Skoda Car and its International SEO

When it comes to selling and advertising cars, it is very important to make sure that search engine results are referring to the right domain. This is because not every car model is available to every country. A good example may be Škoda´s Rapid Spaceback Scoutline, introduced in 2015, which was not available for the UK. Hence if a customer is searching from google.de and the organic result shows an austrian Škoda website, it may create an impression that such a car is not yet available in Germany. This is what happened to some of Škoda´s car models.

Some of Škoda’s pages dedicated to certain models did not  match the query

The Laurin and Klement model keywords leads to the page from Austria when searching from the google.de. Keywords such as ´Skoda octavia laurin klement´, ‘skoda octavia l&k’ or ‘octavia l&k’ all lead to the .AT domain.

Cause?

This seems to be an another example of when quality content beats such a strong ranking signal as geo-targeting – Google displays. In other words, the .AT domain was able to beat the German domain thanks to the quality of its page regardless of geo-targeting, which is quite unusual. In order to make a valid case here, we will compare the two websites. 

If we go to the German website dedicated to Laurin and Klement, this is what we get:

Source: www.skoda-auto.de

As for the content quality, the website is weaker than its Austrian counterpart. The website does not contain any multimedia. It has a bad structure and the text is too uniform and plain. From the user’s point of view, it fails to be engaging.

On the other hand, if we go to the Austrian website dedicated to Laurin and Klement, this is what we get:

As you can see, the .at version is vibrant and content-rich. It is well structured and supported by images that actually sell! The differences are crystal clear.

Along with the content, there are no further geo-targeting signals apart from the .AT domain itself. There are no Hreflang tags set, which would tell google which language you are using on the webpage (which would normally be redundant with top level domains).

It is quite surprising that the Austrian site beats the German site, especially when we consider that there are no NAP information with local Austrian details such as name, address and phone are on the website and that the Facebook page that the website is connected with: Their Facebook page does not contain NAP information either, as seen below. The .AT website is also not verified with the Facebook profile.

Expanding your brand overseas is no easy task for sure. In these matters it is always good to work with people who know how to approach international market. Here at GFluence we help various businesses with executing their international SEO strategy to its fullest potential. Check full spectrum of services that we can provide for your brand.

Featured image source: www.youtube.com