The Basics of International SEO Expansion - Stukent Expert Session

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The Basics of International SEO Expansion

Kate Morris

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Typical SituationYou are hired as a digital marketer for an great startup. The CMO wants to expand the reach of the company internationally.

You check analytics and internal sales tools to see that you are getting international orders already! This will be easy!

International business and marketing is difficult though. There is more to it than just making your information available to the world. This presentation will walk you through all of the search engine marketing considerations to meet the company goal of international expansion.

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UnderstandingLanguages and Countries

+Not the same

A language is not a country.

A country is not a language.

+Languages

The language someone prefers to browse the web in and is only signified by their browser settings and search terms.

Related Terms Translation – taking content and having it translated into

another language. hreflang – Google’s markup that shows them a page has

been translated. Meta language tag – Bing’s preferred markup showing a

page has been translated.

+Countries

The physical location of a searcher. This can be where they are currently, or where they prefer to search from. When in the UK, Americans will prefer to search from

Google.com as opposed to Google.co.uk

Detectable via the browser settings, IP address, referring search engine or other location settings (ex. mobile phone location services)

Related Terms Geo-targeting – Targeting a specific set of content to a

particular country’s inhabitants. ccTLDs - Country specific top-level domains like .co.uk

or .de

+Search Engines Operate by Country

There is Google Spain, not Google Spanish.

You can search in Spanish in any Google property and results will come up.

You can change your preferred language in a Google property and that will affect results, but your location will stay the same.

+Regional Differences Matter

Laws and Rules vary by country

Currency

Cultural differences might necessitate change in products, messaging and/or visuals Example: A US card printing company wants to expand to

Australia. They cannot use their US images of Christmas cards in

Australia as Christmas is in the summer. They also cannot use US Mother’s Day cards as

Australians say mum, not mom.

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The TechnicalThis is what everyone wants to know first.

+Terms to Know

XML Sitemap – A sitemap written in XML that is submitted to search engines that allows them to see all important URLs on a site.

URL – Universal Resource Locator – http://www.domain.com/page.html

Canonical – A header tag that indicates if a page is an exact duplicate of another page, the original page. Developed for the news industry.

Parameter – URL Parameters are parameters whose values are set dynamically in a page’s URL, and can be accessed by its template and its data sources.

+URL Structure

Don’t start with this, it’s very important but hard to determine from the start.

Language Options Parameter – ?lang=en Subdirectory – www.domain.com/en Subdomain – en.domain.com (not preferred)

Country Options: ccTLD – www.domain.co.uk Subdirectory – www.domain.com/uk Subdomain – uk.domain.com

+URL Structure

If the company chooses the structure too early, it could force them to change URLs later. Example: A company starts with translations via

subdirectories (www.domain.com/en) but then wants to add country specific targeting via subdirectories later (www.domain.com/ca/en) will need to redo their URLs.

If subdirectories are chosen for both language and location, the location should always come first.

+Country Targeting

Done only through Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

ccTLDs are automatically targeted to the country it is assigned to. You cannot geo-target a ccTLD to another country. www.domain.fr/us is not going to work.

Google Instructions: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en

Bing Instructions: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/geo-targeting-your-website-b7629197

+Language Targeting

Google uses hreflang, it can be placed on page or in XML sitemaps.

Bing uses the meta language tag. It can only be placed on page.

Language targeting tags should only be used when the content is identical, just translated.

+Google hreflang

Acts as an indication of language and as somewhat of a canonical. Since this is meant only for pages that are identical but translated, it is thought that it helps consolidate link equity.

Code must reference the current page and all translations.

Example: www.domain.com/newpage.html has 3 translations available: English (main), French, and German. www.domain.com/newpage.html www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html www.domain.com/de/newpage.html

+Google hreflang On Page

English Page <link rel="alternate" hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.domain.com/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”fr” href=”http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”de” href=”http://www.domain.com/de/newpage.html” />

French Page <link rel="alternate" hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.domain.com/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”fr” href=”http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”de” href=”http://www.domain.com/de/newpage.html” />

German Page <link rel="alternate" hreflang=”en” href=”http://www.domain.com/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”fr” href=”http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html” />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=”de” href=”http://www.domain.com/de/newpage.html” />

+Google hreflang Sitemap

This works best when there is an XML sitemap per language. Same case here, you must reference the page mentioned and its language as well as the other available languages.

English Page/Sitemap

<url><loc>http://www.domain.com/newpage.html</loc><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang=”fr” href="http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html" /><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang="de” href=“http://www.domain.com/de/newpage.html" /><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang="en” href=“http://www.domain.com/newpage.html" /></url>

French Page /Sitemap

<url><loc>http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html</loc><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang=”fr” href="http://www.domain.com/fr/newpage.html" /><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang="de” href=“http://www.domain.com/de/newpage.html" /><xhtml:link rel="alternate” hreflang="en” href=“http://www.domain.com/newpage.html" /></url>

+Bing Meta Language

Simple tag that goes in the <head> of every page and specifies the language the page is in.

<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en”>

+BUT … en-uk?!?!?!?!

Many people confuse hreflang and meta language’s ability to specify language dash country as a way to geo-target.

It’s meant to specify that you are translating to a region specific dialect like UK English, American English and Australian English.

But only translating. If the content changes and targets to that country, it then needs to be geo-targeted.

+Grass City – hreflang between UK and US English

+Grass City – hreflang between UK and US English

+Nielsen – Incorrect Setup – URLs are good but …

+Nielsen – Incorrect Setup – This content is targeted to the UK seemingly.

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If you’ve targeted/changed the content for the country other than translating, you don’t need language markup.

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Determining Strategy

+Handy Flow Chart

+Breakdown

First, we need to know if there is a reason for different people in separate countries to see different data/products/services/whatever. If this is true, geo-targeting is a possibility. If it’s not, then they most likely just need to translate.

After that we need to see if there will be a need for translations within the specific country sites. This is most impactful if the company plans to do business in Canada or Switzerland. They are the most common countries with more than one official language.

Lastly, we have to see if the company has the resources to translate correctly and/or maintain different sites for specific countries. If they don’t have the resources, we should not recommend they continue.

+Wait … what?

We built a tool for this flow chart. Use it to determine what the best situation is for anyone looking to expand internationally.

URL: http://outspokenmedia.com/international-seo-strategy

+Three options

Translation Only

Geo-Target Only

Geo-Target and Translate

+Translation Only

This is for companies that don’t need to geo-target. Their site would remain the same, no matter the user’s country. Example: Software makers typically have no need for geo-

targeting.

Translation allows for the biggest impact with the least effort. If you translate your content only to the top 8 languages,

that reaches 80% of the world’s population.

ccTLDs are not used in this instance.

Translation should only be done by human beings, NEVER by a machine.

+Translation Only – Example

Example: US Lawyer

They are local to one country and geo-targeting is not set up for states within a country.

If a US lawyer decides to offer his site in Spanish, the best route would be to translate the content. http://www.domain.com/practice-areas/personal-injury/

would be ... http://www.domain.com/es/practice-areas/personal-injury/

or http://

www.domain.com/es/area-de-practia/danos-corporales/ (PS that is Google translate talking, cannot guarantee it’s right)

+Geotarget Only

This option is for companies who have differences in content depending on where the user is located. Example: Precor offers different machines in different countries as well

as different business services. They need geo-targeting.

The content of each section or site (if using ccTLDs) needs to be made to target that specific area.

Duplicating another site and placing it on a ccTLD is not ever going to work out well as it is duplicate content.

The changes don’t have to be total changes, but they do need to happen. Just translating doesn’t work well if there is another country target with the same language. If a company wants to target the UK, but there are no changes other

than language, they should use translation only.

+Geotarget Example

Example: US-based card printer

After researching this market, we realized that the company needs to create content specific to each country they target. While not all of their content changes, they will need to change content based on the user’s location.

It’s more than translation, and they are only working in one language per country, so geo-targeting is necessary.

+Geotarget and Translate

This option is for large companies that do business all over the world and have a need for country specific sites that have multiple languages within those country specific sites.

Translation markup should only be used within one site. Germany Subdirectory Site: www.domain.com/de should

have www.domain.com/de/en and www.domain.com/de/fr as translations. Tags should not go to www.domain.com/fr for example.

Canadian ccTLD: www.domain.ca should have tags to www.domain.ca/fr if the main content is English. It should not have language tags to www.domain.com or www.domain.fr.

+Geotarget and Translate

This is the hardest one to understand and most sites mess up. Even large sites.

Using hreflang between geo-targeted sections like ccTLDs will not hurt the site, it’s just not technically correct. A ccTLD should only be used if a new site is being created separately and not duplicated/translated.

+Geotarget and Translate – Example

As the US Card Printer moves and grows into the Canadian market, it would need an English version and a Canadian French version of the content.

We would recommend something like domain.ca or domain.com/ca and have two translations: domain.com/ca (English) domain.com/ca/fr (Canadian French)

The /ca subdirectory would be claimed in Search Console and geo-targeted to Canada.

Then hreflang would be added to tell the search engines that the content in English targeted to Canada is also now in French, but still targeted to Canada.

+Most Common International Issues

+Confusing Language and Country

The most common issue I come across. This is largely due to most of the major world languages having an associated country. French, German, Portuguese, Spanish being the most

common

The most common languages typically have more than one associated country and many countries have residents that prefer different languages. Example: You might get a French Canadian speaker that will

not use for come across your site if it’s just in English. Or someone in the US that only speaks Spanish will typically not find sites only in English.

+Poor Translations

Machine translation is bad. It always is. Don’t do it. Don’t allow companies to do it.

It’s a bad user experience, it’s a bad optimization experience, it’s bad for the company’s brand.

If a company is going to expand internationally, they need to spend the time and money to do it correctly. Expansion is an investment.

+Incorrect or missing hreflang code

These are largely due to technicalities or someone not understanding countries and languages.

There are no good tools on the market to help with this code, so it’s easy to mess up.

You cannot assume that a company doesn’t have hreflang markup if it’s not on the page, it would be in sitemaps as well. Check in Search Console.

+Incorrect or missing hreflang code

+Not Geo-targeting

Many companies set up everything to geo-target and then forget to actually claim the subdomain or subdirectory in Webmaster Tools/Search Console and take the time to specify the country.

+Not Geo-targeting

+Duplicating Content

As mentioned before, if a company is going to try to target a new country, they need to take the time to customize the content to that country.

Some duplication will happen, but the whole site should not be copied.

If the company does not have resources to change the content, they should wait to expand. If they move forward anyway, we should not be held accountable to the results. It can work in some instances, but it’s unlikely especially in

high competition areas.

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Thank [email protected]@katemorris