International SEO RoadmapIntroduction

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When you're looking at your site traffic and you realize that a good share of your visitors are either coming from other

countries or speak other languages, it might be time to think about international SEO (which is essentially

geotargeting).

Moving into new territories and categories is a radical strategy that can create major potential for incremental

business growth. To succeed, it requires a precise understanding of market dynamics, consumer behavior and the

competitive landscape of the specific markets that you target.

In this presentation, we’ll discuss an international SEO roadmap to help you manage a campaign with a multi-national

or multi-lingual target audience and identify an upselling opportunity for an existing client.

IDENTIFY TARGET OPTIMIZE PROMOTE MEASURE

International SEO RoadmapIdentify: Your International Seo Potential

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Validate your client’s company characteristics from an

international perspective:

Review your client’s existing web content & development

structure (can they support a new website development

project if necessary?), digital marketing goals, business

model, company operations, geography, cultural & language

factors, pricing & currency factors.

These are some questions you might ask yourself:

Ecommerce: Can my client offer international shipping and accept payment in international currencies?

Lead Generation/B2B: Can brand representatives support communication in multiple languages (demos, ‘contact us now’)?

Location-Based (Brick & Mortar Locations): Does my client’s business model support international expansion?

Brand: Can my client’s product/goods be distributed to other countries? (Manufacturer versus Distributor)

International SEO RoadmapIdentify: Your International Seo Potential

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Take into consideration your current site International activity:

Segment by country/language: Identify visits, conversions & conversion rates. Is there a t rend? Ident i fy most popular/h ighest converting pages/products. Traffic sources, channels, & device types. Use Google Analytics.

Identify your site current international search visibility:

Segment by Country/Language: Identify impressions, clicks & CTR. Is there a trend? Identify top queries, pages and current ranking keywords. Use Google Webmaster’s Tools, SEMRush, & BrightEdge.

Total Revenue By Country

$0

$40,000

$80,000

$1,731.50

$8,002.46

$14,882.41

$43,744.16

$1,841,950.32

United States Canada Australia UK Germany

Analyze Current

SEO Activity & Visibility

ORGANIC KEYWORDS RANKING (CANADA)

KEYWORD POSITION VOLUME

colorful socks 3 40

cool socks 13 480

funky socks 40 390

fancy socks 28 210

crazy socks 93 210

International SEO RoadmapIdentify: Your International Seo Potential

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Research your international industry search activity:

Search engines (Google? Baidu? Yahoo?) Country & language (what of multiple language speaking countries?). Devices. Competitors. Search terms, volume, trend & seasonality. Use Google Trends, Wikipedia, SEMRush, BrightEdge, Google Keyword Planner.

Top Search Engine

4%

8%

88%

GoogleBingOther

First Language

17%

23% 60%

EnglishFrenchOther

Use Google Trendsto identify consumer search demand

International SEO RoadmapTarget: Your International Search Audience

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Set your International Target:

Country Target if your visitors location is a factor that influence your site operations and there are enough potential traffic and conversions per country. If not, language target.

Because of the differences in local dialects, i.e. “cell phone” in the US versus “mobile” in Australia, or “color” in the US versus “colour” in the UK - it is recommended to country target for optimal results.

Understand your International Audience behavior & characteristics:

Demographic characteristics, cultural factors, online buying preferences. Use tools and studies like TNS Digital life, ComsCore data mine and Google Consumer Barometer.

How does this country’s behavior differ from users in the US?

Studies on Consumer Behavior can Drive your SEO Strategy

International SEO RoadmapTarget: Your International Search Audience

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Identify & Research your International Competitors:

Most popular products & content (Competitor Content Analysis), identify their ranking keywords, unique selling proposition, weaknesses & strengths, other marketing activities, online community. Use Alexa, BrightEdge, SpyFu, SimilarWeb, SEMRush, Buzzsumo, Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO.

Define your International SEO Strategy:

With the previously identified information you can set the best SEO strategy, the keywords & pages to promote and define goals to target for each International market.

Identify Top Performing Competitor Marketing Initiatives

International SEO RoadmapOptimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site

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Make your International content indexable with its own Web structure:

Don't use cookies or scripts to show it t h r o u g h t h e s a m e U R L ( U R L Parameters).

Enable a specific Web structure for each country or language:

• For country targeting: ccTLDs, Sub- Directories or Sub-Domains to target each country.

• For language targeting: Sub- Directories or Sub-Domains to target each language.

STRUCTURE EX. PROS CONS

Country- Specific (recommended for single

country campaigns)example.ie

Clear geotargeting Server location irrelevant Easy separation of sites

Authority does not pass between domains without the use of links

SEO efforts are therefore increased greatly for every new ccTLD used

Requires more infrastructure Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes)

Subdomains with GTLDs de.example.com

Easy to set up Can use Webmaster Tools

Geotargeting Allows different server locations

Easy separation of sites

Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL alone

Authority does not flow (to any significant level) between subdomains.

Subdirectories with GTLDs

(recommended for multi-country/multi-lingual

campaigns)

example.com/de/

Easy to set up Can use Webmaster Tools

Geotargeting Low maintenance (same host) One domain means one SEO

campaign; building authority to the one country directory will

have a positive, indirect impact on other countries.

Users might not recognize geotargeting from the URL

Single server location Seperation of sites harder

URL Parameters (Dynamic Serving Content URLs)

site.com?loc=de Not recommended

URL-based segmentation difficult Users might not recognize geotargeting fro the

URL alone Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools is not possible

The website structure will largely depend on the client’s business model, country/languages we are targeting, and budget/scope of the SEO campaign. Some countries have very strict ccTLD making it hard to go this route. Others have a low amount of internet users and can cause issues obtaining links from other ccTLD’s.

International SEO RoadmapOptimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site

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Localize / translate your International Website:

• Titles, meta descriptions, headings, navigation, text content and images, URLs, prices, currency, delivery information, etc.

• Managers/Analysts will be connected with native speakers to avoid translation mistakes and make the website attractive for the targeted market.

• Internationalized domain names can be tricky: It might be better to transliterate for non-ASCII characters (the process of exchanging non-Latin characters for similar-looking letters in the Latin alphabet) depending on the search volume of keyword phrases.

www.düesseldorf.de Versus www.duesseldorf.de

International SEO RoadmapOptimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site

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Make your International Web versions easily findable:

Featuring a visible and crawlable menu and by suggesting your International versions when they're relevant, not automatically redirecting users.

Indicate your pages language and country targeting:

• Through hreflang annotations: Whether in your HTMLs head area or through your XML sitemaps. Use the Media Flow hreflang tool to add them in your XML sitemap. Verify hreflang tags in the International Targeting section in GWT.

• You can also specify the "content-language" meta tag or html "lang", used by Bing.

• Additionally, if you're country targeting and using a gTLD, use search engines Webmaster Tools geolocation feature.

Example of an language annotations using the HTML link element in the header

International SEO RoadmapPromote: Grow Your International Search Popularity

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Research your international competitors link building strategies:

Identify their link sources and the existing popularity gap.

• Link volume, sources & types. Linked content. Link quality vs. quantity. Link trend over time. Social Activity & Profile.

• Keep in mind than competition is usually lower than in the US and algorithmic Google updates take much longer to impact international Google search engines.

• Use Buzzsumo, Open Site Explorer, MajesticSEO, Search Metrics, Link Risk, Social Crawlytics, and Ahrefs.

International SEO RoadmapPromote: Grow Your International Search Popularity

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Research your international audience profile:

Identify their behavior and characteristics to be able to connect with them.

• Favorite content topics & formats. Most popular social networks. Favorite media & blogs. Industry influencers.

• Use Followerwonk, Topsy, Simply Measured and Google Trends.

Identify competitors top influencers by geo-location (Followerwonk)

International SEO RoadmapPromote: Grow Your International Search Popularity

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Create & promote useful and easy to consume assets to connect and build popularity among your International audience:

• Learn to leverage local sites & cultural factors. Track the response behavior in different countries. Build a relationship with local influencers & media. Identify what works better in each country to scale.

I.E. Infographic distribution has a longer placement cycle outside the US

• Analysts will be paired with an experienced native speaking link builder/local agency for manual outreach & strategy in non-English language SEO campaigns.

• Use GroupHigh, BuzzStream, Link Prospector, CognitiveSEO, Ontolo, Outreachr, Link Risk, Google Alerts.

International SEO RoadmapPromote: Grow Your International Search Popularity

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Align your company's activities for link building:

Your current product, content, marketing and even, operations activities to connect with your international audience.

Learn quick, be constant to become an authority:

Win the popularity race against your competitors by learning quick to connect with your audience, optimizing and being constant with your link building actions to become an authority in your international industries.

Don’t forget that you can still target low-hanging fruit for clients that already have an international presence:

*Nofollow links – turn non-equity to equity passing links *Optimize anchor text of links *Common/Non-common Linking sites among competitors *Convert brand mentions to links *Broken links – find links for your site and competitors to get them to link to your site

International SEO RoadmapMeasure: Your International Seo Activity

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Track your International Web presence independently:

Set each Web version in Webmaster tools & rank tracking software for the relevant search engine. Enable profiles for sub-directories & sub-domains in Google Analytics. Create independent properties for each ccTLD.

Research your search visibility, performance & visitors behavior to make decisions:

Gather, segment and analyze the relevant metrics for each international Web version:

• Keywords & pages. Language, location, device & sources of traffic. Rankings, visits, conversions.

• Pay special attention to currency settings, cross-domain tracking, country & language traffic alignment.

Use BrightEdge, WebCeo, ClientSEO Reports.

For Ecommerce please note that Google Analytics does not support all local currencies. In some cases, ecommerce data

will be inaccurate.

International SEO RoadmapA Few Things To Look Out For:

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Opportunity Broadcasting for International SEO - one-sheeter template to upsell international SEO to existing clients

Finalized International SEO Deliverables & Audit

Advanced International SEO Keyword Research Workshop

Baidu & Yandex Ranking Factors Discussion

Questions? Please Contact Me!

Mariel Martinez

SEO Manager

Wpromote 

mariel@wpromote.com

310. 321.4095 Direct