International SEO: Tips and Best Practices

Do you know that 76% of users prefer to buy products described in their own language? 

When you scale up your business beyond local borders and establish your presence in a foreign market, you are expected to communicate in the native tongue to connect with your audience.

But then, when you have multiple countries and languages to cover, how do you ensure that your content resonates with users in each market?

Plus, how do you convince search engines to rank you higher in each of these countries?

Many problems, one solution. That’s international SEO.

In this write-up, I’ll share the international SEO checklist containing tips and best practices to help you build an effective SEO strategy to drive substantial traffic, conversion and sales from your target international markets.

What is International SEO?

International SEO is the process of optimizing your website to improve its organic search rankings in multiple countries and languages.

In other words, you promote your website’s content across global audiences to ensure that your products or services reach the right users in different countries who speak different languages.

Suppose you run a multinational e-commerce business offering services in the US, Canada, Germany, France and Spain. Instead of ranking your content only in English, you want to get it ranked in German, French or Spanish as well. In this case, apart from targeting English-speaking countries, you also focus on getting your website ranked higher in Germany, France and Spain.

International SEO involves aligning your on-page, off-page and technical SEO practices to make your website easily discoverable by specific global audience groups on search engines like Google.

By leveraging international SEO the right way, you can ensure that your content delivers value while meeting the cultural and linguistic preferences of your target audience. This makes way for an enhanced user experience, bolsters healthy lead generation and increases your website’s ranking potential on a global scale.

International SEO vs. Local SEO

International SEO focuses on getting your website ranked better in specific locations. So, is it the same as local SEO? No.

International SEO helps your business reach a global audience by targeting multiple languages, regions, and cultures. On the other hand, local SEO is suitable for a business that operates in a specific locality to attract customers within that area. 

When it comes to International SEO, apart from translation, you have to craft your content in such a way that it reflects the cultural context of each target location. In contrast, local SEO only focuses on creating content that is relevant to a specific locality. 

For International SEO, your link-building efforts should be global. You need to acquire backlinks from websites in different countries to ensure that your site is positioned as an authority in multiple international markets. Local SEO, however, focuses on acquiring backlinks from websites, brands and directories specific to a locality.

Why Your Business Needs an International SEO Strategy

Building an effective international SEO strategy can complement your business in a lot of ways.

Increased Global Visibility

With an international SEO strategy, you can improve the chances of your website ranking well in search engines across multiple countries. Increased visibility on a global scale can lead to more traffic, more leads, and more sales for your business.

Competitive Edge

Expanding your reach globally through international SEO gives you a competitive edge over other brands offering similar services. While your competitors may be limited to a particular region, International SEO helps you achieve a broader reach and boost your market share.

New Revenue Streams

Investing in international SEO can help open up new markets for your business and allow you to reach customers in countries where you previously had no presence. This can lead to the creation of new revenue pipelines for your business. As your business gains traction in new markets, you will experience sustained growth and scale your operations over time. 

Effective Risk Mitigation

Expanding your business to multiple regions through international SEO helps mitigate risks associated with market fluctuations. If a particular market experiences a downturn, your business can thrive in other regions where the demand for your products or services is high.

International SEO Checklist

Here’s a look at the tips and best practices for a successful international SEO strategy.

Narrow Down Your International Markets

The first step is to identify international markets that have the most potential for your business. 

Start by analyzing your existing customer base, including where your current visitors are coming from, countries showing interest in your offerings and more.

Additionally, consider conducting market research to identify untapped regions. This involves analyzing global market trends, consumer behavior, and economic conditions in various countries to gauge potential demand. 

You can use tools like Google Analytics and Google Market Finder to identify potential international markets for your business.

Once you shortlist potential markets, scrutinize the competition in those markets. This way, you can understand what and who you are up against and figure out how you can position your brand in specific international markets.

Consider the Languages in Your Target International Markets

Language plays a critical role in international SEO. When expanding your business to different regions, you need to choose the right languages that align with your target audience in the first place. The language you select can significantly impact how effectively you communicate with potential customers.

Most importantly, language selection can influence your search engine rankings in international markets. Search engines prioritize content that is relevant and accessible to users in a particular region. If your content is available in the preferred language of a region, it is more likely to rank higher for relevant local searches.

Use the Right International SEO URL Structure

When it comes to international SEO, the URL structure can determine how search engines comprehend and rank your content in different countries. There are three primary types of URL structures you can use for international websites: country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), subdomains, and subdirectories. 

Using a ccTLD is the most direct way to signal to search engines and users that your website is targeting a specific country. It provides a strong signal of geographic targeting and can enhance user trust because users perceive your domain as being locally relevant.

For example, when you opt for CCLTDs, your website URL for France will be www.yoursite.fr 

While CCTLDs are the best, you can also choose to use subdomains or subdirectories to target different countries based on your business needs.

Install a Content Delivery Network 

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is distributed across various geographical locations and is equipped to deliver content to users from the server closest to them. 

Implementing a CDN significantly reduces page load times as the content is delivered to your international users from servers closest to them. Improving page load times this way can lead to a better user experience.

A CDN helps improve your website’s overall performance by bringing down the strain on your origin server. This reduces the likelihood of server crashes during high-traffic periods. For international businesses, this is especially important during marketing campaigns or peak shopping seasons when unusual traffic spikes can happen.

This ability to handle high traffic efficiently can positively impact your site’s crawl budget, which, in turn, leads to faster indexing and higher search engine rankings for your website.

Conduct Keyword Research for Each Foreign Market

Conducting keyword research for each international market is essential for developing a result-focused international SEO strategy. 

Keywords that perform well in one region might not have the same impact in another. That said, you need to personalize your keyword research to align with specific target markets.

You can use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush and Google Trends to tailor your keyword research for selected international markets. For example, if China is one of your international markets, consider using Baidu to pull out keywords based on search engine suggestions.

Another aspect you should focus on when doing keyword research for internal markets is search intent. By understanding the search intent behind keywords in individual markets, you can create content that meets the nature of the user queries and addresses their pain points effectively.

Create Content That Resonates With Specific International Markets

When expanding your business internationally, you need to tailor your content to align with the cultural and local preferences of each market. That’s how your visitors will be able to resonate with your content and convert into your clients sooner or later.

While creating value-added content is important, make sure you enrich your content’s cultural context using local references, including local events, landmarks and more. This way, your audience will find your content more relevant and appealing.

Remember, different countries may have different pain points or challenges related to your product or service. That said, you have to create content addressing such specific challenges to trigger a positive user experience and maximize your page’s ranking potential.

For instance, if you are selling a software product in a region with moderate internet connectivity, highlighting features like offline access or low-bandwidth compatibility can drive more traffic and boost your sales in that particular region.

Translate Existing Content Carefully

When it comes to international SEO, translating your existing content is key to ensure that it reaches a broader audience. However, what really matters is how you handle the translation process.

When you translate your existing content, make sure the essence, tone, and intent of the original content remains intact.

Consider building style guides that outline the terminology, tone, and style for each language. Also, compile glossaries, including product names,industry-specific jargon and other key terms. This way, you can ensure consistency across all your translated content pages.

Involve local experts and review your translated content carefully before launching it on your website.

Ensure Internal Links Are Built Only to Your Pages in the Same Language

Let’s stand in your users’ shoes for once. Suppose you are accessing your content in French. But then, when you click on a link, you end up landing on a page featuring content in German. That’s frustrating, right?

That’s exactly how your international users will feel when your internal linking strategy goes wrong.

Plus, linking to pages in different languages can create duplicate content issues, where the same or similar content appears in multiple languages. This can confuse search engines and potentially lead to penalties. 

That’s why you need to make sure that your internal links take users to pages with content in the same language.

Keeping internal links within the same language signals to both users and search engines that your website is organized and optimized for specific languages and regions. This will enhance your website’s credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of your international audience, making them more likely to engage with your content.

Implement Hreflang Properly

Hreflang tags play an integral role in international SEO. They allow you to tell the search engines which language and geographic location your web pages are targeting.

That said, implementing Hreflang tags helps search engines serve the right version of your website to your users based on their location and language preferences.

Connecting the dots, this ensures that your visitors get to see relevant content in the language of their choice.

Optimize Your Site for International Mobile User Experience

As you may know, mobile devices account for significant traffic flow for websites. With Google prioritizing mobile-first indexing, mobile user experience plays an integral part in any SEO strategy and international SEO is no exception. 

Remember, mobile users often interact with websites using touch gestures. So, make sure that all interactive elements are easy to view and access on small screens.

Consider optimizing your mobile site’s page loading speed by compressing images, minifying CSS and leveraging browser caching techniques.

Implement a responsive design to ensure that your content is easily accessible on a wide range of mobile devices. Avoid using overly decorative fonts that may be difficult to read on mobile devices. 

Prioritize keeping the most important parts of your content above the fold. This will help boost user engagement and reduce bounce rates considerably.

Monitor International SEO Performance

Tracking your international SEO performance helps you identify areas for improvement, understand how your content is performing across different regions and make data-driven decisions to accelerate your global reach in the right direction.

The key metrics to measure the success of your international SEO strategy include organic traffic by region, keyword rankings by country, conversion rate by country, backlinks from international domains and more.

By regularly monitoring these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your international SEO strategy and tweak it if and when necessary.

Stay Up-To-Date with Global Search Engine Algorithm Updates

Google unveils algorithm updates from time to time. Keeping track of these changes and updating your SEO strategy accordingly is essential to drive better results. 

Now, what adds to the complexity is an international SEO strategy has to consider algorithm updates not just from Google but also from other search engines specific to your international markets.

For example, if Russia is your target market, you should certainly be aware of algorithm updates from Yandex. In the Russian market, Yandex outperforms Google with a market share of about 67%

By staying informed about algorithm updates from various search engines, you can quickly adapt your international SEO strategy to improve your rankings across different markets.

Leverage Social Media for International SEO

Different regions may have different preferences when it comes to social media platforms. Narrow down the most popular social media platforms in your target markets and focus your efforts on them to drive engagement and generate qualified leads for your business.

Consider creating separate social media accounts for different regions or languages. This allows you to customize your content to suit each market’s specific cultural and linguistic preferences. 

Encourage your followers to share your content. Additionally, you can reach out to social media influencers in your target markets to link back to your content.

Monitor metrics such as engagement rates, follower growth, website traffic from social media, and the performance of region-specific accounts. Use these insights to refine your social media strategy and bolster your international SEO goals.

Address Legal and Regulatory Requirements

When expanding your international presence, you should certainly comply with each market’s legal and regulatory requirements.

Different countries have laws regarding online business practices, data protection, and consumer rights. Failure to adhere to these regulations can result in penalties, legal issues, and damage to your brand’s reputation. 

For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union imposes strict requirements on how businesses handle the personal data of EU citizens. 

Ensuring that your website complies with the laws of each international market is essential to avoid such legal complications.

Manage Multi-Regional and Multilingual Sitemaps

When managing a website that targets multiple regions and languages, creating and maintaining well-structured sitemaps is crucial for ensuring that search engines can efficiently crawl and index your content. 

For example, if you have different versions of your site for the US, Canada and Germany, you need to create a sitemap for each language and region.

Incorporate hreflang within your sitemaps to signal the language and regional targeting of each page to search engines. Including hreflang tags in your sitemaps can be particularly useful if you have a large website with multiple language versions.

International SEO goes far beyond just translating your content. It’s about making way for your potential customers to resonate with your content by talking with them in a language they understand while meeting their cultural preferences.

Implement the practices I have mentioned above to streamline your international SEO efforts and generate profitable leads from foreign markets of your choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SEO Different for Each Country?

Yes. If you want to rank higher in multiple international markets, you should optimize your website to meet the standards set by different search engines and also adhere to the legal norms specific to each country.

International SEO Vs. Local SEO: What’s the Difference?

International SEO is great for businesses that cover diverse global audiences by targeting multiple languages, regions, and cultures. On the other hand, Local SEO is suitable for businesses that target a specific locality to attract customers within that area. 

How Much Does International SEO Cost?

The cost of doing international SEO depends on various factors, including the countries you target, the level of competition you face in each market, the number of backlinks you build and more. Book a free strategy call with us to customize your international SEO package based on your needs.

How Do I Create My International SEO Strategy?

Shortlist your potential international markets and languages, perform focused keyword research, create high-quality content that resonates with each market, build backlinks from relevant websites and promote your pages on social media. If that puts too much on your plate, feel free to contact us for professional assistance.