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Targeting US Audience from the UK...

by Tim_A
7 replies
Hi all,

I'm wanting to launch a few websites aimed at US customers, but am currently based in the UK.

What's involved in doing this?

How can I research/check US google results exclusively?

How can I set my site up to be found in the US (is it as simple a google analytics target audience?)

Are there any other steps/tips I need to take? The server the site's on will be in the UK also... does that pose any problems?

Thanks for any help/tips

Tim
#audience #targeting
  • Profile picture of the author NicSennen
    Why use a uk server? Get a cheap account with Hostgator or similar and keep your uk server for uk sites.

    Googles Keyword tool can be targeted just to US or just to UK and you can use Google.com Unpersonalized for searches.
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  • Profile picture of the author sandman123
    Reason: actually misspelt my own name!
    You need more caffeine in your system

    I live in London and all my sites are aimed at US market.
    I do use a US hosting package but I'm not sure that makes a difference as long as you have a decent UK package.

    Quite easy to setup US affiliates and most of them either pay via paypal or sometimes direct into your Bank account.
    Are you going to be using Wordpress or html sites?
    Google analytics is always a good thing to add but I also use Visitor Maps which allows you to see the information directly from Wordpress admin.
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    Let me show you how to make hundreds of extra $'s weekly .. Click here.
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  • Profile picture of the author Will Edwards
    Hi Tim

    That's exactly what I do. When I started, I did not have a target audience in mind, hence my .co.uk domain, but now I do absolutely target the US audience. And my ISP happens to be in Canada, so there is in principle no problem with what you are proposing.

    I am no longer interested in trying to do the SEO thing, so I don't bother researching Google's results for the US. I simply write for my target market and price in USD.

    Good luck with your project.

    Will
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim_A
    Sorry I should have explained i've got UK reseller hosting with a superb company, so unless there's an outright reason to go to US servers, staying with them is more about convenience and cost.

    I normally use wordpress sites so that plugin's a great share. I'm testing a custom script to see if it'll work on wordpress at the moment... if it does then that'd be perfect

    Anything else I might need to know? The affiliate side of things is sorted, I just wanted to make sure there weren't any additional hurdles to consider when it comes to ranking/linking and analytics etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author BarryOnline
    3 of my sites rank #1 in both Google.co.uk & Google.com

    My sites are on UK servers ( IP's ) & have the .co.uk TLD to target just the UK market. The things is, I had no intention in ranking highly in Google.com (US) but I'm ranking #1 there for fairly competitive keywords.

    I'm even outranking the large US site consumersearch.com (PR 7) with a site on UK server & using the .me.uk TDL for a fairly competitive keyword.

    Because of my experiance with this I think you will be able to rank fine using your UK servers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tim_A
    Great to know Barry, well done mate

    Okay, will set up a campaign and see how it goes... nothing to lose
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    • Profile picture of the author aholmes360
      On the SEO front, I'd suggest creating separate subdomains for content aimed at different countries, then going into Google Webmaster Tools and telling Google which subdomains are aimed at the different countries.

      If you want US SEO traffic, you should also think about getting links from sites that are US based and also have links going to them from other US sites.

      If you're buying traffic, its easy to target specific countries, but I've found that geo-targeting for paid campaigns on basic WAP phones is often incorrect.
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