How to Develop an International SEO Strategy?

Want to focus on International SEO? Here are some of its features and details which probably clear the air. This article discusses International SEO’s intricate insightful aspects, the path toward a successful strategy to build on, and some general as well as critical information that will ultimately guide you for careful implementation.

What is your ultimate aim regarding SEO strategy? Do you want to concentrate on the local or a wider world out there? If you are into developing a broader SEO strategy, then the need for International SEO tactics is highly necessary as it cannot be achieved overnight and it is a continuous process with extreme diligence and cost-wise expensive in the long run. However, it is not that scary if you are determined to develop the skill.

What is International SEO?

In simple words, International SEO is an act of optimizing your website by focusing on a global presence to attract organic traffic. This process helps you to achieve international traffic and thereby manifold your reach and brand awareness. The majority of search traffic is dependent on tech-giant google around the world though there are some exceptions as in China, South Korea, and Russia where Baidu, Naver, and Yandex respectively are widely popular.

So, your exclusive Google-focused search engine optimization will not work in these areas, and you need to take extra care and effort to implement an international SEO strategy effectively. To succeed in the International SEO strategy, each targeted country’s unique audience’s nuances should be considered with topmost priority as search engine crawlers typically focus on these behaviors.

And an internationalized site’s accomplishment is based on how specifically the site targets a different country or different language. The following aspects may be helpful for the successful implementation of the SEO strategy.

• International user-friendly URL structure that specifies your target country and/or region. (focus on country)
• The use of language tags that will specify your page targeting of language. (language targeting).
• Content creation and maintenance accordingly and per user perspective may reflect ranking formalities.

What is the Importance of International SEO?

Well, if you look for an answer to this question, you will not be amazed as tech. giant Google is the ultimate king in terms of search engine traffic worldwide and it is almost 92.6 percent. Though it is headquartered in the United States, it is used in every corner of the world.

Another important factor is that almost all multinational corporations sell their products and services internationally through Google’s global outreach. If you look specifically some of the examples in international market sales figures are as follows;

• 7 percent sales – Apple
• 7 percent sales – Ford
• 9 percent sales – Alphabet
• 2 percent sales – Walmart

Worried? As these are big brands with a vast source of budget but what about small businesses? No problem!  International SEO enables you to compete with these players in the market whether your business is big or small it is of no importance here.

Keeping in mind international traffic’s importance, one of the primary and important goals should be the adaptation of the local user perspective. Search engine crawlers are specifically aiming to send searchers to the page that answers their queries best and that is where the local adaptation plays an important role.

Your businesses’ products and services as well as brand awareness among global users can be achieved by a careful international SEO strategy if you give prominence to the preferences of the customers.

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International SEO Optimization – The Apt Time

International sales have their own challenges, but the advantages are even more highly beneficial.  As the global e-commerce market shows expansive trends of 18.7 percent a year in the coming five years, this is, even more, higher in developing nations like the following;

• 9 percent – Philippines
• 5 percent – India
• 23 percent – Indonesia
• 2 percent – Brazil
• 19 percent – Vietnam

This trend enables huge opportunities for businesses especially if you are able to develop a successful international SEO strategy. The important thing here to keep in mind is SEO consistency which cannot be achieved overnight i.e. you do it for a month and then forgets about it. No, that will not work out for the successful SEO strategy but only continuous effort and time.

Some critical questions you have to ask yourself before investing time and effort in international SEO. This will make you realize the benefits and worth of going international. Once you are confident enough to move forward in international SEO, keep the following points in mind for specific analysis;

1. International Traffic – You can use Google Analytics to check your international traffic and analyze the visitor’s location. And if there is satisfactory traffic available then you can decide to move on.

2. International Language – Google Analytics also helps in identifying your users’ language that will give you a clear-cut idea of your website visitors’ preferences.

3. International SEO Competitors – With the help of a VPN, you can understand search results people are seeing in different countries. And if your competitor’s profile in another country is good that means it is worth it for you as well.

4. Keyword Research – You have to do keyword research in the exact way you do your regular SEO. Ubersuggest will be helpful to find out what people are searching for.

5. Selling Capabilities and Expertise – International traffic alone will not work for a successful SEO but the ultimate aim should be conversion. If you could not achieve selling capabilities, the scope for a successful international SEO is very limited.

Best Practices for International SEO

International SEO best practices can be summarized in the critical points mentioned below;

1. Focus on the target country’s native language to answer questions in the appropriate context.

International SEO intends to communicate the same language as unique customers’ original language, making it easy for them to understand everything. The right kind of research will ensure exact answers to questions in their native language.

2. A careful translation of existing content.

Though it is easy to translate the existing content with the help of translation tools, it may easily identify by the targeted country’s unique customers as the literal conversion of words and phrases will not be in sync with their original language. So, the approach should be “transcreation”, reproducing the content aligned with the culture and language of the targeted unique audience’s market.

3. Prominence to the entire user experience.

Only specific targeting of keywords and content will not be enough to do the job. The entire user experience must be in perspective i.e. filling out forms to viewing prices in local currency or multimedia programs that contain the country’s expert speakers should be aligned across the site.

4. IP address-based automatic redirection of users should be avoided.

Serving content to user-based expectations is critical but automatic redirection based on their IP address is meaningless. Instead, try to give them the option of their own preferred choice.

5. International Backlinking Plan Necessary for International SEO Strategy.

It is preferable to strategize a backlinking plan for the targeted country. Rely on local publishers and get backlinks from authoritative local websites. Optimized content will better serve the targeted countries’ unique audiences better. The chances of success in International SEO strategy are exclusively based on it.

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International SEO

International SEO strategy is typically a combination of your brand’s policies, processes, and practices to optimize search content for other countries. The ultimate aim should be to make it easy for search engine crawlers to identify the location of your business operations and the languages you support.

The targeted country’s cultural and language parameters are optimum utilized for a successful SEO plan that will drive trustworthy ROI. This strategy will help your company website’s international market reach and accumulate a vast income source.

Local SEO Strategy vs International SEO Strategy

The difference between local and international SEO strategies is that local SEO is fundamentally focused on keywords and target audiences within a limited geographical area whereas International SEO targets a global audience across limitless geographical boundaries. We can simply identify four striking features of the International SEO strategy as mentioned below;

• Cost: Global SEO plans are highly expensive in terms of scope and scale.
• Content: Comparatively more content is needed for global SEO but in the case of local SEO strategy that is not necessary.
• Capture: Extensive global SEO target market forces you to do deep research for ensuring your brand aligns with customer expectations.
• Competition: Global SEO strategy plans may end up competing with multinational corporations rather than local SEO where you are only competing businesses with local influencers.

Critical Elements That Impact International SEO Strategy

Reviews by Customer

One of the important elements that affect your website is the customer review. Reviews either good or bad can impact your website positively or negatively. Good customer reviews will certainly be beneficial in terms of boosting your visibility with the connection to your primary keyword.

Mobile Friendly

Mobile friendly website will be an ideal option. Response time of your website to mobile also plays an important part in search rankings. Therefore, adopting the best content delivery network (CDN) technique is advisable to keep the user experience in mind irrespective of the customer preference.

Google My Business Account

Google my business account helps you in your SEO efforts by tracking the location of your business operation if you are continuing to update the location. Google collects the primary information about your geographic area and language metadata from this.

Link Plan

If you plan to build links from local or international influencers back to your website, it will act as a good strategy in terms of search engine ranking.

You can leverage the opportunity to learn the most effective SEO techniques with the best Online SEO Courses

How is International SEO Helpful for Company Websites?

Creating content that is particularly aimed at the targeted country’s local market is the primary goal of International SEO. To achieve this, you need to develop a website structure that can be easily identifiable by search engines which will ultimately help to serve the right page to the right customers within seconds.

If you are taking an example of a company that sells blankets in India is making a move into UAE. The important aspect here will be to ensure the UAE customers are sent to the right pages on your website, that is information regarding UAE locations, UAE shipping times, and fees and costs in dirham.

Therefore, a well-designed website structure that incorporates India and UAE pages is necessary here for ultimate results i.e.to reach out to customers based on their current location regarding search requests.

How to Develop an International SEO Strategy

1. Where and Who – Target

To begin with, you have to choose your target market and unique audience so that you can utilize the subset of that market that have the means and motives to buy your product or service. If your focused decisions are based on “where” or “who” the chances of success are high.

2. Decide on Hiring an International SEO Agency

Global SEO strategy is a complex process and if you want to do it yourself or hire an agency for its accomplishment, either way, it is beneficial. You are better aware of your brand, on the other hand, SEO experts are particularly skilled in local customs and practices and can strategize accordingly.

3. Importance of International Keyword Research

Keywords play an important part in this process. Keywords that worked marvelously at home may not work with a global target market audience’s preference.

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4. Pick a Right International Domain Structure

For an easy finding of content, essential website domain structure helps visitors as well as search engines. The following are some examples;

• ccTLD

This indicates Country Code Top Level Domains that are focused on specific countries. For example, France ccTLD noted as (.fr) likewise the United States is, (.us) and for a particular search, it may write like mybusiness.fr or mybusiness.us. For successful implementation of SEO strategy, you can choose a unique ccTLD site for the targeted country where you aim to sell your products or services.

• gTLD

The acronym gTLD indicates a generic Top-Level Domain that contains three or more characters. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the maintenance authority for these TLDs and common examples are .com, .gov, and .org.

gTLD example: mybusiness.com

• ccTLD or gTLD with subdomains

You can prefer to create subdomains for your website which combine aspects of both ccTLDs and gTLDs.

Example: us.mybusiness.com

The advantage here is gTLD and country code.

• ccTLD or gTLD with subdirectories

The following example shows usage with subdirectories and the noticeable factor here is the location change of country code.

Example: mybusiness.com/us/

Tools for a Successful International SEO

For a successful SEO strategy, you will need to use the right kind of tools that will attract wide organic traffic and may lead to actionable conversion. The list of tools is;

HubSpot

For live on-page SEO tips for the better performance of your website’s international content strategy, HubSpot SEO software helps a lot. Search engines and users alike could understand easily what your website intends.

Google Search Console

The importance of the Google Search Console is that it identifies the search queries that drive traffic to your website and determine the position you hold on Google search and analyze the global impression of the website.

Ahrefs

Ahref is an outstanding SEO toolset that helps website optimization, competitor ranking analysis, and choosing the exact keyword for the brand.

Moz

Moz’s site audit helps in identifying websites’ potential problems, keyword rankings tracking across more than 170 search engines, evaluation of backlink profiles’ performance, and provides keyword research tools to recognize how you perform against the competition.

Semrush

Identification of local and national keywords, backlink profile analysis of any domain, and tracking of your website’s SERP daily are some of the specialties of Semrush.

Google Analytics

The international impact of your web content can be analyzed with the help of an especially interconnected suite of tools like Google Analytics.

FAQs

1. How does international SEO work?

International SEO is the process of optimizing your website by focusing on a global presence to attract organic traffic from the targeted country’s unique audience through search engines.

2. Why is international SEO important?

International SEO aims to ensure that search engines identify your company website’s country targeting or language targeting to attract organic traffic from different countries or different language speakers.

3. What is SEO language?

SEO language intends to provide multilingual SEO which is the act of optimizing the content on your website for different languages. This process helps find new customers and global outreach.

4. What is local business SEO?

Local SEO means search engine optimization for better visibility in local search results by Google. Businesses benefit from local SEO one that has a physical location and serves a geographic area.

5. Can I teach myself SEO?

The answer to this question is yes. If you are sincere and willing to learn the skill you can be successful in grasping the techniques of SEO as it is not that hard.

Conclusion:

This article essentially discusses what are the features and details of International SEO and its strategies. These guidelines may be helpful in achieving a successful implementation of international SEO. Successful implementation essentially leads to successful international traffic that helps not only accumulate a vast source of income but a globally wide brand awareness also.