Australia is in a unique position in just about every way. We’re geographically isolated from most of the Western world, we have a unique culture, we virtually have our own language, and we behave differently to other internet users when we browse the net. If you’re running an Australian-based website and you’re looking for some Aussie traffic, you need to find some way to emphasise your locality.
Finding a local angle can be a great way to augment your search engine optimisation campaign. A local market is necessarily narrower than the entire World Wide Web. Although it often pays for Australian-based websites to market to various search markets, it can be a good idea to turn your gaze homewards as well.
You can talk to our experts at SEO Consult Australia about optimising for the Australian market, but some of the things that give you an advantage in the local search market include:
*A ‘.com.au’ domain. The rules on local domains are designed to restrict these addresses to sites that have some form of locality. As a consequence, being in possession of something like ‘www.youlittleripper.com.au’ tells Google that your site has significance to Australia, boosting you up in a local search. It also tells internet users at a glance that your site fits their search.
*Local-sounding content. If you want the search engines to take you on board with their local search, you need to sound local. This means including local keywords in your optimisation list. Your SEO plan should be adapted to include mentions of places and topics that are relevant to local search.
There are a few ways to slip local information into your site really easily. If you’re physically running your site from an Australian address, add that information to your contact pages. Mentioning a few local towns in your content can also help.
*Local connections. You can’t be around search engine optimisation for very long before you realise how important inbound links are. If you want to establish your local reputation, local links are necessary. The same rules apply to building local links as to regular link building, with the one addition that the sites are relevant to Australia.
*Local hosting companies. There is a theory running around the SEO industry that having your website hosted on a local server can give you an advantage with the search engines. The significance of this is not certain, although it is known that the search engines take IP addresses into account in their calculations.
Of course, all of this is predicated on your target internet users making use of www.google.com.au rather than plain old Google. Not all Aussies do. With PCs and laptops that have been created for an American market, many Australian internet users stick with their machine’s default Google search. However, Aussie internet users are more likely to make a Google Australia search when they’re looking for something with a local angle. If you have that angle, appearing high on Google Australia’s list is definitely an advantage.
