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Keyword choice for a Country-Specific Car Blog?

by loybond
9 replies
  • SEO
    • |
One of the blogs I'm setting up at the moment is a car blog for a certain country. What I'm confused about is what keywords I should try to rank for. "car reviews" and such is a very broad topic, and then we're dealing with not only massive sites (Car & Driver, Motor Trend) but also huge blogs like Autoblog.

Initially, I wasn't too keen on a country-specific car blog, but looking at the success of caradvice.com.au, I began thinking. Australia is a smaller market for cars than the one I want to cater to, and yet, that blog challenges Australian mainstream car sites and does very well.

As far as domestic competition goes, there's next to none. But the search volume for car reviews/advice etc. is pretty low when you throw the country name in there. This problem probably existed for caradvice.com.au too when they began, so the challenge is not only ranking for keywords, it's also creating awareness. Example... a car blog for Belgium. Belgian readers, when looking for car reviews, probably look to Top Gear and English/French/Spanish media for car advice, and because of that, search volume for something like "car reviews belgium" would be pretty low.

So would any of you have any ideas or techniques as to how I could do what caradvice.com.au has done for another country? Or is this whole idea foolish?
#blog #car #choice #countryspecific #keyword
  • Profile picture of the author mark@1to101
    Get a domain name that is specific to the country that you want to target and really push to get links from other country specific domains e.g. to target "car reviews" from google.co.uk, get domain name that ends in .co.uk and links from other .co.uk car websites.

    Also, instead of targeting "car reviews UK", target particular brands (either with or without UK), such as "Honda Reviews", "Honda UK", "BMW Reviews" etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author loybond
    Cool, I didn't know that made a difference. I'll go with the .country domain.

    It it possible to target so many keywords? There'll be so many - Honda UK, BMW UK, Ford UK etc. I ask this because I won't be able to have all those keywords in my title, and probably not the other H tags either.
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    • Profile picture of the author PeteHarrison
      Originally Posted by loybond View Post

      Cool, I didn't know that made a difference. I'll go with the .country domain.

      It it possible to target so many keywords? There'll be so many - Honda UK, BMW UK, Ford UK etc. I ask this because I won't be able to have all those keywords in my title, and probably not the other H tags either.
      Use a blog (wordpress) and create a category for each make of car hen create sub-categories for each model under the make category. Fill with content and get country specific backlinks as mentioned above.

      Pete
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      • Profile picture of the author loybond
        Originally Posted by PeteHarrison View Post

        Use a blog (wordpress) and create a category for each make of car hen create sub-categories for each model under the make category. Fill with content and get country specific backlinks as mentioned above.

        Pete
        That's a great idea, and I hadn't thought of that before. Thanks!

        Would there be any sort of harm or penalty associated with having tons of categories?
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        • Profile picture of the author BeauPenaranda
          Hey loybond,

          Don't forget models like "Hemis" "Crossovers" or "Honda CRV". I would guess the more specific the better. A nice one that is become popular is "hybrids" or "e-85".

          good luck
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          • Profile picture of the author loybond
            Originally Posted by BeauPenaranda View Post

            Hey loybond,

            Don't forget models like "Hemis" "Crossovers" or "Honda CRV". I would guess the more specific the better. A nice one that is become popular is "hybrids" or "e-85".

            good luck
            I would use those as tags rather than categories though, wouldn't I? Or do you mean create categories for those sorts of words/phrases?
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            • Profile picture of the author BeauPenaranda
              Originally Posted by loybond View Post

              I would use those as tags rather than categories though, wouldn't I? Or do you mean create categories for those sorts of words/phrases?
              Yeah those are good ideas. I was just suggesting that you could create one niche site about a specific car and a specific model.

              I was searching for a car last year online, and I know I used a specific make and model when I entered in google.

              But yeah, the alternative would be what you've suggested.
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        • Profile picture of the author PeteHarrison
          Originally Posted by loybond View Post

          That's a great idea, and I hadn't thought of that before. Thanks!

          Would there be any sort of harm or penalty associated with having tons of categories?
          Hi loybond,

          If you use a category for each car manufacturer (BMW, Ford, etc) and subcategories for the models (320i, Escort, etc) it will give you a good "silo" structure.
          You can also create categories for class of car (SUV, coupe, etc) - this will alow you to add a single post to multiple categories for extra SEO juice.

          Pete
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  • Profile picture of the author Sebulba
    I am learning so much from this. Thanks

    Seb
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