If your business is like a majority of companies in Australia, you not only try and tackle the market here at home, but you also spread your wings across to our New Zealand neighbors.  This raises the big question, "Should I have one website or two?".  Well the question is a good one, and one that could have multiple solutions through SEO (search engine optimisation).

Search engines such as Google use geographical information to bring back the most relevant responses to your query.  Google knows from where you are searching and then usually selects results based on a websites proximity to you.  This is where several problems start to occur when you want to target two seperate regions such as Australian and New Zealand.  Although when you look at the actual "markets" they are quite similar, getting past the geographical hinderances can prove challenging.

So this brings me back to the question "Should I have one website or two?".  First off let me point out the some major benefits of having two seperate websites.  Let's say, hypothetically, you decide to stick with your one .com.au site, and then try to penetrate the New Zealand searchers.  The likelyhood of me searching and clicking on a TLD (Top Level Domain) ending in .com.au is low.  It tells me straightaway that that is not in my region, and not specific to my needs.  Where as if I find your website with the .co.nz TLD, I am aware that this site relates to my region.  So there is a basic reason on why two websites would be the way to go.  Another would be getting your .com.au ranking in the search engines like Google that do use regions and website proximity to deliver results.  Your website would be at a disadvantage from the get go if you simply tried to get your Australian site ranking in Google.co.nz.

So now that I've pointed out why two websites are better than one, I'll through out some pointers to make sure you keep it on track. 

1. Never ever ever duplicate the content and place it on the second site.  This is a major no no.  If you were going to duplicate the content it is possible to use the NOFOLLOW/NOINDEX tag, but what would be the point of having two seperate sites if you won't let the engines index it?
2. Have the websites hosted in each seperate ccountry.  You may think it would be a lot easier just keeping everything tied to the single web host for all your sites, but think back to what I told you before, search engines use geographical information to provide results.
3. Register a local TLD (Top Level Domain) specific for that country.  So if you where heading to NZ go for the TLD .co.nz if you want to expand to the UK go for .co.uk etc etc
4. Look for localised links.  Build your links around the specific country you are targeting.
5. Use a some local search tactics on your sites.  Make the search engines well aware of the location.
6. If you are unsure about creating two completley seperate sites, set up sub-domains that are hosted in the different country, for example if your company is ABC.com , you could set up sub-domains for nz.abc.com, au.abc.com, uk.abc.com and so on and so forth.

I hope that clears up one of those often confusing online queries you had about your site.  Two sites are better for targeting two different regions.  However I must point out and stress that these tip are not the end all on this subject.  If you have any queries feel free to shoot me an email at info@vertical-leap.com.au and we can have a look at the best solution for you and your company.

Happy searching!