Your Local SEO Strategy – Why Choose Local Web hosting and Domain Names
Your Local SEO Strategy – Why Choose Local Web hosting and Domain Names
By Jennigje Galama
Most Search Engine Service providers have to work with existing web hosts and domain names, leaving little opportunity to use these important elements as part of their overall local SEO strategy.
These tips are sure to help you execute your SEO strategy and choose your host and domain names with SEO in mind.
SEO tips on choosing a web host
- The server of your host should be local, where most of your customers are, as Google will consider the IP address in its algorithms. If the main server of your host is in China your site will rank well on Google.cn, but not so well in Australia, on Google.com.au. So for example; you should host your main website in Australia, but when you build a micro-site of your website for your Chinese customers, make sure it is hosted locally, so both sites are ranked well in their respective local Google rankings.
- Your web host should offer a fast service. If your pages load too slowly the search engine spider will ‘time out’ and your site will not be fully indexed.
- Your web host should also be reliable and not have a lot of down time. Even if your site is down when your customers are not on it, if the spider happens to visit your site at that time, the same time-out code will be activated. The total number of timed-out queries will negatively affect your rankings.
SEO tip on choosing domain names
Google attaches the greatest importance to the words it sees first and the very first block of text a search engine spider sees is your full URL (so your domain name and directory structure). This has two important implications;
- A domain name ending in .com.au is a clear indication of your location, Australia, and helps you in your rankings on the local SE.
- It’s fair to say a keyword heavy domain name would be an ideal way to boost your rankings
If you are fortunate enough to start a website from scratch, you should obviously do keyword research first so you can use the outcome to choose a domain name. This ensures a huge head start on Google rankings.
I realise this is difficult for most as a keyword heavy domain name may appear spammy or you would prefer to use a business name instead. Fair enough of course. In that case you could get some keyword heavy domain names to use as landing pages of certain campaigns, or use them as your business blog.
Good luck!
Jennigje Galama is an expert on Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing and works for an SEO company in Australia. Download a free report “5 Secrets to Unlimited Free Traffic” instantly on her website…
http://www.TrafficAct.com.au
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com
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Comments
I’m not so sure that the IP address of your web host affects your ranking for local searches. Google has started taking into account the IP address of the user. I would like to see some evidence of this.
You are ontrack with your domain name analysis. This has long been known as a factor. This type of strategy really works well in niche markets without question.
There is no indication that Google or any other search engine ranks a site factoring the IP address of the server.
Google does use geo-targeting of regional IP addresses from the Searchers standpoint to deliver what Google calls relevant “local-intent content”
But those regional IP addresses are from the searchers ISp( such as Comcast Cable) not from the sites server IP.
In fact, SEs don’t seem to use IP addresses for sites/servers until there is a flag for a spammer creating a link farm on the same IP.
I never realized that google factored the IP Address into the algorithms. great post.