International targeting and CCTLDs

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

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  Tech Blog Corner: hello all,
  
  need suggestion, do i need to go for ccTLD for my website to target internationally or set Geo targeting for sub-directories for each country in webmaster tool.
  
  One more thing, if i am using ccTLD, do i need to place different content for different location to target or use the same content ( in local language) for different ccTLD.
  
  i think someone will surely give good advice on this.
  
  +Jim Munro +Danny Sullivan +Mark Traphagen +Neil Patel +Edwin Jonk please advise something on this??? need urgent
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  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:15:14 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/international_targeting_and_cctlds +Tech Blog Corner
  
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  Tech Blog Corner: +Edwin Jonk ;can you please give a ;conclusion ;of it. as in video everyone has it's own view. we get confused. so please tell us which is right to do for it.??
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  Edwin Jonk: First most ccTLD's are auto-geotargetted [1]. Meaning that you cannot geo-target it within GWT. Second keep in mind that using ccTLD means you are targeting a specific region. With that you are not targeting the language. For example, if you want to target the English population world wide you would use .com if you target the UK you would use co.uk. So if you want to target internationally (everyone within the same language), you shouldn't use ccTLD's.
  
  With regard to content, you can use the same content across multiple ccTLD's. However you need to use hreflang [2]. Although hreflang is a suggestion to Google it is a strong signal and thereby it is fair to say you need to use it (imo). Furthermore, real geo-targeting isn't serving the same content over and over again on different ccTLD's. In other words, best practise, is to serve your value proposition to the people living within that region. For example, in the EU sales tax in Luxembourg is low. So if you are a company located in Luxembourg that can be a value proposition when targeting customers in the Netherlands.
  
  [1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en
  [2] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en
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  Tech Blog Corner: +Edwin Jonk if we use sub-directories like abc.com/fr/ ; in-comparison to abc.fr and for sub-directories we can set geo-targeting .. but from the content point of view we can use the same content just by using hreflang that means we should not translate the content. google will automatically detect it if we use this hreflang right ????
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  Edwin Jonk: No, for every region you should serve only one URL.
  
  With regard to the hreflang: For example the hreflang on example(dot)ca/ points to example(dot)fr/ and the hreflang on example(dot)fr/ points to example(dot)ca/. Although large sections on the page may be the same, you need to change at least things like currency.
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  Tech Blog Corner: +Edwin Jonk ; large sections on the page will remain same that means content on the page will be same but will should only change the header footer and currency according to the country right ??