Know What is Wrong with your International SEO
There are lots of myths and misconceptions surrounding the subject of international SEO, let’s dig into that!
I am a digital marketing expert from Mumbai, India. Currently completing an academic internship as SEO Expert at La Revanche Des Sites based in Lille, France. I blog, travel, experience different culture and I love the worlds of marketing & technology.
Its half way through 2018, it hasn’t been long that there is increasing demand for international and foreign made products and services. As always multinational companies are always on prowl to capitalize on such increasing demand, they tend extend their business towards various regions and locations, away from the home country. Such business strategies also require a good backing from its marketing department to make sure that the product or services are pushed through the right channels with the right promotional message at the right place and at the right time also at the right cost.
Since we are bound by technology across the world, it is best medium to reach masses of population through few clicks. Digital marketing plays a critical role in such a strategy. In this article I am going to point out some of the factors that companies fail to consider in their SEO efforts while targeting a foreign location.
Before going into the pitfalls, following are the essential activities for an International SEO campaign:
1. URL structure for International Site
It is best to purchase a TLD (top level domain) based on the region you are targeting, for example, example.in
This option involves development and maintenance cost since you will have a brand a new website. If such an option is not feasible for you, another option is to create a sub-directory / sub-folder.
2. Language targeting
Make sure to show the search engine that your website provides an alternate language support using the following tag:
<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://example.com/es" hreflang=”es”/>
This tag shows that your website is also available in Spanish.
3. Hosting the website on a local IP
If you prefer to make a website on a new TLD for international content, it is recommended to host your website in the target location. Through various tests and research it is witnessed that google also tends to rank website based on your server location. Hence server location is also considered as a ranking factor and you can receive a minor boost in your SEO campaign for the internationalized content.
Companies usually have a strong Technical SEO for their website, but the major pitfalls lie in the content.
As we know content plays a central role in the digital marketing universe, but it all comes down to the quality and how useful the content is for a reader. Here since it is an overseas market it is essential to develop content which is tailored to the target audience. Problems in SEO start when companies tend to use and recycle the content that worked well in the host country for a target audience based in a different country. It is an understandable method to save overhead cost but this is where companies fail to recognize and consider the audience, its likes, dislikes, psychology, culture, and values. From the audience’s point of view, it is difficult to connect with a brand or its products without deeper understanding of the product / service.
Another fault which we see is, SEO’s use translators for keyword research and select keywords which are not popularly used in the target market. Such campaigns result in no profitability for the company and rather result in loss of resources.
Following are additional tips that we recommend for your next International SEO campaign:
1. Research
We recommend learning more about the target audience understanding their content, culture and language. This process can be made easier by looking up for competitors and carefully improvise on their content. Google Trend also helps to start with keyword research.
2. Create
Build content from a local writer so the content is more familiar for the audience. There also many online networks available to outsource content writing work.
3. Build
Last step is to identify the right sources and websites to build backlinks. For example, local news websites, blogs and famous writers can be a great source to gain exposure for your company in a new market environment.
If you would like to read more on International SEO, following are some reads I recommend:
