Internet Marketing/ SEO for Europe and the UK

Dyanna Culp

Europe’s most sophisticated online markets are ripe for savy webmasters looking for steady traffic. A recently released study by Jupiter Communications, Inc. indicates that ecommerce and information websites (both U.S. and European) are too focused on short term high volume traffic and sales while ignoring the long term building of consumer relationships. This neglect of customer relationship management strategies has resulted in a widespread inability for websites to increase visitors or to maintain existing online customer loyalty.

European audiences are hungry for a sense of community from a website they can trust. Free Internet services have dramatically increased the number of online users but not the incremental use of the web. Surfing or buying are up, but not as much as expected because few sites have developed the needed relationships for sustaining repeat visits. The good news- a new study by RoperASW and AOL Time Warner reveals that 45 percent of Europeans are expected to buy more products online in the coming years. Nearly three out of four Europeans surveyed said they regularly or occasionally use the Internet to research purchases before buying products offline.

For European success Webmasters need to:

• better target their demographic audience
• provide interactive web options
• offer a sense of community
• demonstrate an obviously secure shopping environment
• give visitors reasons to return
• build relationships through strategies such as forums, special offers, email newsletters etc.

The majority of online Europeans use Google and MSN. Google, MSN, Overture, Yahoo and other American based engines have a huge presence internationally. If you’re in Google US, then you’re in Google UK, “but” Google offers users in other countries the options of searching the database globally, by country or by language. Without a country specific domain you won’t appear in a country database selection even if you’re in the Google global base. And don’t neglect MSN- Bill Gates recently announced the goal of toppling Google from their throne.

Many foreign search engines only list sites with a domain ending specific to the country in question. If you sell products online, neglecting foreign engines cuts out a large chunk of your potential traffic. Most shoppers want to buy from what is perceived as a local based website. Engines specific to and popular in other countries, such as the European Espotting, will not list foreign urls in their database. If you want a strong presence in the UK, you need a “.co.uk” domain, in Germany a “.de” etc. Using dedicated country domains for each target market creates user trust. It also makes the search engines believe you’re a local entity, boosting your ranking.

You can shop for domain names in 185 countries all in one place. At  http://www.web-solutions.dk you can find options for each country, prices and whether a physical presence is required. Many countries require the buyer to have a physical mailing address, not a P.O. box, proving they’re a resident. The prices and purchase criteria vary from country to country. Some registrations cost as little as $15 per year, some run in the hundreds for a single domain name. Be prepared for sticker shock, the U.S. has some of the cheapest urls in the world.

Search engines around the world place varying degrees of importance on the wording in your root url or domain name. All other SEO points being equal the right domain name can boost you above the competition. For example an ideal url for targeting massage bodyworkers in the U.S. might be bodywork.com or bodyworkmassage.com.  But your German url should be Karosserie.de or KarosserieMassage.de with the Germany specific url ending- de. If none of the choice domains are available, consider adding a twist to the main target phase such as USbodywork.com or consider the hyphen game such as bodywork-massage.com.

If all of this gives you a headache, stick with your .com and add target language pages. You’ll still be able to gain entry to many foreign engines and a page named USbodywork.com/ Karosserie.html would help grab any Germans looking for a bodywork site.  

This sampling of International Search Engines is a good road to start down. Some require a country specific domain name, but quite a few currently accept .com submissions. Some require a small payment, some are free submissions. You need to be able to decipher the language well enough to figure out which box is for the url, the description etc. This is fairly simple for most European languages; until you reach the eastern block and Russia- there you’ll need help from someone who knows the language.

SEO for Europe and the UK

Be certain you utilize their word spellings. For instance in the UK “center” is spelled “centre’ and “dialer” is spelled ‘dialler”.  For UK target Google using the same SEO strategies you would in the United States. For the rest of Europe SEO should follow the old school which still applies to all engines worldwide- except for Google.

If one site must target both the US and Europe you’ll need to do some fancy footwork. Google will now kick in your teeth unless you frantically avoid using the words that actually describe a product- use the specific phrase more than 3-6 times and Google may drop you worldwide. Google popularity is high in the UK and they’re working on everyone else. For all other American based and European specific engines- you need those terms that Google now hates. On any engine other than Google, pages will always rank that are rich in content and search terms, (without spamming), have good descriptive meta tags and an abundance of well written inbound text links.

Worldwide PPC advertising is easiest when you stick with companies based in the U.S. that offer international services- such as Google and Overture.

• Google: you can have .com ads distributed to your countries of choice worldwide. But a more successful strategy is to set up accounts with ads written specifically for the target country and if possible with a corresponding domain ending.
• Overture: The top PPC provider has markets in the US, UK, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. A separate account is required for each target country.
• Espotting: a European version of Overture of particular importance in the UK and Germany

Bidding for maximum position at minimum cost is a fine art. Plan on some time to learn your way around PPC programs because the lay out and functions are radically different for each PPC engine. Each has different requirements for text length, punctuation, and search term relevancy. Spending cap options also vary. Google lets you set a daily cap. When the limit is reached ads go offline until the next day. Overture has a monthly cap- when hit your ads go down until the next 30 day billing cycle starts.

Europe has serious ecommerce potential. Vast numbers of sophisticated online Europeans, with money to spend, are ready for the right websites. They need ecommerce that is trustworthy beyond a shadow of doubt, sites that cater to specify needs and interests, sites that value ongoing relationships with their visitors. Europe is waiting.