If you have a company or business and your target audience comes from foreign countries you need a dedicated approach to bring them on your website. And that is done through International SEO.
Businesses know optimizing website for international SEO brings many benefits such as international brand exposure, better competitive advantage, global organic traffic, etc.
When you want to expand your business globally you first have to promote your website in the countries where your potential customers are located. Today, when everyone is available online in their most of the time, a website can help you reach them quickly and effectively.
And this is where International SEO comes in. To turn foreign visitors into your customer, your first need to bring them to your website. Here in this article, eSearch Logix will tell you the top International SEO tips that will help you reach global audience effectively.
1. Focus on Language Targeting
If your business or company provides services in different countries, you have to focus on language targeting. It means you need to optimize your website for different languages and make it indexable by search engines on the top of the search results.
For example, let say your customers come from counties like Spain, France, Germany, then you have to optimize your website not only for German, French, and Spanish languages but also for Belgium, Luxembourg, languages because these languages are also spoken as the native languages in the countries.
Therefore, to make sure your website reaches international audience, focus on language targeting instead of country targeting.
2. Implement the Hreflang Tag
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that indicates the language of your website content and the geolocation of visitors. Hreflang is the set of codes that tells Googles about the language your site want uses at a particular page.
The code can be put in the HTTP header, sitemap, or on-page markup. By implementing the Hreflang code enable your website to show the right language to the audience who access your website. However, you should note that Hreflang doesn’t work with Bing and Baidu search engines.
When you integrate your website with multiple languages, make sure that every web page is displayed in the same language. Don’t divert visitors to a German Page where there is an English title.
3. Error-Free Website Content Translation
When your website content needs to be displayed in different languages you either use Google translator or other website content translator tools or develop a separate version for the required language.
In the first case, if you are using a translator tool to translate your website content into a specific country language, you need to ensure it remains flawless everywhere and sounds like a real human tone, not a robotic tone which usually happens in automatic translation.
Using Google Translator or machine translations can give poor content quality and adversely affect website conversion rates. Thus, to drive high organic traffic to your website, your International SEO plan should focus on high-quality website translation. If your website translation is meaningful it will help in lead generation and global sales prospecting.
4. Avoid Automatic Redirecting
In web development, most developers generally enable automatic redirecting to offer users a specific language by recognizing their location, which is not the best way. Instead, you should give language suggestions and avoid forcing them to read a country-specific language based on their geolocation.
5. Avoid Cookies and Scripts of Different-Language Pages
If your website has different-language versions, it will make it difficult for Google and other search engines to crawl your site and users might not be able to see it. Avoid cookies and scripts of different language pages of your site.
6. Don’t Assume One Language as One Culture
Language represents a certain culture and country where it is spoken. But it doesn’t mean there will be one language for each culture. If you have a French website, you will certainly optimize your International SEO strategy for the French language and its audience.
However, not all people who come from France speak or read French as their native language, they may speak German, Maghrebi Arabic. Each language contains its cultural elements in the form of idioms, proverbs, dialogues, and popular notions.
Best Website Development Company in USA suggests that website content which doesn’t include the country’s cultural elements create low impression of the website authority and causes low click-through rates. Hence, it is recommended to focus on correct translation including the country’s historical and cultural elements.
7. Do Localize Keyword Research
International SEO is different from normal search engine optimization. Each country has its specific market and needs a customized internet marketing approach. The primary purpose of creating an International SEO strategy is to drive organic traffic and convert them into leads and revenue.
To achieve this, you need to find what specific keywords are popular in that country for your niche. For example, if your cosmetic business is going after an Australian audience, your keywords should be relevant to Australian search engine optimization particularly.
For this, you have to conduct localized keyword research and find the right keywords which best suits your products or services for better SEO ranking in Australian SERPs.
But this isn’t a simple way to do it. You need to hire a professional SEO agency that can guide you in finding the relevant keywords for your website for an international audience and local SEO. Doing it alone will require tons of effort and intelligence.
8. Customize URLs for International Web Pages
Every website has its domain registered in a certain country and accordingly its URL is adjusted. To enable your website, reach the global audience, customize the URLs of its web pages for each country. There are mainly three ways to create URLs for optimizing your website for global audience:
- ccTLD– It is a two-letter code that tells which country the website is registered in. The URL appears like “webdesigncompany.au” (for Australia).
- Subdomain-Subdomain is generally provided by free website builders like Wix, Weebly, Webnode, SiteSnip, MyShopWop, Squarespace, etc. with the hostname in the URL. E.g. create a free website for New Zeeland, the website URL will look like “webdesigncompanywordpress.nz”.
- Subdirectory– It focuses on making a web page that is dedicated to a certain language or country.
9. Show Culture in Your Web Design
Your website represents your business and brand identity. What you show on your site creates the impression of who are you and why your website is there. People are after all humans; they are beyond website visitors or internet users.
They want to see the wow or emotional factor that connects them intuitively. And it happens when content and web design show the cultural values of that country where you are targeting.
A website having cultural elements in its design, content and overall web experience makes a good impression on the audience of that country and indicates you know them closely.
That is why you should ensure your website design contains the cultural elements of the country like local dialects or native language, time zone, currency, colors, and shapes that connect to the audience instantly.
10. Look beyond Google
Google is the king of search engine optimization. According to an International SEO Agency report, Google gets more than 86 percent of total internet searches across the globe followed by YouTube, Amazon, Bing, and Baidu.
Obviously, without Google there is almost nothing on the Internet. However, it doesn’t mean other search engines have no advantages at all. You have to look beyond Google and pay attention to other search engines which are only used in their country:
- Naver – South Korea
- Yandex – Russia
- Seznam – Czech Republic
- Yahoo – Japan
- Baidu – China
You can customize your International SEO strategy for other search engines as well:
- Microsoft Bing
- DuckDuckGo
- Ask.com
- Ecosia
- Aol.com
- Internet Archive
11. Create an International Link-Building Strategy
Link-building is the backbone of search engine optimization. If it is done through high-domain authority and relevant sites, it can bring high-volume traffic to your site. In International SEO, you have to see what the top domain authority sites (in the target country) are from where your website can get relevant traffic.
Creating a well-analyzed International Link-Building Strategy can give you competitive advantage and help your website rank on top of the SERPs. To ensure you have a good link-building for International SEO, here are some tips that you can include in your strategy:
- Find which sites your competitor’s websites are getting the links
- Use the social media influencers from your target country
- Ensure there is no cross-country linking
- Write content focusing on local SEO
Conclusion
International SEO requires an entirely different approach. You have to optimize your website according to the country’s search engine algorithms and audience interests. If you do it properly while analyzing the international SEO metrics, you can reach a large audience and easily bring them to your website.
But doing all these requires an intelligent SEO strategy. For that, eSearch Logix stands out as the best option for companies and businesses who are looking to expand their business reach to the global level through the power of SEO.
We have highly experienced digital marketers, SEO professionals, and markets experts who can channelize your website for the global audience. eSearch Logix has enabled various companies, small businesses, and enterprises go global through a smart International SEO strategy.
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