The importance of SEO is rising exponentially with each passing day. If you are a business owner that provides services globally, International SEO is your thing. To ensure a proficient global reach of your business, you need to broaden your perspective. Like local SEO, by following the correct International SEO practices, you can yield the results that you want on a global level.
Firstly, what an International SEO is? Following the SEO practices by keeping the audience from another country in mind can be termed as an International SEO. By following this SEO practice, you are overcoming every hurdle like language barrier, geographical location barrier, etc.
International SEO is not only about using the content that is recognized globally, or hreflang. Your website design must also meet the International SEO practice.
What are the International SEO Practices?
Okay, now when you know what an international SEO is, you are good to move further with it. But how do you execute it? What are the factors your need to alter in your global SEO practice? What are the extra features you need to incorporate into your website? The answers to all these questions lie below.
1. International Keyword Research: The first step of a successful SEO campaign is altering your keyword research technique a bit. You need to research the aspects like search competition, search volume, Keyword difficulty of a specific keyword in your target country and use the same accordingly.
People often tend to just translate their target keyword according to the target country and use it. But it may create a massive blunder in terms of an SEO campaign. You have to do proficient research, and analyze your competitors, before you finalize your keyword for your target country.
2. Choosing The Right Domain: Choosing the right domain is also of extreme importance if you wish to ensure the success of your international SEO. Try to choose the domain keeping the target country in your mind. Like it is .au for Australia, .ca for Canada, .it for Italy, .in for India, etc.
Choosing the domain extension by keeping the country in mind will give your target country a reason to trust your website.
3. International URL Structure: The URL you structure is an indication to Google about the countries in which the pages of your website are to be shown as a part of the search results. We highly recommend you set up a subdirectory structure of your website to ensure your website gets the global reach.
Setting a subdirectory structure is simple and extremely cost-effective. Thus, subdirectory structure ensues a global reach and in a very cost-effective way. Remember, the URL Structure is one of the most important aspects to ensure a global reach of your website.
4. Using Hreflang Tag: Hreflang tag might be a bit uncommon to you. This tag is used in websites that incorporate multiple language content. Google is able to provide the relevant content of your website to the users by using this tag.
However, Hreflang tags are not a necessity if you use different domains. But, if you are using multiple language content on the same website, using this tag is always advised.
A structure of Hreflang Tag looks like:
Here, “en-uk” informs Google about the location and the language you are targeting. However, there are search engine restrictions with this tag. You can’t use this tag with Bing or Baidu. They use a meta-language tag, which is a wholly new concept.
5. Your Hosting: Usually, people tend to think web hosting have a very minimal role to play in the website rankings. And rightly so. But get one thing straight, for Google, your hosting location is not decisive but plays a role.
As for Russia, Yandex has to be a preferred server. For Japan, Yahoo can be your answer. For China, Baidu is your go-to tool. Similarly, you need to analyze the server locations near your target country to ensure Google gets its preferred option in the form it wants.
6. Strict No to Machine Translation: As mentioned above, most people tend to go with machine translation which is a major reason for the campaign’s failure. Remember, the translation not only changes the entire meaning of your language, but it also degrades the authority of your website.
Do appropriate keyword research, write a great quality of content in the target language, and ensure you pass your message to your target audience in an effective way. Maybe, you find it a bit more complex, and time-consuming, but to ensure higher website rankings writing effective content for your target audience is a necessity.
7. Improve Your Page Experience: From June 2021, Page Experience will be a part of the latest Google algorithm update. Work on every aspect which ensures a great page experience for the users visiting your website.
No matter what the location is, everyone wants a smooth page experience if they are visiting your website. Work on the things like website speed, mobile optimization, etc. and gift the user a page experience they want. The smoother the page experience you provide to the user, the more the success of your International SEO Campaign is guaranteed.
8. Trend Analysis: You might have often read the statement “SEO is an everyday evolving thing” in our blogs. And it’s a fact. You need to analyze the latest local and international SEO trends at regular intervals.
Keep on reading, keep on tracking the results, keep on analyzing the competitors, and give yourself the best chance to succeed. We always believe staying updated with the always evolving SEO is a habit that can be a deciding factor of your success.
9. Link Building: With SEO, quality link building is important. But with International SEO, the importance of quality link building increases to a great extent. Here, your focus should be on quality link building. Here’s few tips on quality link building practices.
Quality link building is a vital part of an International SEO Campaign to be a success. Try to get the links from some of the most authorized sources & which are globally recognized. Initiating it might be tough but once you get going, chances of your International SEO Campaign are high.
Start exploring SEO a bit more. Try things like guest posting for some of the most authorized sites. The value you are providing through content to the users is also a deciding factor in inviting the links from some authoritative sources.
You will find several options luring you to provide links. But don’t get lured by the options which won’t provide your website with a value at all. Try to get the links from the website domains which are relevant to your target country. Getting links from these websites will give the search engine an impression that your website is relevant for the audience of that location and thus help in boosting the rankings of the same. Devise an efficient link-building strategy to ensure a successful link-building campaign.
10. Track & Test: Once you initiate an international SEO campaign, keep on tracking the results in terms of your success at regular intervals. Keep on trying new things with your campaign and give yourself an opportunity to improvise over the previous method.
With SEO, the more you try, the more you succeed. You can’t expect to follow a set of patterns for a long time and get the best results. At least, not in SEO. And with International SEO, the scope of trying new things increases to a great extent. When you track your results at regular intervals, you get a solid chance to analyze the loopholes in your strategy and rectify the same.
When you initiate an International SEO, just keep the above things in your mind. The chances of SEO success will increase drastically once you execute the above factors in a proficient way. And, to get guaranteed success in the International SEO of your website, do reach out to Pat’s Marketing, Toronto SEO Expert at 888-488-7287 (toll-free) now.
