Pretend I'm a user from the UK. Oi, mate! Ello govnah! Ow are ooh? Okay, enough of that. Never mind my pathetic British spoken accent; typing it is even worse. Anyway, say I'm interested in one of them fancy new iPod nanos. I pull up Google.co.uk and, since I'm an average Liam (like Average Joe, only with a British name!), I type in "nano ipod." Here are the top results I get:
I ignore the top paid listings for now and focus on the first four. Understandably, Apple is the number one result, but Amazon.co.uk is right below Apple at #2. Hmmm, that title tag for Amazon is pretty ugly-looking, and the description is even worse. Apple's title tag, however, is exactly what I'm looking for--an iPod nano. The description is perfect, so I click on that result.
The home page looks promising--it's sleek, looks cool, and offers exactly what I want:
I get excited about making my purchase and scan for the price. But wait a minute:
Dollar signs? Bloody hell! The prices are totally U.S.-centric! Lee, Fresh Egg's SEO director, agreed; other than hearing Madonna's crap faux-British accent, nothing turns a Brit off more than seeing a site offer only American pricing. As if that's not bad, check out the customer service phone number:
Customers in the UK will have to pay to use that number because it's a 1-800 number and not 0-800. Apple, you've just lost a sale. I hit the back button and re-examine the search results.
The two results listed underneath Amazon's are advertising iPod accessories, which isn't what I want. It looks like Amazon.co.uk will be my best bet, so even though it was a less attractive-looking result than Apple's, the fact that they're on a UK domain probably means that they specifically cater to UK users, and thus they earn my trust.
You're probably thinking "Oi, Rebecca! But Apple had a paid listing at at the top of the page that pointed to apple.com/ukstore!" That's true, but how many users are blind to the top and right-hand side of the screen because of the fact that they're paid ads? Probably a lot. "Okay," you're thinking, "but why doesn't Apple just create apple.co.uk and optimize (optimise, hehe) that?" Well, that's a good idea. The only problem is that apple.co.uk is already registered to Apple Agency, an illustrating company.
So, what should Apple do? Probably serve its UK page to the appropriate IP addresses. Until then, it's doing a bang up job of losing out on potential sales.
Postscript: Filtering the search result to only display pages from the UK bumps Amazon to the #1 position, and Apple disappears from the first page to...well, I couldn't find it in the organic results on the first 10 pages. While the user will find his product all the same, Apple is really hurting itself here by neglecting its potential UK user base.
