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I currently have a website owner, looking to expand their Geographical reach. Rather than investing in dedicated ccTLDs, the use of Subdomains have been opted for as follows:

en-gb.example.com (English Speakers in the UK)
de-gb.example.com (German Speakers in the UK)
de-de.example.com (German Speakers in Germany)
en-de.example.com (English Speakers in Germany)

To help each Subdomain, rank within their targeted locations, would it be better practice to assign each Subdomain a Geographic orientated Social Media profile rather than one generic profile?

For example:

www.socialmediasite.com/profile_example_uk (Points to en-gb.example.com)
www.socialmediasite.com/profile_example_de (Points to de-de.example.com)
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  • I don't think it would make any sense to put a link to an English FB page on a German site. Can't you just leave it off? – Stephen Ostermiller♦ Mar 2 '19 at 4:13
  • I was thinking more from the perspective of using Social Media to provide Geographical signals for each Subdomain. Personally, I believe having Geographical orientated Social Media Channels to be beneficial but wondering if there are any drawbacks; other than the extra work in management. – Craig Mar 3 '19 at 15:48
  • I've never heard of social media links providing any geographic signals. They might possibly provide brand signals. – Stephen Ostermiller♦ Mar 3 '19 at 15:52
  • I cannot say I have come across any concrete evidence neither. That said, I feel if a Social Media profile is dominated by a particular language and/or shares by User Profiles from a targeted location, it would be a good indicator. Whether now or in the future. Regardless, I feel it would be a better user experience as those in Germany would be more interested in the German site and those in the UK are more likely to be seeking out the UK version. Curious as to whether there would be any drawbacks on my thoughts here. – Craig Mar 3 '19 at 15:59
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  1. Should Geo-targeting Subdomains have their own dedicated Social Media Profiles?

There is no particular answer for this and totally depends on the vision you have for the website. we create/use dedicated Social Media Profiles for Brand Awareness and helping customers have updates on what's going on.

  1. Does Dedicated Social Media Profiles for Geo-targeting Subdomains help SEO rankings?

The answer is NO. There is no concrete evidence that Social Signals or relevancy are shared for a website just by creating dedicated Social Media Profiles. Instead, there is a general motive that the rankings fluctuate and tend to favor those, who have higher shares for their target URLs.

Example:

Keeping all other ranking factors aside, a post containing URL1 with higher number of shares might rank better than a post with similar context containing URL2.

  1. To help each Subdomain, rank within their targeted locations, would it be better practice to assign each Subdomain a Geographic orientated Social Media profile rather than one generic profile?

Yes, this is generally a good practice. Users would like to have content served in their native language unless your target is International Audience.

  1. What are the advantages of maintaining dedicated Social Media Profiles?
  • Serve native-language dedicated content to your customers
  • Share offers or posts exclusive to the specific country
  • Have a handle that can serve customer requests for locations in specific country
  • Maintain language-based relevancy for users and Search Engines
  • Have a better possibility of ranking your Geo-targeted domain when you have higher engagement in terms of shares for your particular landing pages
  1. What are the disadvantages of maintaining dedicated Social Media Profiles?
  • If your business is small, the work to maintain dedicated Social Media Profiles becomes much higher
  • Frequent Updates are needed to have engagement rates. If there are no frequent updates, it is better to have a generic page that can be shown to the users

Suggestions

  • If you have a good vision for the website and will grow big, having dedicated handles will definitely help you
  • If you are just starting out, you can have a generic page and then expand to country-specific pages when your business grows or you cannot handle all requests or maintain relevancy on the generic page
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  • Great answer. You covered many areas, in the same light as my initial thoughts; so great to get some reassurances. Would be nice to see some concrete evidence on the impact of generic v Geo-targeted Social Media profiles. For example: Is it better to 'split the vote' by having multiple Geo orientated Social Media profiles, that are more relevant, or consolidate all the engagements, into one generic social media profile; albeit less targeted. My initial thoughts being that the former would be a better solution. Providing adequate management could be provided, of course. :-) Thank you! – Craig Mar 4 '19 at 23:20
  • It's always been proven that large number of genuine social shares have a positive effect in ranking for a particular period irrespective of generic or dedicated. But dedicated wins in the longer run provided the audience size or the business revenue is huge. That said, the rest depends on how you manage. – idk Mar 5 '19 at 5:39

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