There have been some recent changes made to the algorithm of Google.One of the changes is Geo Targeting. Google has started supporting Geo targeting,in this it targets users in a particular geo graphical location.To help users with that,Google has provided Geographic Target tools that helps in determining the way a website would appear in search requests made from a particular geographical location.
Geo-targeting can be considered as the most important factor of future SEO.This has been designed to provide more relevant search results depending on the location and the language as well.
There are few major points that needs to be bourn in mind when working on targeting customers from a particular Geographic location.
The first one is the domain name extention such as .com,.co.in,.co.uk etc.Out of these .com is a global domain extension whereas .co.in and .co.uk are country specific ie. India and United Kingdom respectively.If your business ,products or services are designed for a particular country and you wish to have customers from a particular geo-location it is important to have a domain with an extension of that country.
Secondly ,you need to choose a Web Hosting service provider who offer servers in that country or geographic location inorder to host your website.Equally, it is necessary to have an IP address assigned to your website from your targeted region.
Thirdly, it is important to carry out a research of keywords that are most commonly used by users from a particular region. You must use the same/similar keywords and phrases in your web pages inorder to get displayed in the search results.
Most of the users are unaware that rankings of a website differs in SERP’s from country to country. Every individual wishes to get their website ranked in the first position, inorder to do so some Geo Targeting SEO techniques needs to be implemented.As quoted above,one must use country specific domain names.
Web Hosting provider plays an indirect but vital role in your websites rankings.For Example: If you offer products or services to users in India and your website is hosted on the servers placed in US or any other country, you are bound to get much less appropriate customers as your website would start appearing in the search results of that particular country.
It proves helpful if you place the business address in the footer of the Web page, this helps Google bots to determine your website Location.
In your effort of Geo targeting SEO, it is necessary to have inbound links from country specific websites.The more the number of inbound links from your targeted geo location, the better are the chances of better rankings in the SERP of the geo location search results. To make things clear here is an example: If your website is targeting customers from India,then the more number of external links coming to your website from Indian web sites,the better are the chances of your website being listed in the search results of Google.co.in.
Another major factor of SEO is the content.It is necessary to have rich content in the webpages.It helps in getting organic traffic to a website, the more the number of organic traffic,the better is the chance of conversion.
Please refer the following for other aspects of Targeted SEO:
Boost Your Revenue with Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Link Building : One of the Most Important factor of SEO.