My name is Zafar Ahmed, I am an SEO based in Pakistan

What is the best Onsite SEO technique to rank in different countries using one domain?

Domains, Sub Domain? Ah..why not Sub Folders? Does it bewilders you?

Follow my advice below and it should help you rank well in different countries using one domain to geo target different countries.

1-Country Domains(Not Recommended)

Do not register different domains www.yourdomain.com.nz (new Zealand) or www.yourdomain.pk (Pakistan).

Advantages:

No Advantages.

Disadvantages:

Domains are costly, not just costly, it reduces the chances of people linking to you. Using more than one domain has fewer chances of backlinks, you don’t want your links shared with 10 others of your domains?

2-Sub Domain(Not Recommended)

Sub domain is a good option to use but it has its advantages and disadvantages. (maybe more disadvantages)

Advantages:

Subdomains can be hosted in different locations.Therefore, you can host the pk. subdomain in Pakistan and the nz. subdomain in New Zealand. Search engines takes hosting location into account when determining where a site should rank best, you can inform Google using Google webmaster as well.

Disadvantages:

Google take sub domain as a separate domain. They are taken as independent sites. Therefore, links that each sub domain gets does not help the link juice distribution as a whole on your domain.

3-Sub Folders (Recommended)

Advantages:

Google take sub folders as part of your website, therefore the link distribution via your root domain to inner sub folders is distributed accordingly, and from sub folders to other pages (other way around).

If someone links to a sub folder of your website consider it to be /subfolderA and /SubFolderA is then linked to /SubFolderB, the link juice is distributed to /SubFolderB as well, therefore maintaining a good link juice distribution within your domain as a whole.

Disadvantages:

No disadvantages.

Today is Sunday of October 19th and I am taking out my weekends to share these top 10 head smacking SEO tips that you probably won’t find anywhere else.

I am sharing these with people to know more about what “exactly” SEO is and “how” exactly it’s done and the tips. I am not going to give definitions which you can Wiki yourself. Thus, grab a cup of coffee, sit down and read.

SEO is a concept to get you top ranking organically for set of “keywords”. If you think I am right, you are wrong. That’s not “ONLY” what SEO is. Jeez.

You do SEO because you spent years researching Google’s organic algorithm, you know you have not mastered it yet, however, you test to know what are those 100 ranking factors Google take into account when ranking your website. It’s just 3 factors that we, all SEOs, have figured out. Link Building, Unique Content and Social Marketing. What about the rest of the factors?

Below is a list of Top 10 Head Smacking Tips which are part of the top 100 factors which Google uses to rank your website.

Optimize for people, not bots.

Start a website, throw unique content, share it with people via Forums, Blogs, and wait till you see people linking to it or visiting it, remember – if you have something unique or worth sharing, you don’t need Google, people will link themselves. That’s what I call SEO, natural linking.

Build TrustRank, Not PageRank.

PageRank is shit. Yes, it’s nothing more than a shit. Seriously do people still care about PageRank? Google bot is brimmed with TrustRank factors, build trust with Google, they let the world trust you then. TrustRank is gained through “How long have you been in business?” “What people says about you?” “Are you worth being talked about?” “Who are linking to you?” “Credibility logos” and ofcourse “who are you linking to” and so one…

Be active.

This is one of the biggest and best tip. Never let a day without atleast one activity on your website, or third party websites.
My best ways to be active within my industry is to visit “Forums” “Blogs” and indulge myself with People within my industry, get to know them, argue and share knowledge.

Be active. Part two

Sometimes it’s not good to participate within your industry. If you sell SEO services, you don’t necessarily have to visit SEO forums, visit Real Estate Webmasters ect because those are likely be interested in your services.

Guest blog, as much you can.

If you come across a blog, that accepts guest blogging. Write something worth, post it up with a backlink to your website. Do this often, maintain a relationship with the blog owner, do not post shit, you maintain relations via your posts. If he likes them, he is probably next time going to approve without reading. There is nothing better than getting a backlink this way instead of eZine. eZine is good too, not better than Guest blogging.

Create optimized landing pages.

Take every of your inner “page” as a landing page, if you do that, you have aced internet marketing. Just keep in mind, optimize the landing page, you should optimize it thinking as it’s a landing page, sometimes people drops on your inner pages instead of home, you need to a compelling inner page to convince them.

Learn Usability

Learn how to convert visitors in sales. Your website is like a sales copy, try split testing, see which one converts better. Learn if menu works better with bread crumb menus, do these tests, at the end, use the one which works the best.

SEO Friendly URL’s, Title Tag, Meta Description

If you know proper keyword research and distribution of the keyword on each page, each title, each meta. Trust me, you’ve aced SEO. If you ask me, I recommend static URL’s than dynamic, although I don’t really worry about the page being done in server side language, you just have to know how to play with “Mod Rewrite”.

The more, the better.

Ever wondered why blogs are good? It’s updated with content through blog posts, it basically acts as a single page. So why not create as many inner pages as you can and cater long tailed keywords? Remember, do not spam. Only create pages with useful information to share, don’t just keyword stuffed pages.

Create a Forum

Yes, phpBB or VBSEO. They all comes with SEO tools that can automatically take your topic title in the title tag and URL. What’s better than user generated SEO friendly content? Think about it.

Usually Pakistani companies do not consider online marketing because their main reason for not being online is the initial expense of computer equipment and software or the learning time required. Internet marketing is derived from “marketing”. Instead of offline it is being done “online”.

If you’re a small business owner who hasn’t done any research about online marketing, I am sorry to say but you are depriving your company from the benefits of a very cost effective business tool.

The benefits of online marketing are endless, online marketing is one of the best way to brand your company through different internet marketing techniques and best of all it is cheaper than what you think.

If you have a company with a website, this will help you kick off:

1- Place banners on relevant websites with good reputation with Google and traffic stats. Scan their website by using “site:websiteurl.com” or a simple search by the name will tell you a lot about them.

2- Buy links on relevant websites with your product name and niche name as anchor text.

3- Get your company a twitter account and E-mail your existing clients to follow your updates.

4- Hire a content writer to review your products or make them write a random article and post them on directories like eZine; make sure to include “Pakistan” in your article title if your target market is “Pakistan”

5- Get your company a blog. One my favorite way to update a company blog is to make all my employees write about the company products once in a week and have it publish on the blog with their names. You don’t need a writer for that.

Branding tips that would help your company online:

1- Tell people what you do.

A simple “slogan” would not help tell your visitors what you do, tell them who you are, what you do and what makes you different from your competitors?

2- Connect with your visitors

One of the best way to have your visitors trust you is to put your CEO name, photo and personal message on your website. Having your whole team mentioned on the website is a plus point.

3- Make “Fans”

Tell your visitors, if they like you. Make them follow you through various ways. My favorite has always been twitter.

4- Be “everywhere” in your niche.

By everywhere, I meant, indulge your company in forums relevant to your niche and make your visitors realize that you are being “active”.

What’s new in Online Branding?

Here is a smacking tip for today,

Get bloggers to review your company on their blog. Contact them and ask them if they can review your company, don’t think as an “SEO” or don’t take any SEO advice for advertising only on HIGH PR blogs and ignoring others.

A good SEO is one who would tell you, “every link that is a link counts”.

Of course, if you are getting the opportunity to have your website reviewed by a high PR site, do not miss it.

Looking for a professional advice to help you better with your internet marketing campaign? Feel free to contact me.