Content: Terminology worldwide,abbreviations and spellings!

[M & C]

First time poster as a 'newbie'wanting basic advice to assist with keyword terminology in different countries, spellings variations worldwide and abbreviations. Can you advise please?
I've learnt a lot about SEO from these forums but never seen the absolute basics. Our new gift box website was professionally developed but I'm needing to be more hands on in attempting to improve rankings rather than just waiting for Google to find us in the so-called 'sandbox' so am busy tweaking and in some cases re-writing category text.
Is there a free search tools site for British and European terminology? Any I've used are American and obviously the words and spellings are quite different to what we use in New Zealand, eg. Gift box is used here whereas it is mainly a packaging concept in US rather than for presentation. "Baby shower gift" is a common search in US but wouldn't be used here at all. Also, do I have to cover abbreviated "New Zealand" in keywords to "NZ" which I've been doing or do search engines recognise the abbreviation and bring the site link up in a search anyway - or would it not come up on the first pages? Thirdly, spellings - obvious ones like "jewellery" and "jewelry" - do I have to double up and use both in my precious limited keywords?
Sorry to be so very BASIC but I'm sure there'll be others who could use the info. too!
Thanks!

[begabloomers]

Hi, can you put your website address in your signature so we can see your site.

I don't know the answers but have decided to simply put all my copy in US "speak" rather than English English ( NZ & Aust English ). If I was more sophisticated I would have different versions for different areas of the Engligh speaking world.

A landing page where people can choose by currency , e.g. US dollars , Aussie Dollars, NZ Dollars or GPB would then sort customers into the appropriate geographic regions.

I use the US spelling of woolen instead of woollen as my keyword spelling but in Google at least, find this will also bring up queries for woollen. I guess because woolen has less characters then woollen it is possible and logical. This work equally well on searches in google.com or google.com.au

I guess write for your target market if you are looking to sell outside NZ primarily, write in US speak.

Jewellery must be a very hard keyword to optimise so maybe concentrate on other apsects of the industry - bespoke ( English ) customized (US) etc.

As I have said on another post my website has aonly been live since the middle of July and I am still refining and fiddling, but I find the international clothing size conversion page get a lot of round about hits. Maybe some sort of international page will attract people looking for "different" jewelry (sic). Or try looking at very successful NZ sites that ship world wide and target the international market such as nznatural, have a look at whether they use NZ spelling or US spelling.
Hope this helps a little.

Susan

[M & C]

Thanks Susan for your input. I'm probably thinking though that my greater market will be in UK & Europe where most ex pat Kiwis live as this has been my main customer base in the past.

It sounds as if you are aiming more at the US market but we obviously both have a smaller customer home base than the majority of people using these forums. So, with all the changes I'm making, I think I should just carry on with the doubling up of world/US v NZ spellings, etc.

I was reluctant to put up my website address until all the changes were made - having to rely on my web guy's expertise in this - but suppose if I put it on I could put up the newer revised version for review in a few days time!
Thanks, Marilynz
http://www.giftboxes.co.nz/

[begabloomers]

Sorry didn't mean to be pushy about the site. Nice colors. If you are after the expat crowd I wouldn't waste keywords with two spellings ( I don't have empirical evidence whether two versions are spamming or not but there probably is a thread already on the topic).

I wish Aust. Post were as reliable ( and as cheap )as NZ Post.

susan