Problems arise for any website developer who wants to develop a website to target the US market while located in another country. The same problems arise for anybody based in the US who wants to target a market overseas.

When you connect to the Internet your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will allocate an IP address which identifies your computer and the country it is in. This is why, if you have a laptop abroad some websites will appear in the language of the country you are in which can be an annoyance.

An issue of more relevance to website developers who wish to optimise for Google search engine traffic is that Google will serve up results slanted to the country you are in. Even if you select to search the Web rather than the local region your results will still be slanted towards the local region. AdSense Ads and Pay per Click ads will also be region based. This can make it difficult to see your competition in your target Country

To see Google results say in the USA while having a Computer and IP address in another country Select Advanced Search. Go to “Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more” After expanding this go to Region and select United States from the list. The search will show the natural search results and PPC ads as if the search had been made in the USA. However if you open up a Website it will show any regional based content such as AdSense Ads based on your local IP address.

Another useful tool provided by Google is the AdWords Ad Targeting Keyword Tool. This allows you to select a Country or region of a country and choose a keyword and see the natural search results and PPC ads for that location.

The ultimate solution if you do a lot of this sort of work is to browse using a proxy server so you can choose an IP address of your target country. There are problems with this. Free Proxies are very prone to being frustratingly slow and there are worries about security as all your web traffic such as logins could be viewed by the owners of the proxy. The better way is to choose a well known paid for Proxy.

I am based in the UK developing Niche AdSense Websites targeting the US market. My solution was to use FoxyProxy. This is a Firefox add-on which manages Proxy Servers allowing surfing with a Proxy to be quickly turned on and off. The add-on is free for the basic and standard versions. I have also used their paid Proxy Server for the US which so far has been pretty fast.

When optimising for another market choose a relevant local domain name extension. For example.com or.org for the US or.co.uk for the UK. If you are looking for a world market.com is always best or otherwise.org.

If you want to target the market of a particular country always choose a web hosting company having its servers in that country. This can make a big difference to Google search results.

Source by Edwin Jones

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