16 January 2012
Selling your products or services abroad can be a fantastic way of reaching new markets and increasing the reputation of your brand. However it does bring with it unique challenges which will need to be addressed before your international ventures can take off successfully. This week we will be looking at one of the first hurdles you’ll meet when establishing your brand outside of the UK.

Reaching Clients Abroad

The first issue with selling abroad is the same one that any company faces when first promoting themselves online – getting themselves found. Even if you currently hold the top spot in search engine results for your chosen keywords, it is very unlikely that you will appear in the first pages of other countries search engine results. Search engines such as Google assess the physical location and language of their users and provide results which they think are most relevant. Even if the user is specifically searching for an English phrase, it is far easier for a French website to rank higher than yours, even if the site is of a very poor quality.

One way of increasing traffic to your site is to setup a Google Adwords campaign. Through this you will be able to target adverts directly at specific countries or areas. This will be most beneficial whilst you are waiting for your site to gain prominence in search engine rankings.

Search engines will decide how relevant your website is to their users location by assessing the following criteria;

Domain name extension

Each country has its own unique country code which can be used in a domain name to indicate a connection with that country. Usage of these extensions is often covered by various restrictions, though some countries have embraced the commercial appeal of their extension and directly profit from domain sales (such as Tuvalu’s .tv and Moldova’s .md extension).

Google recommend that when marketing your business to a specific country you should use that country’s domain extension. If this is not possible, it is advisable that you create a specific subdomain purely for that country’s use (fr.company.com or de.company.com for example). As well as meeting Google guidelines, using the correct domain extension will also improve your site’s reputation with visitors. Even though .co.uk has a great international status, shoppers will have more trust for their own country code, especially when shopping online.
The following commonly used domain extensions require citizenship of their respective countries or a locally registered company – it is possible to bypass these restrictions by using a trustee service to act as a ‘local’ point of contact. We can arrange this if needed.

Australia Australia (.au) - Australian Business Number
Brazil Brazil (.br) - Local contact
Canada Canada (.ca) - Canadian Presence Requirements
Germany Germany (.de) - Local contact
Finland Finland (.fi) - Citizenship or registered company
France France (.fr) - Citizenship or registered company
IrelandRepublic of Ireland (.ie) - Proof of entitlement
Italy Italy (.it) - EU company or individual
Japan Japan (.jp) - Local contact
Malaysia Malaysia (.my) - Citizenship or registered company
Norway Norway (.no) - Brønnøysund Register Centre
Portugal Portugal (.pt) - Registered company/trademark
Spain Spain (.se) - Local contact
Sweden Sweden (.se) - Local contact

Site language and currency

Despite the ubiquity of the English language, if you are targeting clients outside of English speaking countries it is important to do so in their primary language. Prospective clients will mostly be searching for sites using their own language, so you will want your content to include the keywords and phrases they are likely to be typing. Whilst free online translation services such as Babelfish can be useful for translating foreign correspondence into English, when it comes to creating your site content we thoroughly recommend seeking assistance from a company who can offer professional translation services.

Using the correct currency is also important for establishing trust with your site visitors – payment gateways are normally able to handle transactions in any currency so this should not create any major issues.

Physical server location

Search engines do look at the physical location of your website host but the amount of influence this has on your position in search results is arguably negligible. As long as the website does not take a long time to load, you are not likely to be penalised for hosting your site outside of your target country.

Webmaster Tools

Google offer web site owners a suite of tools which, as well as providing important diagnostic information, can also be used to inform Google about the intended focus of your site. It is possible to declare a ‘Geographic Target’ within Webmaster Tools and this is taken into consideration by Google when deciding when to display your website in search results.