Canadians, Keywords & SEO

[send2paul]

In amongst the pages I have for my Laser Eye Surgery Facts, I have reviews of laser eye surgery centres in different parts of the world. In each review I put the brief location detail of the centre. Guess who searches geographically locally the most.....?

Canadians.

Of all the pages I have for UK & Ireland, America, Australia & Canada, it is the Canadian page which draws the most search queries for specific geographic locations.

Why is this? Are Canadians more precise/specific than anyone else in their search engine habits? Is there any kind of research into how the people's of different nations use search engines? Do North Americans have different search engine patterns than Europeans when it comes to looking for something in a specific place?

It really does surprise - the Canuks are WAY ahead in my stats for searching for local geographic Canadian places.

[brian.mark]

Most of the people in the US that I know (most everyone I know) assume that searching will give them results from or relevant to the US. I know many that have no clue that they could be going to websites from around the world by searching from their US based computer.

Canada probably has a tougher time with finding relevant local stuff (unless using google.ca or the like, and I know of a few Canadian ISP's that resolve to US IP's), so adding Canada to the query probably makes a lot of sense to them.

Brian.

[ADAM Web Design]

Do you have a .ca domain registered for the Canadian portion of your site? If so, it will affect you in google.ca SERPs.

As far as geotargeting our searches, I do it quite a bit because there are different things I want to know about from different regions. This, coupled with the relative lack of ability and understanding of technology in Canada vs. the US (we are so backwoods compared to you guys) leads to fewer results, and fewer targeted results in turn.

So yours may just be the byproduct of inferior competition as it pertains to SEO and design in Canada.

[send2paul]

That makes a lot of sense Brian - adding Canada to the query.

No Adam - all my website is all a .com weblog, (my ISP is here in the UK, the weblog webmaster is in the USA).

Somebody suggested that because Canada has broadband for at least the past 5 years, (ahead), of the USA (?), they may in fact be MORE internet savvy than their neighbours south of the border? ;)

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by send2paul

Somebody suggested that because Canada has broadband for at least the past 5 years, (ahead), of the USA (?), they may in fact be MORE internet savvy than their neighbours south of the border? ;)

We're more everything-savvy than those southerners... :o)

It's the beer up here... and the poutine... ;o)

[Duncan Pollock]

And apart from everything else, we know how to spell "colour" and "centre" correctly, which is something the (Damn) Yankees never get right!!

Duncan

[ADAM Web Design]

Originally Posted by send2paul

Somebody suggested that because Canada has broadband for at least the past 5 years, (ahead), of the USA (?), they may in fact be MORE internet savvy than their neighbours south of the border? ;)

Not bloody likely. With the damage Bell is doing to the phone lines, DSL is becoming a less desirable choice. Cable is generally pretty stable, but even then, dealing with Rogers? Yuck.

Not to mention higher hosting fees (if you're dumb enough to use a Canadian company), taxation out the wazoo, banks that just don't cooperate with progressive thinkers, and many other issues.

We're a bunch of friggin' hillbillies for the most part.

I can't speak for anyone else, but one thing I've noticed in my experience (6 years) is that 9 out of every 10 sites that are clearly Canadian (.ca domain name, Canadian company, etc.) don't even have any server-side programming. The ones that do more often than not use prepackaged scripts and software. I often come across sites using PHPNuke that are built for non-profit agencies, and clearly the software was never intended for these agencies because the sites just turn out terrible.

It's kind of funny. Over the last few years, someone from just about every major advertising form (TV, radio, phone books, newspapers, magazines, Internet directories, SEO firms, and even search engines themselves) have called my clients at some point to tell them what a crappy job I was doing promoting their stuff and how they should be in all of these wonderful ad mediums.

It got to the point where for a while, I would tell my clients the same stock answer: "if you didn't call them, how did they hear about you?" This worked especially well for anything non-local. The interesting thins is that no local web designers have tried to steal a client away (although every offshore firm in the world gets to my clients at one point or another, it seems.) Now I just tell my clients to expect this behaviour upfront. It's a lot easier this way.

The point is that most sites in Canada, much like the people who build them, are not operating at even 1/10 of their full potential. So again, competition factor is not a major issue. The ones that are tend to get a large share of the local Internet pie, as it were.

brian.mark: normally, I would agree with you as far as people typing in "Canada" as part of their search phrases to find what they want. But, having operated sites for Canadian companies for over 6 years, I've found that this generally isn't the case. Searches tend to be more regional or city-wide than national in scope (e.g. Toronto gas fireplaces vs. Canada gas fireplaces, York Region non-profit vs. Canada non-profit, etc.)

There's absoutely no way you could know this, so I certainly don't blame you for thinking it. It's a good thought. It just needed a bit of fine tuning.

Duncan Pollock: Yanks can spell. They're just lazy bastards. :)

By the way, you can add these guys:

http://www.tlcvision.com

I don't know how good they are, but I remember they used to have a commercial on Q107 (local Toronto classic rock station...AC/DC rules!)

[schmeetz]

63.8% of housholds are connected. 65% of this high speed. From my understanding we are the most connected coutry on the planet. I'm assuming our search queries are some of the most advanced as well.

Then again our gov is filled with thieves. Hey...we cant will em all.

[philicious]

If you are finding that Canadians are finding your pages, is this from search engines or you internal search pages?

If it is all external traffic, perhaps the answer is simply that "search term + canada" is not as competitive as "search term + UK" or "search term + Australia".

I am in New Zealand and even though Google.co.nz does a find job of finding pages in NZ, many searches still use "search term + nz".

Just a thought.

On a side note, on a number of sites we look after, a good proportion of visitors are from Canada (based on their IP), but no one ever buys... Sales to the US, Japan and UK are great. Nothing to Canada, ever.

[minstrel]

That's because our Prime Minister thinks all kiwis look like Smeagol. Ever since that first LOTR movie, importing anything from NZ is illegal in Canada -- the punishment is having to watch ALL of the Gilligan's Island reruns. It's just not worth the risk...

[send2paul]

What an interesting debate this has turned out to be :) - It's nice to see the North V South dbeate isn't just an English/Scottish thing as well ;).

Well, futher research has found that, (alledgedly),

Canadians have also enjoyed mass broadband access for over five years now. Over 85% of CDN internet users (home and office) are online via high-speed connections. In the US, broadband is just crossing the 50% threshhold.

..... and also...

...Canadians are so used to getting US results when they search, that they've been "trained" by the search engines to use local search terms to find what they need....

Bearing all this in mind, and the fact that I found a really good Google Local Search - which produces much more precise results than the same term in the normal Google search - I'll be experimenting with local Canadian webpages - as built in the UK ;)

So .com or .ca?

p.s. I'm not commenting on your USA/Canada rivalry here - you could ALL be potential future clients! :)

p.p.s. Adam - calm down - go listen to some Celine Dion or something :) But I do like the idea of competition not being a major issue!

[ADAM Web Design]

Originally Posted by send2paul

p.p.s. Adam - calm down - go listen to some Celine Dion or something :) But I do like the idea of competition not being a major issue!

I hate that separatist bitch, and on behalf of my country would like to apologize to the rest of the world for unleashing her on all of you.

And I'm calm. :)

[send2paul]

....well.....if this is calm....lol......;)

[Duaners]

For the record, I think this most likely has to do with the identity crisis that Canadians have. We constantly are trying to differentiate ourselves from the US. Since you tend to get US sites as results there is a tendency for Canadians to want find "Canadian" results. It's that whole US vs Canada mindset. Americans don't understand it because they really don't think about Canada or as Homer puts it "America Jr.". However it is always on Canadian minds. If search engines tended to return UK sites rather than US sites, then I really don't think there would be as high a geographic search rate for us.

It's a decades old cultural things that's carried over into the cyberworld.

[ctabuk]

Good 1st post, and welcome to WPW, I don't think UK results would help a great deal though.

[send2paul]

Ah ha, perhaps I missed something here, but what does:

...I don't think UK results would help a great deal though.

- that mean?

Although the my ISP is in the UK, the weblog, (where all my pages are situated), is American. Perhaps I'm just dull with the heat here in the UK, but I'm confused by what you say ctabuk?

[ctabuk]

Maybe something we are doing here will assist in explaining.
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=48748

[send2paul]

Ah ha, (without regurgitating all the thread in the that link....), I think I see what you mean now.