Hosting Mautic QuickStart -50% with support in Spanish
24 hours and free training
Send up to 1,000,000 emails/year. Mautic Support in Spanish 24 hours, 365 days
First of all, I want to thank the team for allowing me to participate in their blog to talk to you about international SEO.
In recent times it seems that talking about this type of SEO is fashionable as if it were easy to carry out and I’m going to tell you something, they couldn’t be more wrong.
For this reason I am here today writing these lines, to demystify international SEO and to speak professionally about everything that should be taken into account when making a multilingual web page optimized for SEO.
Why am I saying this? Because I have read in many posts that the key to doing international SEO is to use the hreflang tag and I’m sorry, but international SEO is much more complex than that.
For this reason, today I am going to list the aspects that you should take into account when developing or hiring an international SEO campaign.
Let’s go with it!
What kind of international web will it be?
The first thing you should do before making any type of movement or SEO positioning is to analyze what type of international web page you want to create.
Keep in mind that depending on choosing one or the other option, things will change substantially.
Therefore, you should ask yourself the following question: What will my website be like? Multi language or Multi Country?
- Multi language website.
These types of websites have their segments based on the language spokenthat is, they are divided by language or language. - Multi country website.
On these web pages each country is a completely different world. That is, it is not segmented solely by language, It is segmented by countries, even if they share the same language.
As if this were not enough, in this type of page you can change even the price of the products or the structure depending on the country that is visited (within the page).
Undoubtedly, this is the most complex method since in case of ignorance there are serious possibilities of creating duplicate content.
What brand or domain name to use?
Before starting an international project, it is important to define what the brand name is going to be, since it is not the same to have a domain called “mueblesdecocina.es” than one that is “Ikea.com”.
Recommended reading:
Therefore, in this step you must opt for one of the two options. Brand name VS generic name SEO.
To do this, you must ask yourself the following questions: Do you want to have a proper name that is pronounced the same in all countries? Do you want to have a generic name in a specific language? Will the brand name look good in all countries? Does the name affect the culture of any country?
As if this were not enough, you must also choose a TLD (domain extension) for your project.
Keep in mind that in case of choosing a “.es” you will be indicating to Google indirectly that your target audience will be mainly from Spain.
If, on the other hand, you do not want complications, it is best to choose a generic TLD domain “.com”, “.net”, etc.
Which is better: subdomain or folder? Domain by language?
This is a battle that has been going on for years in international SEO without a clear winning candidate.
If you ask me the answer is clear. Organize each country in folders so that in this way all the strength accumulated in the domain is used.
However, there are those who say that the ideal would be a subdomain strategy for each language and in this way not mix / bundle Google.
Personally I am not a big fan of subdomains, but here the choice will depend on each one. Of course, for me the best option is a language or country, a folder.
- Domain.com/en/
- Domain.com/en/
- domain.com/fr/
Of course, and with rare exceptions, I will never recommend a new domain per language as it will require double, triple or quadruple effort. It’s like you have to pull up 5 web pages at once. Crazy wow.
Search Console as the first step to carry out international SEO
Once the initial aspects of an SEO campaign by language / country have been determined, it will be time to use the Google Search Console tool.
In this tool (the old one), within the “Search traffic” section you will find an option called “International Segmentation”.
In it you can provide information to Google about your project at the language and country level.
In this way the search engine will be much clearer which part of your web page belongs to the Spanish language of Spain and which part of your web page belongs to Colombian Spanish.
Keep in mind that in these portals it is very likely that if you do not do it correctly you will have a serious problem of .
HrefLang or how a tag can be the basis of International SEO
The Hreflang meta tag is the key to being able to segment a web page by country or language. Its basic structure is this:
link rel alternate hreflang language href URL you are referring to.
With this label that should be on ALL and each one of the pages of your portal you will be indicating to Google the following:
“Hey Google, this is me, the Spanish page of the site, this (French URL) is the French version of the portal and this one (German URL) is the German version of the web page.”
In other words, this label, which I repeat, must be on all the pages of the portal, acts as a guide for the Google bot to indicate where it can find the different language versions of the same URL.
It may seem a bit confusing at first, but you will see how little by little it is quite easy to implement this framework of hreflang tags for international SEO.
Study of the country where we are going to carry out the SEO
Once the technical indications for carrying out an SEO strategy on an international scale are clear, it will be time to start researching the market where you want to establish yourself.
If you thought you had already done the hard part, I’m sorry to tell you that you were wrong…
Analyze customs and behavior patterns
Each country is different and therefore if you want to carry out an international SEO strategy in conditions you must correctly analyze their customs and behavior patterns, such as:
- When do they shop?
- What are the barriers to buying in this country.
- What lifestyle or buyer person is the one you attack in the country.
- Etc.
semantic vocabulary study
I guess by now you know about the importance of doing good keyword research or study of keywords in an SEO project.
How will you know, the meaning of a word can vary substantially depending on one country or another. The meaning of the word “shell” in Spain is not the same as in Argentina, for example.
The same word is not used in Spain for a “mobile” device as in South America where it is called “cellular”.
For this reason, you must understand the vocabulary of the country where you are going to settle and know what their search intentions are.
Adaptation of the portal to the standards of each country
Each country has its standards of quality, purchase or behavior. What does this mean?
Well, although in Spain the quality seal par excellence is “Confianza Online” it may be that in Latin America that seal means nothing.
This is just one small detail to take into account, but there are thousands.
Therefore, find out how you could maximize the benefits of your business for that country and what their quality seals are, etc.
Conclusions about this type of SEO
After all this post you can draw some clear conclusions about what is international SEO and what is not.
What is clear is that this type of SEO IS NOT SIMPLE.
When I receive proposals for international SEO campaigns, I often call the person in charge to tell him what must be done so that there are no misunderstandings.
In many cases, these people with little experience on the Internet launch themselves (unknowingly) in search of new countries without even being established in their own.
This is a mistake. To do this type of SEO, the first thing is to be established in the country of origin and detect purchase patterns in other countries.
That is, to know if that product would really be sold (or is already being sold) in another specific country. It is essential to ask these questions:
Do I have competitive prices? Can I offer the same features as the competition in that country? Do I get sales of that product on my website from abroad?
For this reason, when I receive proposals in which suddenly those responsible intend to do International SEO in 10 COUNTRIES! I tell you that it is crazy.
This type of SEO must be done progressively since in case of doing it quickly the price will be substantially more expensive for several reasons such as:
- 1. You must create a portal for each language/country. It is not worth duplicating them as we have seen previously.
- 2. Knowledge is needed to carry out all this lattice tags and duplicates.
- 3. It takes a translator by country (preferably native) that advises the company regarding the vocabulary and customs of the country.
- 4. It takes shipping logistics and price competitiveness in order to overshadow existing competition. That is, a market study must be carried out and a logistics structure must be created.
If you do not offer a minimum of what the competition does or you do, but at a higher price, you are dead. On the internet, the best and the cheapest win. If you can’t offer it, don’t even try.
Lastly, and to top it off (without wanting to scare you more than I already have), the recommended thing to do when carrying out an International SEO strategy is to implement it step by step.
That is, the process would be as follows:
- 1. I detect that there is a business opportunity in Germany.
- 2. I create a landing in German that says that we are making the web page in that language and that they will soon have news, in the meantime buy the product in the original language of the web.
- 3. The user buys or is interested in the new version of the portal.
- 4. I have proof that I can sell the product in that country. Therefore, I create the version in that language within the web page.
Following this scheme you will not lose large amounts of money or take false steps in this international SEO.
As I always say, in SEO the key is to go step by step optimizing and creating. Do not be discouraged!
Help us improve our content by sharing your opinion
Freelance SEO consultant who helps companies to get their clients through SEO web positioning.
Facebook Comments
Disqus