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Looking forward to taking your business beyond borders? Or the analytics have hinted towards the lion’s share of your traffic from International countries? Then, it must be the right time to focus on International SEO.
But, before we dive deeper, let us understand a bit more about what international SEO truly means.
International SEO is used when you wish to use the same website to target locations, other than your current location. If you are selling apples (the fruit!), while you are settled in the US, you want to market your product to the Asian market as well.
It is at this time that your website will change the language and currency to the target nation’s, thus making it easier for your target audience to adapt to it.
Often, targeting multiple nations might not work out or be too cumbersome. So, you might go ahead to target locations based on languages spoken. For example, you can go ahead and fib the content in Spanish, to attract all the Spanish-speaking nations towards the product!
What is the research that goes behind before launching for International SEO?
While you decide to take your business international, there might be some points which you need to research. Let us look at some of the interesting points:
1. Knowing about the target keywords, which fare comparatively well in the international market.
2. Understanding the demographic lingo before launching the website on foreign shores.
3. Capturing on the key metrics like organic search results, CTR, and conversion ratios.
4. Trends of conversion and volume generated from the following international countries.
Best Practices you Must follow for International SEO
1.Leveraging the href tag:
Using the href tag, you can inform the Google search engine about the alternative language in which your website is available. An example of the same can be:
<link rel=”alternate” href=”http:// www.shoutdigital.com.au /au” hreflang=”au-au”/>
An important trick is to ask your users the language in which they will prefer to have the website in. Even if you are targeting Australia, it is best practice to ask the language preference of the users.
2.Language, culture, and preferences:
When in Rome, do like the Romans do! This is the key while using international SEO. Using international SEO would mean that you don’t want to miss out on the lingo, just by focusing on the language. Take special care of it.
3. Select between ccTLD or hreflang:
Knowing your business goals is important while targeting the consumers. In the international market, targeting based on location would mean using ccTLD. But, if you want to target based on the language spoken and not on the specific country, hreflang would be a better alternative.
4. Understanding the touchpoints:
How the international audience comes across your page or product is highly important. If the international audience is hooked onto some awesome video content, but you are marketing your website on textual content, it might not click. Knowing how the audience reaches your website counts!
5. A Balanced Backlink profile:
Links only from a specific country’s domain will not work for international targeting. If you are looking for both Australian and USA audience then you should have links from both countries in the location wise target pages. It can be the same page you want to rank on the both countries. You may consult with an international SEO agency to finalize the link building strategy. They have practical experience in this field. So, they can suggest you the best plan that will work for your website.
Bottom line: International SEO is the key for taking your business to foreign locations and driving the business. As easy as it might sound, if international SEO goes wrong, you might end up hitting rock-bottom in terms of bottom-line. So, take utmost care before taking it abroad!
