New Markets Are Open

Many large companies and e-commerce businesses have explored Global markets. The common question that we get from businesses seeking to expand their product line to Canada or other regions is how to approach new markets. They asked us “should we create a separate and new website for international purposes with a new GMB manager? There’s a simple answer and a complex answer.

The Simple Answer

Don’t attempt to recreate a brand new website, you can set up a subdomain for your website to serve content in that specific language to search engines and users in your new targeted Market. The sub domain will appear as the following:

 www.yourwebsite.com/ca

With a sub domain you have the opportunity to mirror your content and when we do that we have to make a few adjustments on pricing and measurements to match our local demographic. We also have to apply the local language so that we can focus on the seo for that locality.

Once we create the content, we can go ahead and use HREFLANG tags on our pages and themes for the sub domain to be attributed to the correct language code and country code.  These attributes will then tell search engines like Google what market the content is created for.  Google will then prioritize your content for these markets because of its narrow search range,  which we set to be localized. Localization is fine-tuning of your content for a specific area.

It’s recommended for your Google my business profile you should not set up a new profile unless you have a physical location in that market to serve your customers. The reason being is that when we manage our Google business profile we can set different areas up for geo fencing around the world. Geo fencing is a virtual boundary that we can set and control for our business on platforms like Google. Setting up a new profile for your physical location within a new market can help increase traffic because Google is switching from the Google my business profile to Google Maps as their new front. This change hasn’t completely taken effect yet but it’s planned to overtake Google business by 2023.

The Complex Answer

With all things related to search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and any marketing strategy there is no one size it’s all strategy.  Every situation is unique and different depending on the business so you really need to take a look at what factors are most important to your company’s long-term strategy. The best options I can recommend are the following two:

Option One: Launch A New Website For Your New Geo Target

Launching a new website for your targeted geo area will mean you need a new domain for your website. This will be completely separate from your existing website. To give an idea and understanding of what this means I’m going to give you an example of a company expanding into the Brazilian Market. 

The company’s name is website.com. When we look at purchasing a separate domain for this company for the Brazilian Market it’ll have .BR at the end. So www.website.br  If we were to use a subdomain of our existing domain we would see www.website.com.br .You can also look at purchasing a .net or other following trail for your domain, however, I would suggest that you stick with the country specific domain as it’s better for SEO. It can help rank your website faster for that new Region. Domains with that country code on the end will also appear more familiar to the market and the user’s that will be using your website. We really want to remove the guessing game when it comes to where our website is on the internet for clients.

Other benefits that you might experience from using a country code at the end of your domain includes:

  •  Targeted content add metadata 4 terms popular in the region
  •  Ability 2 create region-specific links  and referrals
  •  Opportunity to set language standards and region codes commonly used in  the targeted area

The drawbacks to creating a completely separate website would mean that you could have customers arrive at the wrong domain. This confusion can be avoided by implementing proper code that bases the domain on IP address and region. Collecting more data on its own is also a legal task but with much reward. You will also have increased maintenance requirements that can include:

  •  Split marketing campaigns
  •  Performance and SEO updates that are required for both websites
  •  Link building campaigns will be separated by region rather than together

Option Number 2:  Creating A Subdomain On Your Existing Website

If Managing one website it’s already a lot of work, then this will help alleviate any additional work when compared to a brand new website. This is also the easiest and simplest way to create content for all your websites in different regions. These subdomains can take a copy from your current main website and then can be optimized and localized for your new market. 

Benefits of using a subdomain include:

  • Fast web development and management
  • One hosting cost and one domain cost
  • Subdomains can gain domain Authority from the start

Creating a new website or creating a subdomain to your existing website both create benefits.  Our recommendation is to go with the sub domain just because of the ease of use and the scale of it. This is a simple way to accrue search engine authority and save costs and time. It’s also good to know that creating a brand new website with a new domain gives it a fresh start and the ability to generate its own domain authority faster because of its narrow search. Assess your marketing strategy, look at your current situation, and decide which is the best route for you.