Learn how to target your local market the painless way...
It comes as no surprise that people flock to Traffic Generation Cafe to learn more about traffic.
However, many fail to grasp the cornerstone principle of driving more traffic to your site: if you don’t properly target your traffic, you won’t make a dime as a result.
As you may or may not know, search engine users see different results when doing a search for any particular keyword.
The results they see largely depend on their location as well as which search engine database server they are the closest to, and that includes both organic rankings as well as any ads they may see.
Even if your website/business serves a global population, it still pays to know how visible your online business is in different countries.
For instance, it’s my goal to make Traffic Generation Cafe an all-around information source on the topic of Web Traffic across the globe and my Google Analytics screenshot shows that I am on the right track.
It’s no surprise that most of my visitors come from the U.S.
But what if I wanted to draw more readers from other countries, like the U.K. or Canada or India?
What if the content provided to them was more specific to their country?
What if the sponsored advertisement I place on my blog is geared SPECIFICALLY to that audience?
The possibilities are endless.
Until recently, I had to ask friends to check on my listings locally or use a few weird hacks with questionable results.
I don’t any longer - I now use GeoSurf.com to do all that and more.
What is GeoSurf?
GeoSurf is one of the best all-in-one proxy server networks I’ve worked with. Actually, it IS the best one, with reliable servers in 80 countries and in 20 of the US largest metro areas.
If I just lost you when I said “proxy server” and you immediately decided this post is not for you, hold your horses.
Time to learn what it means and why it’s essential for your business.
The image above shows communication between two computers (shown in grey) connected through a third computer (shown in red) acting as a proxy.
Now let’s take a look at what GeoSurf can do to help us manage such communications with other locations:
As you see from the video, searching any global market is now as easy as installing GeoSurf toolbar.
Who Will Benefit from GEOSurf?
- Any business/website that targets any local market;
- Niche site builders - now you can geo-target specific markets and make more money with more targeted ads and affiliate programs;
- Link builders - building links for your clients across the globe just got a whole lot easier;
- Ad sellers/buyers - make sure you make the most of your advertising budget by narrowing down your target market;
- Affiliate marketers - check on your competition across the globe;
- Product owners - keep track of your affiliate marketers in different markets to check on their performance and make sure they comply with your TOS.
…In other words, just about any business entity with an online presence.
New GeoSurf Plus Feature
There’s one more feature GeoSurf has that made me go “Wow, I could definitely use this info“: GeoSurf Plus, also easily accessible from the toolbar.
With a click of a button, you can unveil everything there’s to know about advertising campaigns on any site:
- Display Campaigns published on sites, including banners and stats.
- Advertisers whose campaigns run on sites and stats.
- Mediators (agencies, networks, exchanges, etc) involved in campaigns.
But don’t listen to me; take GeoSurf Plus for a spin yourself.
Marketing Takeaway
What I’ve shown you in this post is but a part of what you can do with GeoSurf.com network.
Come and discover more for yourself right here: GeoSurf.com.
Note: this was a sponsored product review.
Happy surfing!
This post was brought to you by Ana Hoffman
I am the founder of Traffic Generation Cafe and if you liked the post you just read, then you'll love my email updates. Just click on "Get Instant Access" below to join me:
Ana has written 238 great posts for Traffic Generation Cafe.
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
Ana, you never disappoint with the good information. I learn something every time I visit your site. I do not care about it being sponsored as long as it is good stuff. thanks
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Thanks, Michael!
Whether sponsored review or not, it’s still my blog and I’d never jeopardize it by posting a false-positive review, of course.
GeoSurf seems like a very useful tool. I have been using a Chrome Extension named Google Global to see the Google results from different countries. Google Global is very limited extension, but still it is good for those who can’t afford GeoSurf and want to target specific countries. It only supports US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Ireland.
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A global business certainly requires a global presence, Ilyas, and GeoSurf certainly delivers.
I love free tools, but it’s no wonder at some point they fall short…
Yes it is new for me too and really looking forward to use this stuff as soon as possible, and after that i’ll be back for the review.
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Being able to surf locally without being local. Such an interesting tool by Geosurf. Great video demo by the way. I’m from the UK and will have to see if it has the same impact from my end. I’ve checked their website…they do offer a free trial to get started. So, I could test it out and see what happens!
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A free trial is always the best way to go, Shefiu!
Thank you for this review, Ana. I have used proxy servers for many years but I have always done the laborious Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Connection Settings and manually configured the latest functioning proxy connection. GeoSurf shows promise as a useful time saver for me.
I didn’t even know you could do that, Jon, but now that I took a look at my settings, I see GeoSurf controlling all those proxies for me. I like that!
Loved the video, will definitely try it out and see how it works for me. Very important tip here Ana.
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This is especially helpful for us because we’re currently targeting and analyzing the quality of local traffic going to our website.
I can see a massive benefit from Geosurf. The problem I generally have is I only come across the major sites on my search queries, and any tool where I could find quality niche and local sites would be great for building link partnerships etc.
That makes a lot of sense, Malcolm; I didn’t even think about the potential for link building.
Thanks for the great idea!
I can see by the only few comments on this post that many people don’t seem to be interested by outside of the country traffic, however, I am and I’ve been checking that for a couple of years now.
We should never underestimate the amount of traffic that we can get in any English speaking country or even in countries where English is not the language of the nation, but where some individuals may speak English (that’s actually a lot of people). I get traffic from France, for example with some of my “French theme” sites from individuals who are surfing the web over there!
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You are so right, Sylviane - most of us get traffic from around the world and figuring out how to serve those readers better will only enhance our business.
Hi Ana,
This will definitely come in handy - thanks for the find. My question, though, is are the results unpersonalized solely because the searches are made through their proxy server OR do you really need to log out of all things Google AND use Google unpersonalized and their toolbar somehow?
I recently wrote a post on how to get UNpersonalized results - I’ve put it in CommentLuv in this reply.
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Just got back from your blog, Gail - left you a comment.
Yes, GeoSurf also disables personalized search since all your communications are being routed through a proxy where Google can’t track you.
Yeah, I know that that search result is different for particular keyword… as it depends upon your server location. Geosurf is doing the right thing as it reducing the gap between the servers.
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Definitely.
That tool looks great Ana
I usually add the “&gl=uk” to the end of the search result page address to access the search results from UK. But this tool shows me that I can do more in less time (and don’t have to remember the acronyms as well) with it! I’ll definitely use it when I want to analyze the competition on a specific country.
Thanks for sharing!
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I am all for saving time, Duy; plus, I don’t think you can do that for different parts of the U.S.
Hi Ana,
GeoSurf sounds awesome. I’m going to take a closer look at it to see if it includes Norwegian visitors. I’m Norwegian, and even though I write in English, many of my readers are Norwegian.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
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It certainly does, Jens.
Hey Ana,
I have been thinking about writing a post about something similar to this, but geared more toward local searches. Like targeting state and even city names for specific keywords. Geo-targeting can be a very powerful tool, because many marketers don’t do it. So those local keywords are open to be taken.
Thanks for sharing this tool with us Ana and have a great day!
I think the topic is very helpful and it’s hard to find good info on it, Ian - you should definitely write that post!
Wow I just learned something, I didn’t realize all the different uses of proxies, Time to start implementing some of this… Thanks for the content.
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Wow!! Now this is one good site, this is an awesome gift to us for christmas Ana, really appreciate it. I think we will give it a try.
Great idea Anna. I will give it a try for sure. thank you for sharing it here.
I will definitely try it out, thanks
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You are welcome, Tram.
Welcome to TGC, by the way!
Hi Ana. I’m one of your Canadian readers.
GeoLocal sounds like a great tool for someone who wants to target a specific country market. Now let us suppose (back to your original premise) that Traffic Generation Cafe wanted to target specific countries. You could build up a team of staff writers from each country you wished to target, place their posts either in a folder or on a subdomain for that country, optimize for that country and identify that country in Webmaster Tools at Google.
I suspect there would be little point in doing this for Traffic Generation Cafe, but there are some niches that this might be a useful strategy (blogs on insurance, or on travel, or on driving, for example)
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I like the way you are thinking, David - definitely makes a lot of sense.