Exporters ask all the time: “Why do I even need another English site for countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, when I already have a great one for the U.S.?”
The answer is simple (yet complicated): Google.
Google aims to provide its users with the most relevant and helpful results in milliseconds. It does this by using a series of algorithms that consider things like search terms, the relevance of individual pages, the quality of the website content, previous queries, speed/user experience, and location settings. It is because of these algorithms that exporters need to have a localized website for each English-speaking target market.
Google has a Search Index of hundreds of billions of pages, so as a business, you want to make it as easy as possible for Google to recognize that your website is relevant to your prospective customers in your target markets.
In practice, below are four ways you can indicate to Google that you are relevant to a specific market so you can be found in other English-speaking countries:
- Country-code Top Level Domains (ccTLD’s): ccTLD are country specific top-level domain which are automatically geo-targeted in Google Search Console. By having a .co.uk (United Kingdom), a .au (Australia), or a .ca (Canada), you are helping Google identify your website as relevant to searchers in each respective country instead of a generic .com or .net.
Google itself has 192 country/region specific search engines with corresponding domains: google.co.uk, google.com.au, google.co.in, and google.com.sg for example. When a searcher keys in a search into Google (even if it is google.com), Google identifies the searchers IPN and shows the relevant search results according to their location, on the appropriate Google.
Check out Armor Protective Coatings websites for English-speaking India and Canada as examples!
- Hosting: Hosting within the target country has many benefits for SEO and user experience purposes. Google takes considers website load speeds in search results, and the easiest way to assure decent speed is to host your website as close to your prospective buyer as possible. Studies show that the ideal website load time for mobile sites is under 3 seconds, and as page time load increases, the probability of bounce increases along with it (from 32% for 3 seconds to 90% at 5 seconds). So, if you are trying to reach Australia, but your website is hosted in the U.S., website load times are going to be considerably slower, resulting in a poor user experience, and poor search ranking.
- Relevant content and search terms: High quality content that is relevant for your prospective customers in your target customers is the most important aspect to Google and other search engines. Having a full understanding of who your buyer persona is and doing the appropriate keyword research will make a difference in search results in each individual English-speaking country. For example: sneakers (US), trainers (UK), and runners (Australia).
An example directly from Google’s section “How Search Works”: “We use your country and location to deliver content relevant for your area. For instance, if you’re in Chicago and you search “football”, Google will most likely show you results about American football and the Chicago Bears first. Whereas if you search “football” in London, Google will rank results about soccer and the Premier League higher”. - Local compliance: It is vital to make it as easy as possible for your international customers to interact with you and do business with you once they are on your website. This is why currency, units, imagery, and regulatory information is absolutely key to help your target customers have a wonderful local user experience. The last thing you want is for your target customers to not understand which product to buy because it's in imperial vs. metric, dollars instead of pounds, or feel insecure because the website is not up to their country's standards (ex: GDPR for the UK).
By going through the website localization process (even just in English), it is your way of telling Google and the local users that the information on the website is relevant for that specific country. You want to make it as easy as possible for Google to identify your website’s intention, so that your business can be found, be understood, and be easier to do business with- A win for both you, and your potential customer!
