One Website for Canada and the US: Spelling, Currency and Hreflang

Plenty of businesses in British Columbia sell into Washington and California, and plenty of American companies have Canadian customers. The two markets share a language and differ in almost everything else that matters at checkout: currency, taxes, shipping, spelling, measurements and sometimes the product range.

We run offices in West Vancouver and in Hawthorne, California, so this is a question we deal with for ourselves as well as for clients. Here is how to structure a site for both countries.

First question: do you need two versions?

Often you do not. If your service, pricing and message are the same in both countries, one set of pages that clearly says “serving Canada and the United States” is simpler to maintain and avoids splitting your authority in two. Separate versions are worth it when something material differs: prices in CAD and USD, different shipping and tax rules, different products, different phone numbers or regulations.

Choosing a structure

• One .com with country folders, such as /ca/ and /us/. This keeps all your authority on one domain and is the easiest to manage. For most small and mid-sized businesses it is the best choice.
• Separate domains, such as a .ca and a .com. A country domain is a strong signal to searchers and search engines, but you now have two sites to build, link and maintain.
• Subdomains, such as ca.example.com. Workable, with few advantages over folders.
• Avoid automatic redirects based on a visitor’s IP address. They frustrate travellers and can stop search engines from seeing all versions. Suggest the other version with a small banner instead.

Hreflang in plain English

Hreflang is a small piece of code that tells Google “this page is for English speakers in Canada, and that near-identical page is for English speakers in the United States”. Without it, Google may treat the two as duplicates and show the wrong one. The rules that matter: use the codes en-ca and en-us, make every version point to all the others and to itself, add an x-default for everyone else, and give each version its own self-referencing canonical tag. Mistakes here are common, so test after launch.

Make the versions genuinely local

• Prices in the local currency, with taxes handled correctly: GST and PST in British Columbia, state and local sales tax in California.
• Spelling: colour, centre and neighbourhood for Canada; color, center and neighborhood for the US. It is a small thing that readers notice.
• Measurements, date formats and phone numbers that match the country.
• Shipping times, duties and returns explained honestly for each side of the border.
• Local proof: Canadian reviews and addresses on Canadian pages, American ones on American pages.

Local signals beyond the website

If you have real premises in both countries, each should have its own Google Business Profile with its own address and phone number, and its own location page on the site. Add LocalBusiness structured data for each. See our guide to schema markup for how that works.

Mistakes to avoid

• Two versions that differ only by a currency symbol, with no hreflang.
• Canonical tags on the Canadian pages pointing at the American ones, which tells Google to ignore the Canadian set.
• Forgetting French. If you serve Quebec, language law there has its own requirements, and a French version is more than a translation exercise.
• Launching the second version without redirects or a migration plan. Our guide to migrating without losing SEO explains the steps.

Where Cloud9 fits

Cloud9 Web Developments works with clients in both countries every day, from Greater Vancouver to Los Angeles. We plan site structure, hreflang, currency and tax display, and the content differences that make each version feel local. Read about our SEO and web development services, browse our service areas, or request a free SEO analysis of your current setup.