Question

Topic: Strategy

What Urls To Use In Global Advertising/marketing?

Posted by Anonymous on 10/4/2007 at 6:02 PM ET 250 Points
Our organization has a many international region websites based on the same core content. Many pages are localized for that region, but much content is the same for each region.

So, we will have information about a service available at, for example:

companyname.com/productname (worldwide site)
companyname.com/us/en/productname (US)
companyname.com/ca/en/productname (Canada)
and so on for several English-speaking regions.

Without printing brochures specific for each region, how do most people direct customers to specific web content? Do you direct to the Worldwide content and mention there may be specific info on your regional site? Do you say 'go to productname on the companyname web site' and let them navigate to it? Do you say 'go to companyname website and enter a keyword in the search box'? Or some other strategy?

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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 10/4/2007 at 7:03 PM Member
    You don't want to make the user "work" to get information. You want them to have an easy experience getting what they need quickly.

    Here are some different techniques:

    1) Use subdomains that have an .htaccess file that forwards to the relevant page. canada.companyname.com/product would go to www.companyname.com/ca/en/productname

    2) Determine what country the user's IP address is from as a clue and default to that country.

    3) Have on all product pages a popup (upper right of the page) that allows them to switch the country. This would be akin to changing languages.

    4) Buy more domain names: companyusa.com, companycanada.com, etc. The generic company.com website would ask (or default to, see #2) for the country of interest, then jump to the companycanada.com site. Bookmarks that the user would place would take them to the proper country.
  • Posted by Peter (henna gaijin) on 10/4/2007 at 9:22 PM Member
    I agree with jay - make it as easy as possible for the user to get there.

    For individual countries, get the country domain name (companyname.co.jp for Japan, etc.).

    At the main page (companyname.com), allow people the option to select their country/language, and then send them to their country's page.
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 10/5/2007 at 3:50 AM Accepted
    I'd like to see the one principal domain name being used with a "directory" structure for individual countries that allows you to profile custom pages per country.

    For product pages that vary by country you'd then be able to set them up specifically, e.g.

    www.companyurl.com/countryname/productname

    Then the url would have a user-friendly name structure than enables the user to see where they are. If you were using a content management system like IBOX you would be able to structure "friendly" page names, copy and add pages easily using non-technical resources.

    Users should be able to select their preferred country from the home page and that would allow them to see only the relevant pages for their market from that point.

    British Airways does that country-customisation quite well (www.ba.com) while HP doesn't (www.hp.com).

    Once you tell BA where you live they remember and only serve relevant content.

    In stark contrast HP takes you all over the shop and on many pages you have no idea whether you're looking at US, Australian or Mongolian-specific content.

    Hope that helps.

    ChrisB

  • Posted by Mushfique Manzoor on 10/5/2007 at 2:22 PM Member
    hi mickey

    customer (incl online prospects) is king!!

    you should keep one single site address for all your worldwide customers. it helps in locating your site in the truely worldwide web.

    regarding different products details for different countries, you better create a "product" page and in that mention your entire global range. also you need to create a page mentioning your "footprint" or "presence" where you mentioned all the countries/regions you operate in.

    now you can do either of the following 2 or a mixture of both:
    1. each of the products in the "Products" page will be linked to the description of the product as well as available countries for that product

    2. you can mention the footprint countries/regions and each is linked to the available product list which is again linked to the product details.

    3. on the combination side, while one country of operation is clicked to be viewed, your site should only display products that are available for that country unless clicked on the "global product list" while you still retain the #1 browsing tree.

    other alternative can be, once your specific product is chosen by the customer, s/he can type the name of the country/region in the "availability search" box to see whether that product is available in the desired country/region.

    hope this helps.

    cheers!!
  • Posted on 10/5/2007 at 3:14 PM Author
    Thanks, all. Great answers so far. A couple of notes to clarify.

    - We will have a worldwide site at the base location (www.companyname.com) for countries without localized sites.

    - We will use a global gateway at that location to allow users to select a region and set a cookie to remember (though only when going to that URL; will not script each page to sniff the cookie and bounce to avoid scary loops and let the user control as much as possible).

    - We will have a location and language identifier with a link to change at the top of every page.

    fyi, we are leaning toward pointing to the Worldwide site URLs in our non-localized collateral and including a note to make people aware there are localized sites, also.

  • Posted by Michael Richter on 10/7/2007 at 1:32 AM Member
    Of course a website has to have a structure, the visitor has to find the relevant country easily and so on - and the answers to his requests !

    Going back to basics:
    Honestly I would not put the company name first as very rarely people look for companies !

    In most cases they look for solutions to their problems/answers to their questions !!

    I have had a pretty good result with putting some of my most important keywords into the domain, like

    https://www.marketing-und-vertrieb-international.com/en/

    Although I come from Germany, however, working as an international marketing consultant, the result were not too bad and I have (due to this structure) had many visitors and contracts from abroad.

    see: https://www.marketing-und-vertrieb-international.com/en/success-in-the-inte...

    All the best - and don't forget to ask me for marketing support in Europe ;-)

    I help if I can

    Michael
    [Email address deleted by staff]
  • Posted on 10/9/2007 at 1:08 PM Author
    Thanks, all. Most of your answers have focused on strategies to create domains and URLs, rather than how to refer to them in non-localized print collateral.

    I'll leave this question open a couple more days in case anyone would like to follow-up.
  • Posted by Michael Richter on 10/10/2007 at 10:10 AM Accepted
    You are right - most of us seem to be too much into the web than thinking that someone also uses this 'normal' way. May be we focused more on the main title than on the questions following ;-)

    IMHO - without being, however, in a position to say 'most people do' - I would suggest to direct them to one major page and have all the possible directions mentioned directly on top of the main entrance with hints which direct them to the contents of a page answering their specific request. Then, however, also the sub-pages should give some advice how to find things, just in case somebody comes via a SE.

    Together with a short explanation on the brochure itself they should be able to find everything.

    If the webpage as such is made-up thoroughly they should not need more than 'max. 5 clicks' to find their answers (you certainly know the '5-click-rule')

    I hope this helps

    Best regards

    Michael
    [Email address and URL deleted by staff. Please read Important Guidelines.]
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