Some thoughts on targetting other countries online, from Invest NI workshop 24th April 2013

1. Targetting Other Countries

2. Want to target another country?
• Do you have the ability to deal with
sales/enquiries from other countries
• Can you fulfill to these countries
• Is there a market for your product or service
• Distance Selling Regulations, Tax, etc

3. Market Research
• Is there a demand for your products?
– Google Keyword Tool, SEMRush
– Google Analytics, WMT
• What is the competition like?
– Alexa
– Market Research
• Can you make this market profitable?

4. Domain Options
• Separate ccTLD for each country
www.investni.fr
• Use a subdomain for each country
fr.investni.com
• Use sub-directory approach
www.investni.com/fr/

5. ccTLD’s
• A separate site needs to be set up and
maintained for each
• Each TLD will need to have its own set of
incoming links
• Content should be localised and may be well
be very different from your main site
• Hosting location no longer an issue, use WMT
to tell Google what country to target

6. Sub Domains
• Need to have separate version of site installed
and maintained at the sub domain
• Content needs to be localised
• Needs to have its own set of incoming links
• Target country or language can be set in WMT

7. Sub Directories
• All on one site, under the same domain name
• No need to maintain multiple versions of site
• Content should be localised in each folder
• Target Countries can be set in WMT
• One set of incoming Links

8. Additional Google Tags
• Google provides additional Tags to help them
serve the correct language version
– Rel=“Alternative” hreflang=X”
• Helps to re-enforce the message in case of any
confusion
• Each version of the page should have a link to
all the other versions
Dont Worry Too Much About This
Make sure your web designer worries about it

9. Pros and Cons
• No best way to do this
• Pros and Cons of Each Method
• Will depend on technical resources
• Ongoing maintenance etc will be an issue
• Google Offer Guidelines

10. How to do it?
• You will need a native speaker to develop the
content for country specific site or pages
• Your CMS or Web Developer will have to be
able to create the necessary structure
• You will need to be able to deal with any
communications, email, social, telephone that
arise

11. Questions?