Starting up - how to target Canada?

**johan_s** · 1 March 2020, 3:28 pm

Webmasters! Just starting up here and wants my site to target the Canadian market. But how to do it? I am a Swedish citizen and can’t register a .ca domain. Is it just to name the site something with Canada and write a lot of content that includes Canada?
Happy I found this forum, seems like it is a lot of knowledge here.

**ddm** · 1 March 2020, 5:03 pm

Originally Posted by johan_s

I am a Swedish citizen and can’t register a .ca domain.

i know superaffils with .ca sites, and they are not from Canada, they don't live in canada, and they don't own any companies in canada.. there is always a way...

**sweetbet** · 1 March 2020, 6:41 pm

You can register any domain name extension using a registrar that offers trustee services such as
xhttps://www.101domain.com/trustee_service.htm
xhttps://www.netim.com/domain-name/

**johan_s** · 2 March 2020, 4:23 am

Thank for that sweetbet. Too bad none of them offering .ca domains. Does anyone have more ideas?

**sweetbet** · 2 March 2020, 4:55 am

Originally Posted by johan_s

Thank for that sweetbet. Too bad none of them offering .ca domains. Does anyone have more ideas?

xhttps://europeid.com/domains/north-and-central-america/canada/register-ca/

**johan_s** · 2 March 2020, 5:42 am

Thank you!

**metropot** · 3 March 2020, 4:19 am

Content with relevant keywords + BACKLINKS from Canadian sites can help you target that market, even you will decide to use .com domains
It is good to have targeted GEO domain extension, but not essential !
Good luck!

**Juicer** · 5 March 2020, 6:27 am

1. Register .com./net/.org
2. Once you have all the content on your site posted - create WMT
3. Then add all of the pages to WMT and change location to CA for each of them.

Done and done.

**Former Member 14** · 5 March 2020, 6:42 am

Originally Posted by Juicer

WMT

You mean GSC?

**Juicer** · 5 March 2020, 8:09 am

Originally Posted by AussieDave

You mean GSC?

yes, WMT probably a less used acronym stands for web master tools, it's more used in the older SEO community.

**johan_s** · 5 March 2020, 10:02 am

Originally Posted by Juicer

yes, WMT probably a less used acronym stands for web master tools, it's more used in the older SEO community.

I have been looking in GSC for where to do this but I can’t find it? Maybe Google has removed this option?

**allaboutthebets** · 5 March 2020, 2:00 pm

Originally Posted by johan_s

I have been looking in GSC for where to do this but I can’t find it? Maybe Google has removed this option?

I cant remember how its worded but in the bottom left, is there an option to use the old platform? If so, go on there and do it

**PROFRBcom** · 5 March 2020, 5:57 pm

Originally Posted by Juicer

1. Register .com./net/.org
2. Once you have all the content on your site posted - create WMT
3. Then add all of the pages to WMT and change location to CA for each of them.

Done and done.

This can be changed on a per page level...?!

**ddm** · 5 March 2020, 8:06 pm

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

This can be changed on a per page level...?!

hreflang is your friend

https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/189077?hl=en

**Former Member 14** · 6 March 2020, 4:13 am

Originally Posted by Juicer

yes, WMT probably a less used acronym stands for web master tools, it's more used in the older SEO community.

I call it that too... but newbies wouldn't know what we're talking about, hence I added GSC.

Originally Posted by PROFRBcom

This can be changed on a per page level...?!

In the old WMT, you could change the target country, if the domain wasn't country specific. But I don't think you can change page URL's. Unless GSC has changed, I'm pretty sure you can't change country targets per page either.

**MMM** · 6 March 2020, 9:10 am

Originally Posted by johan_s

I have been looking in GSC for where to do this but I can’t find it? Maybe Google has removed this option?

Bottom left you have Settings. Then: Legacy tools and reports - international targeting.

**johan_s** · 6 March 2020, 10:53 am

Doesn’t work with domain...

**PROFRBcom** · 6 March 2020, 12:40 pm

Originally Posted by AussieDave

In the old WMT, you could change the target country, if the domain wasn't country specific. But I don't think you can change page URL's. Unless GSC has changed, I'm pretty sure you can't change country targets per page either.

Yeah, I was familiar with this in WMT and found it in the new GSC. However, I don't see any page-level targeting either.

I see there may be some other methods involving subdomains and whatnot, but I'm not about to chop our site up and risk our existing rankings in hopes of achieving something better, too much at stake.

**Former Member 14** · 6 March 2020, 9:10 pm

Originally Posted by MMM

Bottom left you have Settings. Then: Legacy tools and reports - international targeting.

Google's intention was to kept WMT for only a certain length of time. And, GSC took precedence over the legacy version. If the GEO targeting was valued by G, they'd have implemented this into GSC, but they didn't.

Instead, they opted to run with the hreflang tag: https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/189077?hl=en

If your using WP, the site's global language setting can be changed in your Admin Panel: Settings > General.

So in the case of the OP wanting to target Canada (English), you'd pick English (Canada) from the drop down list.

**jackpolan** · 5 April 2020, 6:18 am

select region in google search console and then search engine will prefer it to rank in your concerned country.

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