Why You Should Consider Co-locating Your Website in America

Now, I'm not trying to get into a technical discussion here.  That's not the purpose of this post.  But when you want to start doing business in America, you have to consider many aspects of your business, including this one.
At AmeriStart, we've worked with many foreign companies who are beginning or expanding their business development efforts in the USA.  Most of these customers rely heavily on their Web sites, landing pages and micro sites to be the primary conversion point for their sales and marketing efforts.  The Web sites are often located in the customers' home country, by a provider they trust and work with.  Sometimes, just having your site where it is is enough, but other times, your web site, hosted in your country can hinder your efforts in the USA.
Today, I'm going to cover the basics of Co-Location of your Web site and why it matters in your US business development strategy.

CO-LOCATION DEFINED
In it's most simplified form, co-location means creating a copy of your web site and hosting it on a server that is based in the USA.
But why would you want to do this?  Well, if you are outside of the USA and you have visited Web sites in the US, then no doubt at some point you may have noticed the performance of the websites may be lacking, particularly in how fast the web pages download and if the site is dynamic (meaning driven by databases), you may have experienced even poorer performance.
When you reverse that and think about how Americans view your Web site, static or dynamic, keep in mind that American tolerance for poor performing web sites is VERY low generally speaking.  American's do not have much patience for poor performance and we certainly don't want to wait for pages to load. 
There is a term you should be familiar with, it's called a "Bounce Rate."  Your bounce rate is the number of people who leave after they land on the first page of your web site.  Your bounce rate can shed some light on how well the site is performing, both domestically and internationally and help you determine if you may consider co-locating for better performance.
CONSIDERATIONS OF CO-LOCATION
There are a myriad of options to consider when you decide to co-locate.  Here are a few of the common ones:

1. Hosting Provider.  The provider you choose should meet all of your hosting needs and you may want to consider ones who specifically work on co-location.  Watch things like support times and services because of the time differences between you and the US.
    
2. Web Address.  You may already have a ".com" extension, the default domain extension in the us.  If not, you'll need to consider what one you want to use.
    
3. Translation.  Is your web site in English already?  if not, you will need to translate it.  Don;t do this with automated software, because it will never sound correct.  Use a Translation service.  AmeriStart can help you with this process.  Even if your web site is in English already, is it European style English or is it Western English?  Here is an example of the same word European and Western:  "Organize" is Western and "Organise" is European.  American's are completely "bi-litterate" (this is my term for the fact that most American's only speak, read and write western English) that we don't even really understand European English and find it unusual in print.  Make it Western!
    
4. Payment Processing.  If you sell anything to Americans, particularly services or downloadable media like software or subscriptions, be sure to use an American credit card processing service and DEFINITELY make sure you use the latest encryption technologies to assure us that you are legitimate.  Americans demand our services "right now."  Making them wait will reduce your sales conversions.

BOTTOM LINE
There are many reasons to consider co-locating your website, be sure to to develop a well thought out strategy to ensure your successful implementation.