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Selling to US and UK

by Bovie
13 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Hello Warriors!

Bovie here. I have created my Second website! Everone always talks about not keeping all your eggs in one basket and all that. IM is not my full time job its just something i do in my spare time, but i'd thought id make another one, plus its good fun.

So anyway!... My website is reviewing a product with the opportunity to buy from Amazon, its not a very competative Niche, and my target keyword gets
  • 40,500 Broad
  • 8,100 Exact
  • 5,400 from the US (exact)
  • 1,000 from the UK (exact)
  • Less than 20k Competing pages
  • Two LSI keywords have 40k Competing and 3k - both 6000 exact search
  • Is a buying keyword
  • Is Evergreen
(I have market samurai - took me a few days to get used to find this Niche and keyword)

Now i haven't made this site with me thinking yeah its going to make me a ton of money, its a subject that i love and its also my job and its quite hard to find information on this product with real reviews, so i wanted to share what i know with people (i really go out of my way to help people in life and work) If it does make money then thats an added bonus.

Onto my question. My Competitor (i could say my only in this keyword) is Number1 on Google US (onsite SEO isn't fully done, and low backlinks - around 100 all PR0. And he or she ranks around 7/8 on Google.co.uk (Where i live) but only Advertises for US Citizens (only $$$)

Should I, on my .com website advertise both $ and Pounds (US Keyboard!)? I know it makes perfect sence to do so, but this being my first Product Niche website i thought i would ask.

Would it be good to do it with two buttons like buy now for $149.99 (link to amazon.com) and one Buy now for £100 (link to amazon.co.uk) with comparable more expensive prices above them - Which arnt links to anywhere

Or Make Two seperate websites?

Thank you

Adam!

I had alot of help from James Sides - Niche Predators WSO (NOT an Affiliate Link)
#amazon #selling
  • Profile picture of the author James Kenton
    Hi - I can't give you a definitive answer on this but I hope I can help a little.

    I was told by Peter Thomson once that some years ago when CDs first became popular Nightingale-Conant did some test mailings. They were identical in every way except the order form.
    • 1/3rd of the forms allowed the prospect to buy the audio cassette version of the product (no mention was made of the CD).
    • 1/3rd showed the CD only.
    • 1/3rd allowed them to choose between CD or tape.
    Apparently the results showed that giving people the choice resulted in fewer overall sales (ie fewer people bought tapes if they were given a choice than if they were only able to order tapes).

    So unless you have the resources to do a split test - I would guess that a choice would result in fewer sales.

    How about the US button being shown to those viewing from the US and the UK button to those from the UK? There must be a Wordpress plug-in to do that. If you're not using Wordpress it wouldn't be hard to find someone who could write some php to estimate the visitor's country using the services of either maxmind or geoplugin.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Kenton
    Also - don't Google rank US hosted sites higher than UK hosted sites within the US and visa versa?

    I normally use the /ncr (no country redirect) switch with Google to check out the differences between the two results.

    If it were me I'd have both US and a UK based hosting accounts (so US and UK ip addresses) with a US button on the US version of the site and a UK button on the UK one.

    Please note that I've never done any testing on this - so I could be totally wrong!
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    • Profile picture of the author Bovie
      Originally Posted by jameskenton View Post

      Hi - I can't give you a definitive answer on this but I hope I can help a little.

      I was told by Peter Thomson once that some years ago when CDs first became popular Nightingale-Conant did some test mailings. They were identical in every way except the order form.
      • 1/3rd of the forms allowed the prospect to buy the audio cassette version of the product (no mention was made of the CD).
      • 1/3rd showed the CD only.
      • 1/3rd allowed them to choose between CD or tape.
      Apparently the results showed that giving people the choice resulted in fewer overall sales (ie fewer people bought tapes if they were given a choice than if they were only able to order tapes).

      So unless you have the resources to do a split test - I would guess that a choice would result in fewer sales.

      How about the US button being shown to those viewing from the US and the UK button to those from the UK? There must be a Wordpress plug-in to do that. If you're not using Wordpress it wouldn't be hard to find someone who could write some php to estimate the visitor's country using the services of either maxmind or geoplugin.
      I can see what your saying here. But the two things i would be offering would be the same item, just in dollars or pounds. I like the plugin idea, just struggling to get my head around on how i would do it, the content would be exactly the same only the Buy now buttons would be different.

      Originally Posted by jameskenton View Post

      Also - don't Google rank US hosted sites higher than UK hosted sites within the US and visa versa?

      I normally use the /ncr (no country redirect) switch with Google to check out the differences between the two results.

      If it were me I'd have both US and a UK based hosting accounts (so US and UK ip addresses) with a US button on the US version of the site and a UK button on the UK one.

      Please note that I've never done any testing on this - so I could be totally wrong!
      I do have US and UK hosting, this website is on my US host. But i dont know if the site would compete against itself? If you know what i mean.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Kenton
    Yep, I understand what you mean - you don't want your .co.uk version being treated as duplicate content and being taken lower in the search results because of that. I can't advise on that - I've never tested this.

    I'm assuming you have two different Amazon Affiliate links for this product (as US and UK accounts are different and use different links).

    The US link would need to appear to US visitors and would be the one supplied by your amazon.com affiliate account and your UK based visitors would need to see your amazon.co.uk link.

    ... or is that not the case? As far as I know you can't display USD links from a UK Amazon affiliate account or visa versa.

    If it were me I'd put the UK link on the UK based host and the US link on the US host as my feeling is that a UK site will be ranked higher on UK searches and a US based one on the US searches - although I not 100% on that. Hopefuly someone else will chip in.

    If your US site is ranked highly on the .co.uk version of Google and you don't want to risk jeopardising that position by making a competing UK version - then that's where the plugin/php would come in.

    You'd want a plugin that displayed different html for different countries. Something like:

    [pluginname country="US"] Buy now - US link/html [/pluginname]
    [pluginname country="UK"] Buy now - UK link/html [/pluginname]
    [pluginname country="Unknown"] Buy now - US and UK links/html [/pluginname]

    There must be a plug-in that does that as I'd assume it's a common need and it wouldn't be too hard to write. Let me know if you can't find one.

    Also consider whether it's worth worrying about this too much. The population of the US is far higher than the UK. If you're not relying on your site to make you a good income then it may not be worth risking US sales by complicating things with a second (UK) version. Once you have good US sales then - perhaps - you could consider attacking the UK market.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karen Barr
    Use the WP Amazon Associate plugin and it will handle the geo-targeting for you - US customers will see $ and be sent to Amazon.com, UK customers will see £ and be sent to Amazon.co.uk. No need for confusing choices. You can set a "default" location in the settings - so if you set default to US, customers in the rest of the world will see dollars.

    Be aware that you need to apply to both programs separately. Worth doing though because if someone clicks on an Amazon.com link and then gets redirected to Amazon.co.uk, you don't get any commission
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  • Profile picture of the author Karen Barr
    Just a note: be aware that if you have a trademark in your domain name, Amazon.com won't accept you to their program. I've just been through this with a client who had "ipad" as part of his URL. We've had to set him up a new domain so he can get into Amazon US.
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    Karen's QuickFire Marketing Blog
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    • Profile picture of the author Mohit Anand
      Originally Posted by Karen Barr View Post

      Just a note: be aware that if you have a trademark in your domain name, Amazon.com won't accept you to their program. I've just been through this with a client who had "ipad" as part of his URL. We've had to set him up a new domain so he can get into Amazon US.
      It is partially true. I have a domain name which includes a trademark. Amazon declined the request at first. Then, I added disclaimer and privacy policy on my site. Reapplied with the same domain name. Explained how I plan to use this domain, sell the main product, and its accessories. Voila! I got the confirmation within 24 hours.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bovie
      Originally Posted by Karen Barr View Post

      Use the WP Amazon Associate plugin and it will handle the geo-targeting for you - US customers will see $ and be sent to Amazon.com, UK customers will see £ and be sent to Amazon.co.uk. No need for confusing choices. You can set a "default" location in the settings - so if you set default to US, customers in the rest of the world will see dollars.

      Be aware that you need to apply to both programs separately. Worth doing though because if someone clicks on an Amazon.com link and then gets redirected to Amazon.co.uk, you don't get any commission
      Thank you for the Plugin. I have a question about it. The item is say a DN1756 in the US but a AG1589 in the UK. They are both exactly the same item but they come under a different name. Is there anyway around this, since the item DN1756 is not available in the UK under that name it directs me to Amazon.com

      Originally Posted by Karen Barr View Post

      Just a note: be aware that if you have a trademark in your domain name, Amazon.com won't accept you to their program. I've just been through this with a client who had "ipad" as part of his URL. We've had to set him up a new domain so he can get into Amazon US.
      Cheers for the heads up on this. I do have a trademark in my domain but i had no trouble being accepted. Maybe its because im not using the Main Trademark. But something provided by that trademark?
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  • Profile picture of the author James Kenton
    I thought we had it then with Karen Barr's suggestion. If the Amazon plug-in doesn't work out because of the product code issue you identify then it looks like the kind of plug-in I described does exist. Try Googling for more as one of these is not free and the other looks like it might not be trivial to set up:

    Geo-Targeting Wordpress Content
    Country Filter Wordpress plugin
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    • Profile picture of the author Bovie
      Originally Posted by jameskenton View Post

      I thought we had it then with Karen Barr's suggestion. If the Amazon plug-in doesn't work out because of the product code issue you identify then it looks like the kind of plug-in I described does exist. Try Googling for more as one of these is not free and the other looks like it might not be trivial to set up:

      Geo-Targeting Wordpress Content
      Country Filter Wordpress plugin
      You know what james. The 2nd one has sorted it. Your right about the set up, it doesn't come with any instructions so its just a case of weeding through comments and plucking whats required.

      What i've managed to do is.

      For US it displays the Amazon widget for amazon.com
      For UK is displays the Amazon widget for amazon.co.uk

      Now for everyone else it doesn't display anything, the plugin probablly has more potential that im utilising, but for me its doing its job.

      Thank you everyone for you help.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Kenton
    Fantastic - I'm glad you've sorted it. Maybe you could write a summary of how to do this for others who might search for it later?
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    • Profile picture of the author Bovie
      Originally Posted by jameskenton View Post

      Fantastic - I'm glad you've sorted it. Maybe you could write a summary of how to do this for others who might search for it later?
      I was thinking of this. And i'm going to get straight on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikelray031
    I can see what your saying here. But the two things i would be offering would be the same item, just in dollars or pounds. I like the plugin idea, just struggling to get my head around on how i would do it, the content would be exactly the same only the Buy now buttons would be different.
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