Do you have clients in more than one country? Do any of your consumer segments speak more than one language? If your company sells products globally, you most likely have a website – and you most likely want that website to work in all of your target markets. With these international SEO strategies, you can generate more visitors, expand your global presence, and better serve your consumers by using best practices on your website.

What exactly is International SEO?

Foreign SEO is a subset of SEO that focuses on optimizing international websites so that search engines can determine the country and language your website is targeting. You can target information to viewers all across the world by using geo-targeting, hreflang tags, and other localization signals.

Let’s go over three crucial steps for establishing international SEO on your website:

Step 1: Determine the type of international content you will offer

Do you want to improve search results by language, geography, or both?

Some websites opt to emphasis on language, such as Facebook’s home page, which allows visitors to choose their preferred language. Air Canada employs a pop-up to allow some users to choose their language and nation, and then directs them to a specific URL based on their pick. You can also target content by country AND language, like eBay does with various marketplaces available in 23 different countries’ local languages.

As you can see, the spectrum of content extends from just translating your English information into additional languages to generating totally customized experiences, such as eBay. Once you’ve decided what international material you’ll offer, you’ll need to figure out how to arrange your website for international SEO.

Step 2: Create a Global SEO-Friendly URL Structure

Google uses your URL structure to determine which of your pages to show to searches in different countries. This is a type of geo-targeting that focuses on location. Most companies either create a new website for each target country or add a subdirectory structure to their existing website. The technique you choose will be heavily influenced by the resources you have available to devote to its creation and upkeep.

Step 3: Use Hreflang Tags to Target Languages

Hreflang tags are bits of code that are used on websites that include material in various languages. They assist search engines in matching the appropriate language with the searcher. French speakers, for example, will view your French material rather than your English or Italian content.

How does Google determine what language a user prefers? Of course, the terms entered by the searcher are important cues. Google, on the other hand, considers data such as the user’s settings, search history, location, and which Google domain they are using (Google.com vs. Google.de, for example).

When offering translations of your content in subdirectories or subdomains, the hreflang tag comes in handy. While search engines can usually detect the language of a page without the use of hreflang tags, the tags assist keep your different page versions from competing in search results. Because of the signal from the country code, hreflang tags are not required when using different domains (ccTLDs).

Understanding how to best serve your clients and then making steps to personalize your content and search experience to their demands is the first step in international SEO. Using the techniques outlined above, you can begin working on international SEO to optimize your website for viewers in different countries or who speak different languages.

Fortunately, translation services can help you overcome these obstacles, and we at K&J Translations are here to assist you! We will be happy to help you on your business journey since we are experts in the field of marketing strategies, and we also offer SEO content translations in addition to our regular translation services.