Got customers in different Countries who you want to specifically target? This can be a difficult task, and one which was also the topic of discussion recently on the HighRanking Forum.

Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable weighed into the discussion advising that it is best to have "two different sites on TLDs (top level domains) that match that country. So if you want to target the US and the UK, have one US site on the .com and one UK site on the co.uk and make sure your content is Localized for that market."


However HighRanking administrator, Randy takes this concept further by adding:

When you're using a .com domain name you're not really Targeting the US market. You're targeting the entire world. It's one of those double-edged swords we get/have to deal with. In that .com is a worldwide competition. Not a US one.

The good edge of the sword being that since pretty much all US based sites use .com (as opposed to the almost never used .us) you end up with decent worldwide rankings if you get good rankings you can see from your PC from a US location. The bad edge of the sword being that if you can't compete in a worldwide market, you're basically screwed. Then the only thing left to you is your very, very localized market

If you have had experience in this area and wish to share your advice, feel free to do so below.