Expanding to another country

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  David Meng: HI all, ;
  
  We currently have a TLD (.com) which sells goods only in one country (e.g., Singapore) and we will be expanding to another country (e.g., Malaysia) using a ccTLD (.com.my) on a new server whilst retaining the TLD. From what I understand, the ccTLD will not retain the domain authority from my TLD but are there any methods to minimise this loss? For example:
  
  1. If I use a subdirectory strategy with GWT targeting first then move to a ccTLD strategy after sometime using a 301 redirect?
  2. If I just create a "/my" subdirectory on my TLD and 301 the blank pages to my ccTLD - will this have any effect?
  3. Since my content will be similar (not same) with local exceptions, will hreflang have any effect on SEO (the language will be the consistent but I will specify the region in the hreflang)?
  
  Thank you,
• 
  Jim Munro: Hi +David Meng ;. Thank you for your participation here. :)
  
  Would it be feasible to run two separate websites? One selling to Singapore and the new site to Malaysia? ;
• 
  David Meng: Hi +Jim Munro ;, thank you for helping me out. ;
  
  Apologies for the confusion. We will be running two separate websites - one selling to Singapore and one selling to Malaysia as you suggest. ;
  
  As the Singapore website (TLD) is more established, we are just looking for ways to leverage its domain authority for our new Malaysian site (ccTLD)
• 
  Jim Munro: Thank you for clarifying, David. Footer links are apparently out of favour these days but if I were doing it to a pair of my own sites I would add an explanatory footer link from each sister site to it's partner (ideally linking page to related page to be useful to your users). I would also use the flag of each country at the top of each page with a link to the home page of the sister site but I am not an expert.
  
  My second suggestion is also out of favour but not so much as my first suggestion. :)
  I don't think you will have any issues with either suggestion, you are linking for a valid purpose.