Adapting a website to different countries and languages is how a business reaches a global audience and gets ahead of competitors who only serve their home market. A sound international SEO strategy may be what your company needs to grow beyond its national borders and make the brand visible in other markets.
This article explains what international SEO is and gives practical advice for building a strategy that works.
What is international SEO?
International SEO is the process of optimising your website so that it ranks higher in search engines across different countries and languages. It means taking into account the cultural differences, the search engines people use and the user behaviour of each country you are targeting.
You need an international SEO strategy when the goal is to close the gap between your business and potential customers abroad.
How does international SEO work?
Making a website visible in several countries is a fairly simple process, but international SEO relies on a few key elements to get there and to make sure the site is shown to the right audience.
Google and other search engines show users results that match their language and country, so international SEO is a set of optimisations that help search engines identify your target audience easily.
Besides country and language targeting through the content itself, hreflang tags are another tool that supports international SEO. These attributes tell search engines which language and country your content is meant for. You can also use your URL structure to target content at specific countries.
How to build an international SEO strategy
To grow abroad through search, you will need an international SEO strategy that covers several areas. Here are the steps to include in your global digital marketing plan:
Analyse the market
Market analysis is one of the first steps. It means gathering information about the target audience, trends and competitors in the countries you want to reach. The result tells you how users behave and what they prefer, so you can tailor the content to their needs.
Check the traffic you already get from abroad
As part of this research, you can use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to look at visits, performance and conversions from specific countries and language groups. Then use what you find to refine the strategy.
Do keyword research
Every SEO strategy that works starts from solid keyword research.
With an international audience, translating the keywords you already rank for in your sector is not enough. You need to find keywords that match each language variant, the way people search and the cultural differences between audiences. British and American users, for example, often search for the same thing with different words ("holiday" and "vacation", "flat" and "apartment").
Create localised content
Content localisation follows the same principle as keyword localisation: adapting the content so that it fits a given region. Localised content uses the target keywords together with the phrases, idioms and other markers that change from country to country.
Small details matter too, such as spelling, units of measurement and date and time formats. The UK and the US, for instance, write dates in a different order.
The aim is for the content to read as if it were written by someone who knows the local market well, and to be clear and culturally appropriate. For this reason it is better to avoid machine translation and work with native speakers.
Implement hreflang tags
Hreflang tags are HTML attributes that state the language of a web page and the country it is intended for.
They tell Google and other search engines that there are pages with similar content in different languages, which prevents duplicate content issues. They also help search engines show the right version based on the user's location and language.
You can implement hreflang in three ways:
- Add the hreflang tag to the <head> section of your HTML pages.
- Include hreflang in the HTTP header of non-HTML files on your site.
- Add the language information to your XML sitemap.
Choose your URL structure
The right URL structure makes a real difference to how easily users in international markets find you through organic search. There are three main options:
- Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs): a ccTLD is a two-letter domain assigned to a specific country, for example .uk for the United Kingdom, .de for Germany, .fr for France or .it for Italy.
- Subdirectories: this structure uses a subdirectory for each language or country while keeping all content on a single domain. French content, for instance, would sit at a URL like "example.com/fr".
- Subdomains: subdomains are extensions of an existing domain that you can dedicate to a specific language or country. They appear before the main domain, so the URL looks like "uk.example.com".
Build international links
Earning backlinks from trusted sites in different countries helps build your site's authority and improve its rankings in each market. That is why international links matter if you want visibility in your target countries.
As with traditional link building, there are several methods you can use, from finding high-quality link opportunities in specific countries to publishing useful content written for a particular region.
Let Visilay build an international SEO strategy for your business
International SEO done well is how you extend your reach and become visible in new markets. If you want to build a strategy that works, Visilay can help. Get in touch today.
