Any brand that strives to become an international one faces a challenge: going global actually means going local in many different countries at the same time. And you cannot get popular worldwide without knowing marketing specifics of particular countries you are targeting.
So let’s find out how to build an international SEO strategy and discover actionable tips given by experts from all around the globe.
Research
Identify markets you are going to target
Use Google Analytics to find out which countries are currently bringing you organic traffic. That way you’ll know in which countries you already have a strong online presence or good potential of it and in which you’ll have build your audience from scratch. Also, study the behavior of your international visitors. To do that, go to Audience -> Geo -> Language and Location reports.
Study each of your potential markets
Using keyword research tools, find out how many people are searching for your type of products and services in your targeted countries. Determine their main interests and problems. Discover your most dangerous local competitors and study their strategies.
Think beyond Google
Remember that in some countries Google is not the most popular (or at least not the only popular) search engine. Let’s take a look at some alternatives:
Baidu and Qihoo 360 in China Yahoo in Japan and Hong Kong Yandex in Russia Seznam in the Czech Republic Naver and Daum in South KoreaEven in the USA, 21 percent of the market share belongs to Bing, according to statistics. So study specific search engines in your target countries.
Building a Website
Choose between a country-targeted and a language-targeted approach
Your choice should depend on your main goal: are you targeting a specific region (let’s say Australia), or people who speak one language (let’s say English)?
Choose the appropriate type of URL structure
For an international SEO strategy you can choose between three options: ccTLDs, subdomains or subdirectories.
Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) could be the best choice if you a use country-targeted approach. In this case you can create a separate domain for each location you're targeting. Building a website with a generic domain and subdirectories is a good option if you’re targeting a particular language and want to build authority quickly. Another option for a language-targeted approach is subdomain structure. Now let’s find out what benefits (+) and shortcomings (-) each option has.
ccTLD (website.uk)
+ Geotargeted + Greater authority for search engines + More trust from local users + Faster load speeds (if hosted locally)
- Requires more expense and technical resources - Each domain requires a separate SEO strategy - Takes more time to increase popularity - May have availability issues
Subdirectory (website.com/uk)
+ Less maintenance and hosting expenses + Popularity increases quicker (as each subfolder benefits from top-level domain)
- In case of Google penalty, all versions are subject to it - More complicated URL structure
Subdomain (uk.website.com)
+ Easier to build and maintain + Hosting from different server locations is possible
- More difficult to build authority - Can be confusing for website users
Use hreflang tags to avoid duplicate content issues
The hreflang tag is a way to inform Google that some website pages contain the same content, but are intended for different countries or languages. You can create tags with the Hreflang tags generator, then use the Flang tool to test your tags for errors.
In the article “The Ultimate Hreflang Tag for Dummies,” you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to implement hreflang tags.
Make sure your website has an XML sitemap
And make sure your XML map is submitted through Google Webmaster tools. If your website was created with subfolders, you can submit them to GWT separately as a different website.
Creating content
Conduct keyword research with a native speaker
The Google translator won’t be enough, and relying on it may lead to confusing situations. The trick is not only to translate keywords from one language to another, you also need to consider the local culture, the way people search for what they need, and the local words or slangs they use. It is almost impossible to do this without the help of a native speaker.
Do not simply translate, localize!
Apart from knowing the language your customers speak, you need to understand their way of thinking. For example, Shari Thurow in her article “How Does Color Usage Affect SEO and Conversions?” talks about the reaction that colors produce in different cultures: “The color red communicates happiness in China; anger and danger in Japan; and life and creativity in India.” Brand positioning, as well as website structure and design may vary in different countries. In his article "Web Localization Strategy: How To Localize Content Like a Marketer"article Martin Kura mentions an example of BMW’s positioning for UK and German.
Do not forget to localize your website's elements
Make sure you’ve translated or localized
Navigation elements Title and meta tags Image titles and alt descriptions Address and phone number Time CurrencyPromotion
Attend local events
Being present at events in your targeted region gives you an opportunity to communicate in person with local industry influencers and your potential clients.
Track mentions of your brand in different languages
Quickly respond to mentions, thank commenters for the positive ones and react to negative. You can find some advice on how to react properly to negative mentions in this article.
Be active on social media
To reach a multilingual audience, you can use Facebook’s Power Editor, which allows you to choose the language and country in which your post will be displayed:
What you need to consider when building an international SEO strategy is that not every country uses popular networks like Facebook and Twitter. In some countries local social platforms are really popular, for example:
VK in Russia Xing in Germany Weibo in ChinaMake sure you maintain a presence on the same social networks that are popular in your particular region.
And now let’s set out on a journey and discover the best practices in building your SEO strategy in different countries!
Japan
Localization is an extremely important element if you want to start an SEO campaign in Japan.
It is highly recommended to always have local native speakers conducting your keyword research and writing web content. There are few writing variations in Japanese. For example, the keyword “travel” is “ryokou” in Latin characters, “旅行” in Kanji, “りょこう” in Hiragana, and “リョコウ” in Katakana.
Users that use non-Japanese keyboards normally type in Latin characters before converting them into Japanese. Consider using Latin characters (ryokou) in your domain name to give you a better chance of ranking higher in SERPs if they rank higher than Japanese keywords.
If your Japanese keywords have a higher local search volume compared to Latin characters, use them in your URLs. Your subfolders should never exceed four levels, for example: www.testsite.co.jp/folder1/最初のキーワード.html
Search engines give more value to websites hosted locally. Host your website on local web servers and use a local ccTLD instead of a “/japan” subfolder in your domain. Local hosting and domains are important geo-targeting indicators of trust and local authority, just like in any other country.
Singapore
The most relevant tip I would share would be to really focus on your outreach strategy. Most local websites are still use very 2010 practices: spamming forums, comments and using blogrolls. With very simple linkbait (an e-book with the top 100 financial tips) we were able to capture links from the most prestigious media and even a TV spot!
Indonesia
There are a lot of low-quality websites here, it is super hard to find a website that uses the Three Pillars of SEO. So a heavy focus in health checkups and constant updates to your disavow file are a must.
I would add a deep knowledge of Bahasa slang. For example “personal loan” translates as “pinjaman pribadi” and it gets 390 searches per month, while the street name for this - “KTA” - gets 9,900 searches!
Malaysia
The key here is language. For e-commerce, you would have to focus on English, but for lead capture or less transactional websites, you’ll need to use a combination of Bahasa and English. We saw a 50 percent increase in CTRs when we included Bahasa CTAs in our meta descriptions.
Hong Kong
The software available to focus on certain markets such as Hong Kong and Taiwan is limited due to its being Cantonese and Mandarin-focused respectively. Market-leading tools (developed originally in the West) don't always work as well. Due to the nature of the language, I would always recommend having a closer look and trying not to use common standards (character length or pixel width). With Cantonese, you can express much more in less space. If you try to use the maximum width, you can come across as clumsy or very wordy, which will have a direct impact on your CTR. In my experience with moneyhero.com.hk, you have to be careful with your targeting. We used two languages on the domain (English and Cantonese), and we discovered that most people use the English version of Google and are, therefore, landing on our English version. This gave us a very high bounce rate, as people in Hong Kong expect to see Cantonese, despite the language they use to search. I would advise you to do your international targeting in Search Console correctly, register both languages in Search Console and use your rel=alternate and hreflang tag properly.The main difference is that, unlike other countries where Google is the main search engine, Hong Kong uses Yahoo HK 40 percent of the time. So when optimizing websites, SEOs have to consider both Yahoo and Google guidelines. Yahoo HK is only available in Traditional Chinese - probably because most locals are more comfortable writing in it, even though for speaking they use Cantonese.
Australia
What doesn't work Many will recommend using an .au domain to rank better in Google for Australia, but it is simply not the case. Google is quite sophisticated and uses a range of signals to determine website's location significance. This may include content, currency, phone formats, addresses, hosting, links, language and other signals. So if you have a .com domain and target Australia, you would not show up in Australian searches only if you lack all or most of these signals, which is a rare case. Google's Search Console also gives you ability to explicitly set your targeting. So if you have everything lined up already and you think that switching to an .au domain will give you some magic extra boost, sorry, it's just not going to happen.
What works I'm sad to say this, but in addition to usual local citations, basic dirty old link building will work really well in Australia. It's always worked well but since Pigeon came to Australia the effect is even more prominent. Get links from local websites (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth etc). While I used to be a big advocate of link earning, Google has given me little to no proof that earning your links can work. Not in this incarnation of Penguin anyway. Careful though, make sure your links are not abusing anchor text and they don't appear overly manipulative. For example being the only link on a page that has word "guest post" on it. Ideas for links? Local sports clubs, events, charities and fundraisers work pretty well. You can also benefit from mingling with schools and universities.
In Belgium, about part of the population speaks French and another part percent speaks Dutch, so when you’re deciding which default language to display or which language to use on your homepage, it all depends on your product. Some products have a higher search volume in French and others in Dutch, so spend enough time doing keyword research and understanding your target audience.
Something else to consider when optimizing your site for Belgium is your hreflang tag. Make sure that you add it to all pages (I would advise that you do this via XML sitemap). This was a challenge for our blogging strategy here, as we had to ensure our articles are properly tagged every time we mirror content. As I said before, by knowing your target audience, you’ll better understand when to add a hreflang and when not to.
Germany is a country of engineers and tool providers. Sistrix, Searchmetrics, SEOlytics, OnPage.org and Xovi are some of the many tools that are originally from Germany. Most likely, due to the German people’s love of accuracy, German SEOs like to work with very precise data and numbers.
Also, German SEO agencies provide a much higher quality of service than average. Nowadays it’s very hard to find a bad SEO service in Germany, possibly because of the country’s strict regulatory laws. These laws are also sometimes why SEO is more difficult to practice. In Germany, warnings are often issued especially for data protection violations.
If you are not using a country TLD for the pages that are intended to target the UK, then you can also set geo location via search console. This includes correcting your open graph locale to GB.
Naturally your link building efforts for your UK pages would benefit from .co.uk links, but I would not get too hung up over this.
Ideally you would have a blog section for your UK pages, at the very least a UK Blog category, where you can post country specific articles.
If you have specific location pages within the site, Google is still lacking in the understanding of geographic terminology and what counties and towns are included. Think “The Midlands,” “East Midlands” and “West Midlands,” “East Anglia,” “Greater London” and so on. Rather use specific county names in content and on page.
If you have actual physical locations within the UK and intend to use Google Business Pages then keep in mind that appearing in the local pack tends to still hinge on the main cluster of similar business for the centroid of that area.
This is because Google is still getting to grips with country / towns boundaries like they have within the US.
Image: Google Understands Fresno in California and where business falls within the boundary.
Google still getting to grips with cities, towns and county boundaries in the UK.
The latest insights from Google estimates that as many as 61% of mobile users are more likely to make a purchase from a mobile site that customizes content for their location.
Depending on your market think about how you can build in location data. When it comes to restaurant, apparel, electronics and beauty brands, 71% of mobile users have said that they’ve used a store locator to find a shop nearby. Your website should highlight nearby locations, inventory in those locations and driving directions.
So if you fall within this kind of market, but you are not actually located within the UK, look at using, wholesaler, stockists, click and collect locations to build up your sites local data signals.
SEO in Israel is unique; some parts of it are similar to what is happening with Google internationally, but some are quite different.
In regards to onsite SEO, there is no difference. SEO auditing in Israel is being done at a very high level. We’ve noticed that websites that have onsite actions performed on them obtain a significant advantage over their competitors. Three years ago, backlinks were usually enough to get good rankings.
As for off-site SEO, the differences are pretty drastic. Since there aren't many websites in Hebrew (and when it comes to local divisions of indexes and websites, things are even more difficult), exchanging links is very common, as well as using links of mediocre quality (or even lower).
Off-site techniques that have not been acceptable internationally for a while are still being used in Israel, and still getting results.
Nevertheless, we take care to only use white hat techniques and not to risk using other types of techniques that still work here.
The first thing we can exclude in terms of SEO when thinking about the international challenge on a local scale is the technical part. This one is for sure the only part that can be scaled globally very easily.
By excluding this fundamental and necessary part of search engine optimization, we can now consider some of the key points when targeting Italy, although these principles can be applied to any culture with its specific social and linguistic nuances. I will obviously exclude any trivial "speak good Italian" tips.
I strongly believe that, when speaking about internationalization, the human aspect is one of the most important areas to cover. Countries are made up of people and cultures, so as a consequence, you cannot afford to ignore people.
In some particular markets, for example, you need to consider the legal stuff; in others you need to consider the cultural stuff; in others, the level of knowledge the population has in that specific market.
For example:
For medical and betting websites, you need to respect all the very strict rules Italy imposes. For food and cookery websites, you need to listen to the average user, who is very proud of their country’s food; you also need to understand that you will find very different ways of interpreting cooking from region to region. For transport and service websites, you need to know users’ habits and except some rare cases Italian people tend to use their own car a lot.To conclude:
Invest in a user-centered and experience design. Concentrate your brand efforts on earning trust trust and becoming an authority in your niche. Make your website fast, because in Italy we still have a very poor telecommunication infrastructure. Work a lot on your product or service’s quality.If you do these things, you will succeed in Italy or in any other country.
If you are planning on doing SEO in Italy, consider the following:
Google is the search engine. Full stop. We use many metaphors and rhetoric devices, and this can complicate a text a bit and make it too difficult for search engines. We have adopted smartphones quite impressively, and a large part of our web traffic has gone fully mobile. We are a TV-centric nation: we search Google for what we have seen on television (among other things, of course). We’re not inclined to flaunt (including by means of links) others' praiseworthy initiatives.We are flooded with research and best practices that mainly come from the USA. Here in Italy, these are sometimes applied as they are, and this approach then leads to big delusions and intangible results when things go wrong.
For instance, when we talk about online PR, that helps you get links, in Italy it's of a great importance that you build personal relationships with bloggers and editorial boards, which is much more important than in the international web.
Many SEO tactics that come from the USA should be adapted to make them work here in Italy, and this is true for various reasons. For example, some of Google's algorithms are simply not used here. In other cases, you may find a list of things to do, and realize that half of the listed sites are not accessible in Italy or do not support the Italian language, or perhaps user behavior is simply different.
The Dutch SEO market has one really unique characteristic: we still have valuable link directories that can attribute to some good rankings in competitive keywords. Startpagina.nl started as a classical link directory and is still used by millions of people per day. Having links from this link directory is part of a typical Dutch link profile.
Another thing to keep in mind: the Dutch language market is a relatively small one for Google, and there are no competitors in the market. That means that the quality of a large part of search results is still questionable. With Hummingbird and RankBrain, Google made a great step towards better results, but to succeed, they need to understand the language in question. That’s the current problem: Google does not deal well with the Dutch language at the moment. Thus, there are still enough possibilities for lower quality, spammy link profiles.
Intention is key in Sweden. Google is the dominant player, but a small portion of searches happen on Bing - and usually with a higher rate of conversion when it comes to Bing Ads. In my previous experience working with industrial companies and financial services, Bing is a perfect match for searches with higher purchase intent.
Looking at Google.se, your biggest competitor will be Google Ads. There are a few Swedish websites that will be ranking in top three for a lot of searches with strong domains. To get going fast in Sweden, go for ads and then start your SEO strategy.
And my personal opinion is that the use and correct implementation of Schema is very low in the Swedish market, so with that you can gain the upper hand in high-competition search results.
First of all, Spanish is one of those languages that consists of a lot of words with similar meanings. So you have to find keywords that are more focused on a general theme rather than repeating meaningless terms.
Secondly, one difference - or positive factor - is that Google is American, and if any changes appear, they first appear in English. That gives us the opportunity to understand what is happening in US and foresee the changes before other regions.
Finally, according to surveys and expert opinions, Spain is a country with a large number of SEO professionals. That means it is becoming increasingly difficult to find niche without competition in which we can position ourselves.
A special feature of SEO in the Swiss market is the number of languages you must manage. Switzerland has three national languages (French, German and Italian) plus English, which is frequently used in international cities such as Geneva and Zurich.
Your biggest challenge is being efficient and having good positioning in these different languages for a market that includes only eight million people. Therefore, you have a lot of work to do in terms of optimization for each language. This requires a lot of time because each language is ultimately a different market with different competitors.
The biggest problem with SEO is inadequate information and that it cannot be fully taught or learned. Someone who wants to have a good career or gain experience in this field, first of all, has to be educated about software at a school or a training center. In international platforms, this field is called “SEO engineering.” In addition to this engineering knowledge, another branch that one has to understand is “marketing” from business department. Adding this marketing information both optimizing the website to search engines, working in regarded rules and keeping the user at the first place and having an opinion about how to represent the information in the very best way will always be more advantageous.
The strategy we use is to bring local visibility to a brand by publishing content on a blog located out of the main domain. A blog’s domain targets the same most important keywords as the main domain does, and is positioned in the same city we’re targeting.
Consider, for example, a pizzeria network in São Paulo, we created a Wordpress blog page for each restaurant, entitled “Pizzeria in São Paulo.” Then we produced posts related to each restaurant with parking tips, local and corporate event announcements and photos, which generated links for the main page and for the page with the city map.
As a result, in less than five months we managed to earn the first position on Google´s Local Business search page for each restaurant from the network and the first position in organic search for the brand’s webpage in 17 out of 20 cities, and the blog is now ranking second in 15 out of 20 cities.
If you want good results in the Brazilian market, place your bets on producing exclusive, relevant and useful content. Nowadays the Brazilian market still lacks quality content, so by following this strategy, you´ll quickly go up in search engines results.
If you want to attract more traffic to your site, use the following words in your titles (according to our research, they get 20 to 30 percent more clicks than others):
Como - how to Números (1, 2, 3) - numbers (1, 2, 3) Grátis - free of charge Você - you Dicas - tips Blog - blog Porque - why Melhor - better Truques - tricks Grande - bigMobile is rapidly gaining ground in the Brazilian market. According to data from Google’s Consumer Barometer (2015), 69 percent of Brazilians access the Internet through their cell phones, which shows a 30 percent increase compared to 2014. So make your webpage responsive and adaptable to smartphones.
Another tip: YouTube’s popularity is steadily increasing in Brazil. So invest in a video channel with great content and good positioning.
Social media is a pillar for a strong SEO strategy.People in Mexico are still very young in terms of googling stuff, so you end up with very high search volumes for short tail keywords, which makes the competition very high. A winning strategy is to engage your audience via social media to create brand awareness, social links and referral visits.
Share in comments your advice, experiences and cases of developing local SEO strategies!
Innovative SEO services
SEO is a patience game; no secret there. We`ll work with you to develop a Search strategy focused on producing increased traffic rankings in as early as 3-months.
A proven Allinclusive. SEO services for measuring, executing, and optimizing for Search Engine success. We say what we do and do what we say.
Our company as Semrush Agency Partner has designed a search engine optimization service that is both ethical and result-driven. We use the latest tools, strategies, and trends to help you move up in the search engines for the right keywords to get noticed by the right audience.
Today, you can schedule a Discovery call with us about your company needs.
Source:
