Speaking In Tongues: Establishing a Successful International Web Presence By Aleyda Solis
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Transcript of Speaking In Tongues: Establishing a Successful International Web Presence By Aleyda Solis
@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Speaking in Tongues Establishing a Successful International Web Presence
@aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2
I’m Aleyda Solis
@aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2
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I help companies to connect with potential customers all over the world
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Some of them brands you likely know
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To expand & diversify traffic sources
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With a sustainable organic traffic growth
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Generating actual customers, conversions & profit from them
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This usually involves deciding, configuring & managing the following…
Avoiding targeting
markets that are not
profitable
Selecting the best Web structure to
win international
markets
Geolocating & Localizing each
international Web presence
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Here’s how to simplify the process
Target
ConnectPrioritize
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Prioritize Avoid targeting markets
that are not profitable
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“I wish I could create relevant content for each one of my
international sites, but there are too many of them.”
Someone who didn’t prioritize
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Avoid targeting languages & countries that don’t have a big enough audience you can’t support
English speakers in Spain? Catalan speakers in Spain?
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Identify which countries & languages are already bringing traffic & conversions to your site
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The ones where you are additionally ranking although not actively targeting yet
ahrefs.com
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From where your competitors & industry leaders are already profiting from
semrush.com
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Check the level of already existing organic search competition in those markets
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similarweb.com
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Verify if there’s enough organic search traffic to compensate a profitable Web activity
Cost of international Web projectNumber of Conversions for a
break-even Average conversion value=
No. of Conversions for Break-evenNumber of visits for a break-even Average Conversion Rate
=
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You can use the International SEO ROI calculator for this
https://www.aleydasolis.com/english/international-seo-tools/roi-calculator/
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Identify if you should language or country target first
Is location a factor that influence your Web operations?
Yes No
Is there enough traffic & conversions to target each country?
Language Targeting
Yes No
Country Targeting
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Now you can decide which international search markets to target
>Your International traffic potential Visits & Conversions for a break-even
Yes No
Continue with the international Web & SEO project
Might be too early
For most important countries
Buy & secure your ccTLDs for future
activity
Create custom alerts
Create a pilot project
prioritizing main pages
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Like this
vs
Language TargetingCountry Targeting
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You can then consolidate the already existing international versions of markets that won’t be
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Target Select the best Web structure to win international markets
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“I enabled ccTLDs for each country but I wasn’t able to rank as the competition was
too high”Someone who didn’t target with the right Web organization
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There are rules of thumb like avoid using scripts or cookies to show all versions through the same URLs
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Or not using parameters, as it makes it harder to geolocate, localize and track each version
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However, your international Web setting should be selected based on your site & target market
VS
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If you’re country targeting, select between ccTLDs, Subdirectories & Subdomains
www.yourbrand.es
www.yourbrand.es/categoria-a/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/categoria-a/
es-es.yourbrand.com/
es-es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/
ccTLDs
Sub-directoriesw/ gTLDs
Sub-domains w/ gTLDs
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Choose the best alternative to country target in your case using the pros & cons
* Need less technical resources * Need less efforts to grow popularity* More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad * Need more efforts to geolocate
* Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity * Better than sub-directories to organize larger & more complex sites* Need more efforts to geolocate
* Ideal alternative to geolocate if competition is not too high * Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity with a new domain
ccTLDs
Sub-directoriesw/ gTLDs
Sub-domains w/ gTLDs
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If you’re language targeting, select between using subdirectories or subdomains
Sub-directorieswww.yourbrand.com
www.yourbrand.com/es/categoria-a/
Sub-domainses.yourbrand.com/
es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/
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* Need less technical resources *Need less efforts to grow popularity *Generates a deeper url structure *More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad
* Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity * Generates shorter URL structure which can be better for larger sites
Sub-directories
Sub-domains
Select the best alternative to language target in your case based on the pros & cons too
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Take into consideration that Google only supports countries to geotarget
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It will be also very difficult to use an already geolocated ccTLD to target another country
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Verify which Web structures are used by the top sites in the desired market
13 ccTLDs vs.
7gTLDs
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As well as those rankings for the potential top queries in that market
https://serpchecker.com/
7 ccTLDs vs.
2 gTLDs
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What’s the authority of those top ranking sites? Can you compete with a new ccTLD?
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Yes
Choose your international Web structure accordingly to make it competitive
What’s your international target?
Country Language
Are your top competitors
using ccTLDs?
Yes
Is the domain authority of your
competition higher &
a concern?
Yes
Use ccTLDs
No
No
Use Geolocalized Sub-Directories
YesNo Do you need a flatter & more
differentiated URL structure?
Use Sub-Directories
Is the domain authority of your
competition higher &
a concern?
Use Sub-Domains
No
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Connect Geolocate & Localize your
international Web presence
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“I created all my content in Spanish by translating the
one I already had in English but never got a high share
of traffic”Someone who didn’t localized its international Web presence
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Start by localizing every aspect of your Web content & design to your target markets
URL
Meta DescriptionCurrency
Menu
Title
Images
H1
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Including the URLs but avoid “special” characters, use transliteration for non-latin characters
NO
YES
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Get native support to do each market keyword research and use the right terms in each case
RENTAS VACACIONALES
vsALQUILERES VACACIONALES
NO
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This is one of the critical areas that major brands often overlook with international markets
YES
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You can create a matrix with patterns to generate your main content elements for each version
<Characteristic> <Main Keyword> in <Location>: +<No. Of Items> by <Brand>
<Palabra Clave> <Característica> en <Ubicación>: +<No. de Products> por <Marca>
English Title Spanish Title
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Leverage local search seasonality, festivities, trends and specific audience bahavior
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Check out which keywords tools support international markets
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keywords-research-tools-comparison/
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Localize not only the content, but also the overall Web experience using local preferences & culture
In the US In Japan
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It’s also critical to rank in your target markets with the relevant, optimized international Web version
US version ranking in the UK
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Misaligned pages will have worse rankings, CTR, user experience and conversions
This happens with a UK ccTLD
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Check if you’re suffering from this already using internal organic traffic and ranking sources…
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Verify which domain extensions are treated as generic by Google to geolocate if needed
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https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922
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Register & geolocate in the Search Console each sub-directory or sub-domain to country target
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Avoid automatic redirects based on the IP location of the user is intrusive
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Search crawlers IPs are also not yet that “globally” distributed
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6144055
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It’s better to suggest to visitors there might be a more relevant version for them
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Verify for yourself how you’re doing it by using a proxy or search result emulator
https://www.hidemyass.com/ & https://www.accuranker.com/rank-tracker/
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You should also indicate your international targeting with the meta & html lang tag
http://bit.ly/binglang
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As well as specifying your pages language and country alternates with hreflang annotations
bit.ly/hreflangannotations
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Every page should include its language & country target, pointing to the other versions
English for the US Default
Spanish for the US
English for the UK
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
brand.com/dogs/
brand.co.uk/dogs/
brand.com/es/perros/
English for the US
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
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Using ISO 639-1 values for languages and ISO 3166-1 for countries
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You can add them in the HTML Head or in XML Sitemaps, as well as HTTP Headers
Add them in XML Sitemaps in
non-flexible sites with a high
number of versions
Add them in HTML in sites
with lower number of versions &
coding flexibility
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Start only with the necessary ones checking traffic misalignment if there are too many
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Beware of including incorrect hreflang values and tags that are not supported
link rel alternate hreflang="pt-br"
link rel alternate hreflang="en-ca"
Not supported
link rel alternate hreflang="es-mx"
link rel alternate hreflang="en-us"
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Always self-refer by specifying the current URL in the hreflangs
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Each international version should also refer back to the ones pointing to it
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Avoid adding non-indexable, canonicalized, error, redirected or blocked URLs in hreflangs
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Add the hreflang at the start of the HTML to avoid that is overlooked due to errors above
http://ohgm.co.uk/hreflang-tags-not-respected-how-to-solve/
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Obtain the correct annotations with the Hreflang Generator Tool
bit.ly/generatorhreflang
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For enterprise scenarios, generate XML sitemaps along hreflang tags with the hrefbuilder
hrefbuilder.com
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Organize XML sitemaps as granular as possible to facilitate troubleshooting
Country
Language
Category
Page Type
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Validate them first at a page level when implementing, to catch and fix errors early
https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/hreflang/
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Verify them again after implementing them, by using crawlers that validate them like Sitebulb
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This will allow you to directly identify which are the URLs with issues and fix easily them
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You can also use DeepCrawl that verifies hreflang implemented in XML sitemaps too
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Monitor the existence of remaining issues with the Search Console International Targeting report
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Prioritize fixing those errors with the highest number of pages affected
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Until they are all correctly validated
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To effectively grow your search visibility in your targeted international markets
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Target
ConnectPrioritize
It’s about prioritizing, targeting and connecting with your international audience
@aleyda#SMX #12A2
@aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2
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It’s now your time to expand abroad! Thanks