Tagetting UK Market with .ie domain

Billydgoat

Hi,

Maybe someone can help me. I run an irish ecommerce website. Going good. Now I want to target the UK. So for example, my website is xyz. ie , but I want to make xyz. ie/uk for the uk market, because my brand name is xyz. ie

So when people visit www xyz ie, uk ip customers will be forwarded to xyz. ie/ uk

I am wondering if this possible? Will it effect my SEO for my irish website as its on page one in google for my keywords.

xyz com and xyz co uk are taken (well they are for sale for $25000) so thats no possible. Another option wwould be to have xyzuk co uk - which doesn't look great What do you think is best?

Google won't let me change the target location in Google Search Console for the xyz ie/uk because its ie

Anyone any advice? Tips? Thanks

blue4ever

here's a few thoughts: is the .com available (give the .co.uk price i'd say not!)

the mysite.ie/uk/ is the way many international companies deal with this.

The ticks is to try and have that directory as "UK" as possible! Is there any way you have a UK phone number or address on all all the pages in that directory - would really help in the locialisation.

uk.mysite.ie might be an option - not really sure how G sees the difference betweek /uk/ or uk.mysite.ie

The IP route might fall at the first. For example if you work for Microsoft in the UK you have an IP with a USA listing - so thats not going to work. But, it's in the main going to work - but there will be some users that will fit the profile but may not be redirected because of their ip.

Billydgoat

blue4ever wrote: »

here's a few thoughts: is the .com available (give the .co.uk price i'd say not!)

the mysite.ie/uk/ is the way many international companies deal with this.

The ticks is to try and have that directory as "UK" as possible! Is there any way you have a UK phone number or address on all all the pages in that directory - would really help in the locialisation.

uk.mysite.ie might be an option - not really sure how G sees the difference betweek /uk/ or uk.mysite.ie

The IP route might fall at the first. For example if you work for Microsoft in the UK you have an IP with a USA listing - so thats not going to work. But, it's in the main going to work - but there will be some users that will fit the profile but may not be redirected because of their ip.

Hi

Thank you for your reply.

No the dot com is 25000 and the co uk is also hogged by someone

Its an ecommerce website hosted with shopify. I know shopify is hosted in canada I think, but my website is doing great on google ireland.

I just checked and I cannot even do mysite ie / uk...... it has to be uk mysite ie

I have been searching and searching on google and think the problem is the ie domain. Google automatically associates it with ireland. My business does have a uk address also so I can put this on all pages (and pricing will be in sterling)

I dont know what to do. My website is something like keyword dot ie. Its a brilliant keyword for my business. But now I fear Ill have to have something like keyworduk co uk or keywordireland dot com Again not ideal.

My original plan was to geo ip redirect people who visit the ie from the uk, to go to the uk website automatically. But now if I have to rename the uk website to mysiteuk co uk it wont look great and might cause some confusion.

Any advice appreciated it. Anyone know any other Irish businesses who dont hav the .com and target the uk?

mneylon

Google won't allow you to change the geo-targetting on a .ie domain name as you've discovered.
What *can* help is to provide "on page" indicators of the UK presence such as the UK number and address

I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Shopify - sorry

Billydgoat

Blacknight wrote: »

Google won't allow you to change the geo-targetting on a .ie domain name as you've discovered.
What *can* help is to provide "on page" indicators of the UK presence such as the UK number and address

I'm not familiar with the inner workings of Shopify - sorry

Thank you very much for your reply. I heard that, that if I put UK address,phone number, have products in Sterling etc it will help with google. From googling like mad (hard to find info about it) it seems the .ie won't do well in Google search in the UK (Bit like .ca on Google.com)

I might have to have a slightly different name for the UK and get a co.uk. Its the only option I can think of.

Blackknight, do you know any Irish companies who have a .ie who do good in Google UK search? (Obviously I don't expect you to ame them or anything) Just from your experience.?

I looked at Missguided for example, they have missguided com and then missguidedfr fr missguidedau com

I am thinking maybe to do that? So mywebsite ie then mywebsiteuk co uk Doesn't look great though

mneylon

Billydgoat wrote: »

Blackknight, do you know any Irish companies who have a .ie who do good in Google UK search? (Obviously I don't expect you to ame them or anything) Just from your experience.?

It's not something I'd keep track of directly - sorry

Billydgoat wrote: »

I looked at Missguided for example, they have missguided com and then missguidedfr fr missguidedau com

I am thinking maybe to do that? So mywebsite ie then mywebsiteuk co uk Doesn't look great though

A lot of companies use multiple domains - one for each market.
In your case you might need to come up with a slightly different name for the UK market ...