Choice of Domain for Offline Business Promotion UK

11 replies
Hi Offline Warriors

Could one of you UK based local marketing experts help me.

My dilemma is if I take a search term for example plumbers Leeds and I wish to create a site to sell / rent to a local plumber in Leeds after creating a wordpresss site plus seo.

Am I better in ranking terms on google.co.uk with

plumbersleeds.com
plumbersleeds.net
plumbersleeds.org
www.plumbersleeds.co.uk

Will the one that does best on google.co.uk also rank well on google.com?

Does anyone have any idea how many searches are done in the UK from google.co.uk vs google.com.

Thanks in advance

John
#business #choice #domain #offline #promotion
  • Profile picture of the author timmykins
    Hi John,

    In general, the evidence says that .co.uk will rank better than a .com/.net/.org, all other things being equal, ie same amount of on-page/off-page SEO. If you are trying to rank better than competitor sites though, as long as your SEO is better than theirs, there is just as much chance ranking well with any extension.

    The ranking for google.com and google.co.uk will be different for non-geo searches, however for geo-targeted search terms, why would you want to rank well on both?

    As for how many searches are done, I've no idea, but do bear in mind that there are about 240 million more people in the states than the uk!

    Hope this helps

    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author Jaygbee
      Originally Posted by timmykins View Post


      The ranking for google.com and google.co.uk will be different for non-geo searches, however for geo-targeted search terms, why would you want to rank well on both?



      Tim
      Hi Tim

      The reason I am wanting to rank for both is I did a quick check round my house as to which google was set as default the results for the five of us with work and home machines was

      google.com 7
      google.co.uk 4

      It concerns me that people would be paying to rent a ranked web site but the majority of local searches could be made form a site they are not ranked as well on.

      That is of course unless searches in the google ad word tool listed under Local Monthly Searches just takes searches from the local variant search ie google.co.uk - all google say is

      "Local Monthly Searches

      If you specified a country or language for your search, this is the approximate 12-month average number of user queries for the keyword for those countries and languages. It is specific to your Keyword Match Type selection"

      Thanks for reply much appreciated

      John
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      • Profile picture of the author tonyscott
        Originally Posted by Jaygbee View Post

        Hi Tim

        The reason I am wanting to rank for both is I did a quick check round my house as to which google was set as default the results for the five of us with work and home machines was

        google.com 7
        google.co.uk 4

        John
        As far as I'm aware, the default search in the UK is Google.com but it provides search results weighted to the UK.

        Tony
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        • Profile picture of the author Jaygbee
          Originally Posted by tonyscott View Post

          As far as I'm aware, the default search in the UK is Google.com but it provides search results weighted to the UK.

          Tony
          Thanks Tony

          Is it just me then that gets different results from google.com than google.co.uk I have even had different results between different browsers!!

          I know originally mine were wrong because i was still logged into my google account so now do all searches via my laptop never had contact with google account, I check with firefox and opera.

          john
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  • Profile picture of the author markfb
    I tend to buy both the .co.uk and the .com . For a lot of small to medium sized companies in the UK they seem to have become conditioned to .co.uk and feel happier with that TLD. They don't like .net or .org

    As for ranking I have found very little difference between .co.uk and .com for local businesses.

    If you are using the rent a site model ,the majority of UK clients are not bothered about the TLD as long as they are on the front page and getting leads, telephone calls and enquiries.
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  • Profile picture of the author tonyscott
    Use an exact match .co.uk if you can

    plumber leeds - 480pm exact match - all tld's taken - adwords cpc £1.93
    leeds plumber - 390pm exact match - all tld's taken - adwords cpc 4p
    emergency plumber leeds - 140pm exact match - there's a tld available if you're quick - adwords cpc 4p

    Tony
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    For local business it is best to use a local domain so the global features of Google come into play.

    It will still get picked up by other Google search engines.

    So for local business I would go with plumbersleeds.co.uk

    Quentin
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  • Profile picture of the author Jaygbee
    Hi Tony, Mark & Quentin

    Thanks for advice

    It would appear the consensus is to use a .co.uk

    Thanks again

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author addison146
    your information about new websites are good .I think you should get high ranking for sell these websites at high rate .
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  • Profile picture of the author tonyscott
    You will get different results between google.com (in the uk) and google.co.uk

    I use both Market Samurai and SEO Elite to check rank positions

    Tony
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  • Profile picture of the author MIB Mastermind
    Buy both. But I would hold preference over the .co.uk
    only my opinion though.
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