LBD #053: Expand your global reach with International SEO

in Letters Bydavey Archive on September 23, 2023 September 23, 2023

Featured image on shubhamdavey.com talking about international SEO

Reading time: 3 minutes

There are several users searching for products/services you sell from across the globe, are you getting in front of them?

There’s no magical formula, it’s just that you have to be aware of certain concepts.

By the end of this issue, you will be able to:

Understand the prerequisites for targeting multilingual audiences
Learn how to get started with building a global brand
Optimizing the website for higher ROI

International SEO isn’t just overwhelming, it’s complex for brands that want to expand globally. The difference in language makes the content not resonate with the target audience.

Furthermore, the technicalities make the whole process so delicate that many brands don’t even try. The mistakes mean lost opportunities, lost revenues, leads, and dominance.

Not anymore. I have shared three steps to get started with international SEO. Get access to untapped marketing globally by getting your site ready for global exposure.

Here are three steps that can help you get started with international SEO.

Table of Contents

Step 1: Pick a domain structure

When you want to target a global audience, the first thing you should do is plan the domain structure. You can either have a subdomain or sub-directory to target the audience geographically.

For example, if you’re audience is from India, you can either have in.example.com or example.com/in/. If you’re expecting your audience only from one country, you can use an example. to clearly instruct the search engines about this.

Step 2: Allow users to translate the content themselves

If you offer multi-lingual content, let the users switch the language themselves. Don’t let the browser load or redirect to the translated content by default.

The problem with this approach is that most of the time, the user might not want the page in language based on their location.

What if someone who prefers English is in Spain and is served the content in Spanish? Is that a good user experience? Definitely not!

An image on shubhamdavey.com showing a highlighted text from Google search documentation that talks about automatically redirecting users to translated language based on their location is not user friendly & good for international SEO. — Source

Step 3: Optimize your content for the searcher’s location

Google shows different search results based on the searcher’s location. Keep this in mind when you’re creating content to target specific geo-locations.

Begin your keyword research with the target country in mind, use Google Trends to find keywords and topics that are searched in your target region, and address only those topics.

It’s okay to cover topics that are not searched in that region, but if you want the best results, better conversions, and the highest ROI, stick with certain topics searched in your target region.

Make it a habit to target only one country or region in your post. If conversions & traffic come from other countries, take that as a bonus.

Video Guide

There are not a lot of quality & reliable video guides on International SEO but I found an absolute gold dust video guide for you. This video goes through a lot of use cases and best practices to put international SEO in motion.

Today’s action steps → Find a new international market, study the demand, find keywords, analyze competitors, see if the user intent is the same for the target keywords, check the search volume, & judge the competitiveness of the keywords.

SEO this week

Masters of SEO

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