International SEO

International SEO strategy best practices

• For each target language provide content in that language on dedicated URLs.

• Ensure page titles and meta description are in the same language as the page content – these appear in the organic search listings.

• Use professional translators for the content to ensure appropriate terminology is used.

• Consider cultural differences in terms of layout and style eg not all languages are read from left to right.

• Consider cultural differences in terms of the images used on the site – visitors want to see familiar types of images. Be aware of cultural sensitivities when selecting images.

• Ensure common parts of the website including menus and contact details are available in all target languages. Use local phone numbers where relevant and appropriate.

• Provide a clear option to switch to the primary language of the site or to an alternative language so the process is simple and seamless for all visitors.

• Show opening hours in the appropriate time zone. Make it clear when phone lines are open too as many global businesses keep their phone lines open outside of normal business opening hours in certain regions.

• Place external links on your own country or language-specific pages that link out to content in the same country or language.

• As part of your link building strategy, build backlinks to your country and language-specific pages from sites in the same country or language. Link building to website pages should focus on boosting search results for a specific country.

• Use language meta tags (hreflang) on all primary and foreign language pages to clearly show which languages your site caters for and to indicate that alternative pages are available in different languages.

• Remember Google isn’t the only search engine so monitor rankings and perform competitor research on other search engines where they are dominant for your target country or language. Nevertheless, Google Analytics and Google Search Console can be used for research for country targeting as they still provide useful information that is not specific to the search engine used.

Following these simple best practices ensures a good user experience for all visitors comprising your whole audience and has the added benefit of informing search engines that your website and business cater for international viewers. Making it more likely that pages will rank highly in organic search listings.

The advantages of an international website

Creating a website aimed at international visitors involves both risks and costs, but the advantages outweigh those risks and costs. Assuming your international SEO strategy is successful and you reach your international market your business could grow exponentially.

Some of those advantages when you implement international SEO successfully are: 

• Increase revenue via a larger customer base;

• Become a globally recognised brand to increase credibility;

• Diversify your target markets to spread risk;

What is International SEO?

International SEO is the technique used on a website that enables search engines to identify which countries you want to reach (and in which languages) and encourage then to present your website in their search listings. It is simply optimizing for a range of countries and languages.

If you check Google Analytics you may find that you already have visitors from other countries because you are naturally ranking for certain pages in those regions. If those countries are your target market then you have already crossed the first hurdle. Remember that Google Analytics and Google Search Console can be used for research for country targeting as they still provide useful information even if Google is not the most common search engine used in target regions.

 Defining the International SEO Objectives

When organisations want to expand into international markets, it is essential to clearly define what the goals are. There may even be different goals for different locations. For a successful international search engine optimization strategy all the aims must be clear and agreed by all the relevant stakeholders. After all you can only measure the level of success if you know what success looks like. Here are some of the potential different objectives:

Country specific

Usually used when expanding to countries which speak the same language e.g. expanding from the UK to Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA and Canada. Content can most likely be the same, although not always if different rules and regulations, for example, impact the products or services your business can offer in different regions. The currency and time zone will, of course, need to change for local web visitors.

Language specific

Often used to reach nearby countries (for ease of shipping for B2C companies in particular) e.g. expanding from the UK to near neighbours in Europe would require local language pages, products descriptions and informational content.

Hybrid approach

Finally a hybrid approach may be the objective, where you might reasonably assume that searchers from a certain country might search in English even if that is not their first language. For example, searchers in Hong Kong, Singapore or Dubai looking for advice on buying a property in the UK. The advice they are looking for needs to be specific to them since they are not UK-residents. However, the language expectation might still English because they are looking for local advice and knowledge.

More about International SEO

Keyword differences between regions

Even if your website already attracts visitors from other countries, the chances are that the same content, for the same keyword search, will appear in a different position. This is because the page, and the website as a whole, is only optimised for one location.

Other important factors impacting the different positions in the search engine results pages (SERPS) in different countries could be: the search engine used, the search volume of keywords, the relevance of keywords and the way users search.

Differences within common languages

Even countries with a common language use different structures, expressions, vocabulary and spellings. Each of these can be a separate ranking factor and they all have to be considered to achieve consistently high rankings across all areas.

That’s why content needs to be created specifically for a particular audience if you want to reach them in any significant volumes.

Unique content across countries

Even for international SEO, the same rules apply when it comes to high-quality content that informs, educates and entertains visitors to a site. If you have been running a local SEO campaign for some time you will already know which content your visitors prefer.

It may not necessarily be the same in other countries but starting with your most popular topics from your home country is a good place to start. You can experiment and build on that data for a new international content campaign.

As you build up your international SEO strategy you will gain more knowledge about a wider audience. That will allow more analysis and provide more points of comparison to boost all of your SEO efforts and international SEO work, including link building.

The hreflang attribute

Hreflang attributes enable Google and other search engines to identify the particular URL on a website that should be shown to visitors based on their language and geographic location. Setting these tags correctly on foreign language pages or country-specific pages will ensure visitors are automatically directed to the most appropriate page.

When people land on a page that is highly relevant to them, they are more likely to engage with the content there, start to recognise your brand (if it is new in their location), and there is a better chance of them converting. That’s assuming the landing page is optimised for conversions.

Conversion Rate Optimisation is a whole topic in it’s own right that should form part of your digital marketing strategy. Read our guide to Conversion Rate Optimisation here.

Content marketing for international SEO

Once you have defined a clear objective, the next step is to list each country you want to reach and identify your main competitors in those countries. There are plenty of international SEO analysis tools like Ahrefs or Majestic SEO that can do this analysis for you.

Once you know which competitors are ranking in the Top 10 for your priority keyword clusters/groups then you can do some simple market research and review their content and create something bigger, better and totally unique to outperform them.

Remember, if you need the new content translated because you are language targeting an audience in different languages never use automatic translations tools. They are much better than they used to be but not yet good enough for native speakers.

Important technical factors

If you are targeting different countries then you could, in theory, acquire new domains with the top-level domain of those countries so that search engines immediately recognise you are targeting those countries. But this is not recommended because each domain would have a separate website and need to be run as a separate project. Having multiple websites would massively increase workload for your web developers and cost for your business. Plus and new domain would start with zero domain authority and require a separate link-building programme.

Better options:

• Subdirectories: where location-specific or language-specific content is placed in a specific subdirectory of the root domain, essentially inheriting the domain authority of the main website.  For instance, www.dittodigital.co.uk/nz

• Subdomains: where location-specific or language-specific content is placed in a subdomain such as nz.dittodigital.co.uk. Subdomains are independent from the main website but can inherit some of the domain authority.

Features to use with these options:

• Parameter: where a URL modifier alters the page content based on the searcher’s geographic location.

• Hreflang: an attribute that enables search engines to identify which page should be shown to the searcher, based on the language of their search and their location.

Different competition

When you’re developing an international SEO strategy you will be competing for top rankings in different search engines against different competitors. Some of these brands may be global organisations that have had an international SEO strategy for years. However, don’t lose heart because one of the best things about SEO (international or local SEO) is that done properly it helps smaller companies compete in organic search with much larger brands. You just need to pick your battles carefully and do thorough competitor research.

More content

International SEO efforts will require more content – either translated into different languages or localised for other reasons. So be prepared for the extra effort in terms of keyword research, content marketing and content creation.

Higher costs

It’s fairly obvious that an international SEO campaign will require a larger budget because of the wider scope of the work. From keyword research to different search engines and country targeting – every aspect of the project will require more effort. However, the potential rewards are equally much higher if you get the strategy right.