Can Your Business Get Found in a Canadian Search?

Having a web presence is only the first step in getting found in a Search. The next step is appearing in a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) in Google or one of the other major search engines. If you are a Canadian company and/or you are targeting the Canadian market, you will need to get found in a country-specific search.

Not sure if you are? Here are two very simple tests:

1. Country-Specific Search Engines

Using Google Canada, try a brand name search for your “business name” (use quotes if your company name is more than one word). Google.ca also offers searches in the French (français) language. Test this option as well, if applicable. You can also conduct this test by using Yahoo! Canada and Bing Canada (be sure to select the “only from Canada” option).

Does your website appear in the search results? And… are you getting high rankings? We recommend first page results.

2. Country-Specific Search Traffic

Using Google Analytics (or another web analytics program), check which countries your search traffic is coming from. If you want to get found by Canadians, you should see these results in your Map Overlay and country-specific data. You can even drill down to find out the language used in the Search (Canadian English or French).

Are your site visitors coming from Canada? And… what language are they using to search (if applicable)?

Geo-targeting is at the core of local search engine optimization. It is also known as country-specific search engine optimization. This is an important, not to be overlooked, aspect in both the build of your site – as well as when you optimize for Organic Search.

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