If your website is targeting multiple countries and has different content for each country, then it’s really important that when a user lands on your website, they end up with the content that’s intended for people in their location.
This process is called geo-targeting.
Here are three tips that will help you to geo-target your website content successfully.
1. Webmaster Tools settings
It is possible to set your geo-targeting preferences in Google Search Console (and other search engines’ equivalents). You can manually set either all or part of your website to be targeted at a particular country. This tells the search engine without a doubt what content it should show in which country.
2. Local hosting
You should physically host your website, or the appropriate sections of it, on servers located in your target country. This is a strong signal to the search engines of its geo-target. It also speeds up website loading speeds, which has the knock-on effect of improving the user experience and potentially increasing search rankings.
3. Language localisation
You should make sure that the language used on each part of your website is the correct version for your target market. This goes beyond just having German content on your German website and French content on your French website. You need to ensure it is fully localised, for example using American English on your US website and British English on your UK website. You should also make sure that you use the correct currency and offer the appropriate payment methods for each country.
These three methods will all help to inform the search engine of your website’s geo-target. If you follow these three tips, then you stand a very strong chance of serving the right content to your users.
Arkadiusz Kostrzycki
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