Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

International SEO/SEM has several unique aspects outside of the cultutral/language issues.

For ex: with SEO it is a best practice to have the proper top level domain - elnik.ca for Canada, elnik.com.mx for Mexico, etc.

In addition - it is also a best practice to have the website hosted in the country of orign. The search engines know the IP addresses - and this is definitely a ranking factor.

These and other issues make for a successful campaign.

Cheers!

John McCarthy

I believe your client needs a bit more than SEO help. Based on a quick look at the site, they need to update their website and think about how it fits into their total marketing plan.

Here are a few thoughts:
1) nobody buys their products online - nope doesn't happen period.
2) people can come to their website and gather information, but your client basically has to wait for someone to call and say "I was on your website and I think I might be interested in speaking to a salesperson"
3) why not put up some white papers or evaluations anything that requires prospects to provide their name and phone number earlier in the process.

You can also post your request for help at Hire an Expert

Dear Cathy,

Your client definitely needs help.

I just did a search for Sintering and was guessing that your clients site would come up simply because it is such a specialised area. How many companies could there be who make sintering ovens?

Well WOW was I wrong. There is tons of competition out there and guess what, your clients site did not list anywhere on page 1 or page 2.

I tried a search on Sintering Ovens - Still no luck :)

I would suggest, check out the competition and see how they do it.

This site is top ranked.
https://www.sinteringovens.com

And they are using paid search.

I would suggest for your client.

1. Re design and re build the web site to make it look more modern and more professional (it looks like it was designed and built by a bunch of engineers :) ).

2. Make sure they are using PAID google ad words carefully located in the right places. Since the number of users searching for sintering will be tiny, their ad word cost will be very small BUT it simply looks more professional from the buyers pint of view when they have paid ads. If there is no paid ad, the feeling is that the company is either TOO small or TOO cheap to invest a few hundred dollars in advertising so therefore I don't want to buy from them.

3. Don't worry about international versions, just be sure to target the ad words in the countries you want to find clients and turn off the ads for countries your not interested in.

With respect to SEO natural search, I would not waste to much time and money for such a niche product but remember to add META tags in the head to tell the ROBOTS to come back weekly :))

I checked the source and there is no META tag for the robots.





Just be sure to add a little fresh content, a story, a testimonial or a white paper every week so the crawlers will see that there is new content and list it.

There you have a complete 'Quick and Dirty' solution :))

Good luck,

Matthew

Sorry - here are the tags :)) Forgot to put them in a comment tag hence the space in my text above :))

<--! meta name="ROBOTS" content="index all, follow all" -->

<--! meta name="REVISIT-AFTER" content="7 days" -->

Some random comments:

2.37 million competitors would not be classified as hyper-comptitive and sintering may not be the best choice of keyword anyhow. This is hardly a lost cause from an organic perspective.

The site needs to express the brand and the cost of the product better.

"The search engines know the IP addresses - and this is definitely a ranking factor."

This is true but they look at TLD first and default to IP if there isn't a clear delineation based upon TLD and language.

"1) nobody buys their products online - nope doesn't happen period."

Agreed. But buyers will research your product online and a conversion would be defined as a web inquiry or a phone call.

"With respect to SEO natural search, I would not waste to much time and money for such a niche product but remember to add META tags in the head to tell the ROBOTS to come back weekly :))"

and

"If there is no paid ad, the feeling is that the company is either TOO small or TOO cheap to invest a few hundred dollars in advertising so therefore I don't want to buy from them."

I would be interested in seeing some citations on this theory. I have seen trustworthy data that supports the notion that a combination of PPC and top organic results will amplify conversions but I've seen nothing to indicate that conversions will drop with a lack of PPC ads. Since ~75% of searchers click on organic results (vs PPC), organic should be part of the mix. Though I do agree that PPC is important and should be utilized.

as for:
<--! meta name="ROBOTS" content="index all, follow all" -->

<--! meta name="REVISIT-AFTER" content="7 days" -->

I don't see value in these tags unless you want to exclude a page (by altering them to noindex and/or nofollow) or its links from the SEs index. But informing the search engines to do something they are in the business of doing and suggesting a timeframe is pointless. They will index your page with or without this tag and they'll do it on their own schedule.

I hope this helps.

If your client is interested in discussing their objectives please feel free to get in touch.

-Greg