Why Use Googles Geographic Targeting Tool on your Website...

I recently discovered a new feature which has been added to Google’s Webmaster Tools called Geographic Targeting. The tool allows webmasters to specify their websites target market by providing fields where the webmaster can enter in the geographic location of their target market or audience. The fields allow you to specify the location right down to street level.

On face value there seems to be some obvious upside in targeting your website and thereby hopefully increasing your websites ranking in that regions SERP’s. But it was the potential downside that concerned me, in that it might reduce my website ranking to people outside of your targeted region (as people do occasional get enquiries from outside their main target region).

So I started to surf the web to find out more info on the actual workings of this tool. In typical Google style, the tool did not have a clear explanation of how it functioned and most of the explanations out on the web seemed rather cryptic. That was until I came across a posting from a chap by the name of John Mueller in one of Google’s Groups. He works for Google and has a pretty strong rating in the groups, so I think he knows what he is talking about. Here is what he had to say;- (Excuse the copying and pasting;-)

Specifying geotargeting information for a site will not diminish its value in other geographic regions. For example, should you decide to select "Germany" as your target market, it will not affect how your site is returned in search results outside of Germany.

So it seems that there is only a potential upside in using the tool. By extension, if two websites where servicing the same region and with all the other things being equal, except that one website was using the Geo-targeting tool, Geotargeting should push the one website higher up in the SERP’s than the one not using the service– right?

Well the upside for Google is clear here. They will be able to serve more relevant results in the various regions, with the webmasters carrot being the promise of better localised search results. In typical Google style it seems to be an obvious and brilliant thing to do. I’m looking forward to see webmasters comments on this service in the future and to see exactly how this tools as affect their SERP. The link to the Google Groups article where found this bit of info can be found HERE.

Any feedback on the performance of this feature would be appreciated.