Global SEO: Strategies for International Website Optimisation
Taking your product or service on the road and across the pond? Boost your site’s international visibility with these global SEO techniques and strategies.
What Is Global SEO?
International or Global SEO is the process of optimising your website to attract organic traffic from international markets. As well as traditional SEO practices, it involves:
- Keyword strategies to attract various local target markets
- Content with local linguistic and cultural nuances
- Additional technical SEO (e.g., hreflang tags, geo-targeting)
- SEO best practices for all search engines (not just Google)
In a nutshell, the goal of global SEO is to ensure that your website ranks well in search engines across different regions and (more often than not) languages.
How Our Clients Did Last Month
Month-over-month traffic trends. Source: Google Search Console
Local SEO vs. International SEO
Is Multilingual SEO the Same as International SEO?
Not always. These two SEO approaches are similar and often overlap, but they aren’t technically the same.
Multilingual SEO optimise your website for multiple languages, but the region of your target audience could be the same, i.e., a Canadian website with both English and French pages.
SEO global, on the other hand, optimises your website for different countries and regions, which takes into consideration local keyword variations, cultural preferences, and also (but not always) different languages.
The international audience you’re targeting may not speak different languages, as is the case if you’re optimising your tech site for B2B businesses in England, Australia, Canada, and the US, par exemple.
Does Your SEO Need to Go Global?
The first thing to ask yourself is are you expanding into new markets and will your current content provide the local audience with the same user experience? Do your current keyword strategies match the search volume in these new regions?
There’s an assumption that if you’re considering global SEO, then your enterprise has hit the big leagues. That is, your business is scaling and moving beyond country or regional borders. If that’s the case, international SEO is worth it.
How to Develop a Global SEO Strategy
How do you want your company to be represented in various parts of the world? How will your brand’s message change, and how will your content reflect the local culture and slight nuances in keywords of your international customers?
When developing a search engine optimisation strategy to reach global markets, you’ll have to take a few more factors into consideration when developing content that’s not only linguistically and culturally suitable for the local target audience, but that’s also tailored to the search behaviours of your target audience.
Although your solutions are the same, how people search for them will vary. Additionally, if you’re targeting audiences in China, South Korea, and Japan, consider expanding your international SEO strategies beyond Google and Bing because other search engines like Baidu, Naver, and Yahoo! have significant market share in these regions.
Follow these steps and you’ll be well on your way to developing a full-proof SEO strategy for global success:
#1
#1: Outline Your Global Audience
So you want to optimise your website to increase your rankings and visibility (and sales, ultimately) in Singapore. But who, in Singapore, is your demographic? Narrow down your focus to the decision-makers in the new region who would be interested in your brand.
Think your target audience in Singapore is simply a carbon copy of who you’re already targeting in the UK? Well, maybe in some ways, but don’t assume. Do your research. There may be more differences in these global audiences than their geography.
#2
#2: Adapt Your SEO Keyword Research for Local Search Results
It’s one thing to assume that your UK audience’s pain points are the same or similar to your Polish audience’s pain points, but it’s another thing entirely to think that both audiences use search engines the same way.
Directly translating your keywords from English to Polish is, at least in our opinion, not the clever cost-saving hack you might think. There is so much nuance to local language and culture that the subtlest word choices can make it look like you haven’t done your homework. You’ll have to transcreate them instead, i.e., take your translated keywords and adapt them to be more relevant and appropriate.
Even different regions that speak the same language don’t always search for the same thing in the same way. Take Hoover or Kleenex, for example. In the UK, Hoover is synonymous with vacuum cleaner, but in English North America, people don’t equate the two. Alternatively, North Americans say Kleenex when they really mean tissue, but in the UK, “Kleenex” is not commonly used as a proprietary eponym.
Make sure you have a list of keywords that’s appropriate for the specific countries and regions you want to enter by partnering with the right people.
#3
#3: Work with an SEO Expert to Get the Best Search Engine Results
Do you have the time, resources, and expertise to bring your international SEO efforts in house? If not, an SEO agency that has experience with global search engine optimisation can help you achieve success in other parts of the world.
With your brand knowledge and their experience in achieving global rankings, you may find that working together, you’ll see results faster.
#4
#4: Create Content for a Global Audience
Now that you’ve developed your list of keywords for your new market (with or without the help of an SEO specialist), it’s time to optimise your content.
Whether you should write brand new content or translate and transcreate existing content as part of your international SEO strategy depends on several factors, including your target market, resources, and goals.
If your target market has specific cultural, legal, or practical differences that your current content doesn’t address, creating brand new content tailored to these unique needs may be more effective. And obviously, if you offer something that’s unique to a particular market, you’ll need to produce new content anyway.
On the other hand, if you want to keep your brand message consistent all over the world, translating and transcreating the content you already have lets you keep your brand integrity while still making sense to a local reader. Not to mention the fact that transcreation may be slightly more cost effective than starting something from scratch.
#5
#5: Apply Technical SEO for Better Rankings
One of the definitive things that makes global SEO “global” is what you have to do during the technical optimisation process. These technical elements help Google and other search engines understand which pages to show users, so that when they click on your link, they’re clicking on the most appropriate one.
We’re not suggesting you implement these technical settings without prior knowledge or experience. If you don’t feel comfortable applying these optimisations on your own, ask your in-house web developer or SEO team:
Implement Hreflang Tags
Use these tags to indicate the language and regional targeting of your pages to help search engines serve up the correct version to users.
Choose the Right Domain Structure
Select an appropriate domain structure for your international sites:
Optimise Meta Tags and URLs
Don’t forget to ‘localise’ your meta titles, descriptions, and URLs for each region. It’s true what they say: Google often uses whatever meta descriptions it wants, but it’s better to err on the side of caution. Don’t forget that your URLs need to match the translated and transcreated keywords as part of your global SEO marketing strategy to target international audiences.
Use Local Hosting or CDN
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of servers distributed across the world that work together to deliver your content more quickly. Faster page loads have a positive impact on UX and rankings, so consider using one.
Develop Your International Link-Building Strategy
To gain authority, credibility, and relevance in your target regions, you’ll have to ‘get in with the locals’ in a manner of speaking. That means getting backlinks, referrals, and mentions from brands that locals within the region recognise and trust.
Here’s how to approach it:
Pander to the Search Engines
Once you know which search engine dominates the region you’re targeting, make sure you understand their specific ranking factors, because each one might carry a different weight.
For example, Google and Baidu place a greater emphasis on backlink quality rather than the quantity. SEO global for Google Search will, therefore, have to focus more on relevance, authority, and trustworthiness of the backlinks.
Bing values quality links but you’ll find it placing a greater weight on quantity rather than quality of backlinks. The reason for this is that the Microsoft search engine considers volume as a stronger indicator of popularity.
Naver, on the other hand, places more weight on content quality than backlinks, so if you’re dipping your toe in the South Korean market, be sure to prioritise fresh, new, and high-quality content.
Localise Your Outreach
You’ll want to obtain backlinks from sites that are recognisable and trustworthy in the specific regions you’re targeting. Depending on what your niche is, this could include local news sites, blogs, and industry-related websites.
To make your site easier to pitch to local brands, you’ll want to create a stack of valuable content.
Leverage Regional Influencers and Partnerships
You may not be selling products with widespread appeal, but you might still be able to find influencers who can touch on your brand, i.e., YouTube software reviewers, etc. Connecting with local influencers can lead to high-quality backlinks, which will give your international site some SEO juice.
Target Local Directories and Listings
Submit your site to local business directories and listings that are relevant in your target regions and to your niche. This step is especially important if you have satellite offices in these locations with separate business hours and phone numbers.
Optimise Your Google Business Profile
Enhance your visibility in local searches across multiple regions by setting up your Google Business Profile for all locations, or wherever your company operates.
- Use localised contact details, business hours, services, and relevant keywords.
- Actively respond to reviews (both positive and negative) and customer queries, and keep your engagement positive.
- Make sure each profile is always kept up to date with any changes in services, hours, address, and contact information. Keeping your profile regularly updated shows Google that you’re still active.
International SEO Best Practices
Take as much time building out your international customer profiles as you did with your original avatar. Tailoring your content and SEO efforts to align with these new customer profiles will make your strategy much more effective.
Look, Google Translate is obviously the easiest and cheapest way to produce foreign language pages, but it’s almost too easy to look like a darn fool, especially if you’re translating from or to an idiomatic language, which English famously is.
The more relevant your content is to local users, the better it will perform in search results.
Smartphones are used all over the world, so normal rules about page speed and performance still apply. Ensure that your site is mobile-friendly and loads quickly across all regions.
Continually monitor your international SEO performance through tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and ask your SEO agency to help you set up correct tracking. Pay attention to how each region is performing, and use this data to tweak your strategy over time.
We’ve only covered International SEO best practices on this page, but it’s not enough to outrank the competitors that are already dominating regional markets. If you haven’t already developed a keyword strategy and applied on-page best practices, we recommend you take a few steps back and apply some basic SEO first. Otherwise, get in touch with an SEO agency that can help you dominate search results at home and abroad.
International SEO Checklist
FAQs About International SEO
It really depends on a series of factors specific to your SEO strategy and budget, but you have basically three options:
- Using country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), e.g., .de for Germany
- Using subdomains, e.g., de.example.com
- Using subdirectories, e.g., example.com/de/
Not sure which domain or URL structure makes sense for your international SEO efforts? Talk to your SEO agency for advice.
Hreflang tags are HTML attributes used to specify the language and regional targeting of a webpage. These tags help search engines understand which page version to show to users based on their language or location.
For example, if you have French content for both France and Belgium, this tag will tell Google which version to display to users in each country.
Want to start using hreflang tags? Add them to the header section of your HTML with the appropriate language and country codes (e.g., hreflang=”fr-BE” for English in the United States).
Hreflang tags are HTML attributes used to specify the language and regional targeting of a webpage. These tags help search engines understand which page version to show to users based on their language or location.
For example, if you have French content for both France and Belgium, this tag will tell Google which version to display to users in each country.
Want to start using hreflang tags? Add them to the header section of your HTML with the appropriate language and country codes (e.g., hreflang=”fr-BE” for English in the United States).
It depends on your goals, budget, and SEO strategy.
If you have the resources, creating country-specific websites can streamline your SEO efforts in some ways (content, user experience, etc.). If you have a really strong business presence in multiple countries, this may be the ideal setup.
However, setting your single website with subdomains or subdirectories is often more manageable and still allows for effective SEO targeting.
There are many tools available to track the success of your SEO efforts, but generally, these tools are the most common:
- Google Search Console
- Google Analytics
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
- Screaming Frog
Follow these simple steps:
- Log in to Google Search Console and select the property you want to manage.
- Go to the “Settings” menu on the left-hand side.
- Click on “International Targeting.”
- Choose the “Country” tab and select the country you want to target from the dropdown menu.
