I have sat in a few conferences about the globalization of one thing or another and what never ceases to tick me off is the waste of time those sessions are by providing such generic explanations of what to do and what not to do. Thus, it is a nice breather to at least see a good start of an article over at Search Engine Land on localization outside of the US in the SEO/SEM markets:

“Know our geography,” said Alan Perkins, who co-founded SilverDisc in 1993, and has been offering SEO services since 1995 and PPC services since 2001 to clients around the world. “There is a difference between England, Great Britain, the UK and the British Isles – make sure you understand it! The film (i.e. movie) Mrs. Doubtfire is infamous for featuring a supposed English lady speaking with a Scottish accent and referring to England as an island. England is not an island, and there’s nothing more likely to insult the Scots or Welsh than referring to their homeland as England. So don’t, for example, target the UK in a PPC campaign then use a headline of ‘Hey – live in England?’ because you will be annoying a significant percentage of your target market.”

It is unfortunate that the article was shorter than Shari Thurow originally wanted as it would be fascinating to see some more tips or quotes from what had to have been a good SMX session (for once). A sphinn it gets nonetheless!