Location location location

Geo-targeting Search Engine Optimisation (Geo-SEO)

by John Hughes
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 20 Oct 2006

By Donna O'Hanlon, September 2006

Getting your site optimised for your target market is one of the most important aspects of running an online business. Due to the nature of your business it may be suitable to target the global market. But what if you're trying to reach a local market, or your products cater only to a specific geographic location?

Needlessly trying to reach a global market can have a detrimental affect to your online business, especially if you're competing with thousands of sites for the top position. This is where geo-targeting Traffic is most useful to those who need to reach a market in a specific location. Doing this can bring a lot of sales and ensure more business in the future.

Geo-targeting traffic is a fairly simple process with effective results. The best place to start is by changing the title tags of your site. When a site is being spidered, this is how the Search Engine spider can pick up the subject matter of the site, by identifying the keywords in the title.

Say for example that you have an online business in the UK selling real estate in Italy, or more specifically, real estate in Rome. It wouldn't be effective to optimise the site for the global market or even the UK market. This means that the Title Tag for the main products page could possibly be 'real estate Italy', 'real estate Rome' or 'Rome real estate'. So if you're only interested in reaching a particular area, include the area in the title tag.

To get the most out of optimising your site for the local market, applying a geo-relevant headine will increase the chances of your site being seen by your target market. If your site is specifically for the city of Rome, you could use the headline 'Real estate property in Rome'. This header would increase the traffic to your site.

The same principles apply when adding body text. This will give maximum accessibility in the major search engines. Including the targeted location in the text give strong Content and makes it much more likely that your site will rank well in search engines.

However, there is another thing you should condsider about geo-targeting - where the users are that you want to see your content. For example, you might be selling property in Rome, but to people in France. If this is the case, there are some other things you should do.

Firstly, you should consider the language that you use on the site. It was Willy Brandt, German ex-chancellor who said "If I am selling to you, I speak your language, if I am buying, dann müßen Sie Deutsch sprechen" (you must speak German). What he meant by this is that to sell effectively, you must connect with your customers on their level - in his example, in their language. If you are selling to people in France, you must sell in French.

Additionally, you should consider the location of your web host. To appear in the list of "Sites in France" in Google, your site must be hosted in France or (or preferably AND) you should use a .fr domain. If you do neither of these, then the search engines have no way of knowing that your market is France.

So, to summarize: geo-targeting is a twofold issue. Firstly, you must geographically identify your products. Secondly, you must geographically locate yourself in your target market.

You've probably heard it from traditional marketeers: "Location, location, location."