNAL SETUP

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

How does your CMS work?

What does your current site work like?

How will websites be targeted?

ccTLDS

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Only work if you are targeting a country and not a language.

Still need hreflang tags.

Can’t build out other international subfolders or subdomains on a ccTLD.

EMILY’S MANDATORY RANT

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Whatever approach….. DON’T IP SERVE

DON’T FORGET WHITEBOARD FRIDAY

#BrightonSEO @IAmTheLaserHawk @ObanDigital

Make sure it makes sense – in the local language!

Make it pronounceable – in the local language!

Make it memorable for local people!

Thanks!

Any questions?

www.obandigital.com | +44 1273 613 400 | @ObanDigital |

@IAmTheLaserHawk | #BrightonSEO

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