So is SEO different for non-English sites? With roughly 63 percent of the world's online population being languages other than English, international SEO, otherwise known as global SEO or multilingual SEO, is an important component to an effective global Internet marketing strategy.
Most standard search engines and directories have a local version for different countries. Search Engine Colossus has a nice international directory of search engines.
As you would guess, some search engines are better than others and work differently, too. They also have different criteria for inclusion. Some may demand that the site be in the local language, others demand a local URL, and still others expect the company to be incorporated locally. These are some of the challenges you'll face as you conduct SEO for different country sites.
Another important point: Google results, for instance, may differ from country to country. Just because you've achieved a certain rank for targeted keywords for the U.S. doesn't mean you'll achieve the same results for France, for instance.
Know Your Audience
One of the first steps for international SEO is to research whether the target audience uses local search engines and, if so, which ones.
Global Internet Usage Statistics is a good resource to get a pulse on the local population of Internet users by country. This is helpful if you're planning a strategy to begin marketing in countries outside the U.S. Whether this is your strategy or you already have an existing operation in another company, you need to consider some of these SEO best practices.
Search Engine Friendly Design: Web Page Code
One of the first places to start is looking at your Web page code. Most traditional SEO best practices still apply for international site development. One addition will be to add the native language within each page of HTML code.
and
The "xx" is the country language extension. For instance: ca=Canada, en=English, de=Germany, fr=France, en-us=English US, it=Italian, es=Spanish, dk=Danish, etc.
Another consideration for SEO-friendly design is developing multiple sites in different languages. There might be some concerns that this may be a duplicate content issue. If, however, you distinguish content using the appropriate country code top-level domain or a subdomain, this shouldn't be a problem.
Domain Extensions
It's also important that you use the domain extensions of each country you have a Web presence in. For instance, if you're trying to optimize for Google.it, having a domain with an .it extension will be to your advantage.
Some countries demand that you have a physical company operating in the same country as the domain extension you use. Search engines try to provide the most relevant information to its searchers. Enforcing these rules helps them achieve better results.
Hosting
Another objective is to host the site in the country where the site resides. Again, the same principle as with domains, if possible you should host your Web site in the targeted country (Germany, U.K., Spain, etc). You will likely get better and more relevant results.
See Mark Jackson's article on hosting and domain challenges for more information.
Use the Native Language Where Possible
It's often worthwhile to develop content using the native language where the site resides. This again helps provide more relevant results and provides a richer user experience.
If you have similar languages (e.g., American English and British English), you might want to consider spelling certain words accordingly, such as "soccer" or "football." These little changes can make a lot of difference.
Also, include addresses on your site that have the local addresses. This will help with relevance and can help you with ranking and driving visitors to a local storefront. It's also a good practice to increase inbound links from other sites in the same country.
Next time in part two: keyword research principles and more tips and resources.
In the meantime, please share your success stories or other international SEO tips that have worked for you in the comments below.
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