Multi-location audience targeting – International SEO

“Our website is accessible from anywhere in the world, why do we need International SEO? ”.

“We are serving 37 countries, have physical offices in 12 of them & our target audience speak 7 languages. How should we structure our websites? ”

“We have 7 websites targeting 6 different countries & one corporate site. Our blog is at the corporate site, should we post blogs on all 7 websites?”

These are some of the questions I have faced while serving my customers. The potential for successfully expanding into multiple countries and acquiring new customers is massive. One must remember that when it arrives at using your online presence to support your international expansion plans, search engine optimization can be as effective as any other marketing initiative.

Multi-location & multi-lingual audience targeting is a new problem for Indian companies, as going global is new for even large companies. While consulting global Indian companies about the need for international SEO I primarily focus on;

Better search find-ability in a country:

The diversity of search spectrum

• Google has numerous country code top-level domains. Each provides search results targeted for a specific country in its native language:  E.g: www.google.it.ao, www.google.co.bw, www.google.bi, www.google.ci, www.google.cd, www.google.dj, www.google.co.zw etc.
• Google also has country code top-level domains with same language countries like www.google.us, www.google.uk, www.google.au, www.google.ca etc.
• Bing takes a different approach. Instead of using separate ccTLD domains they use www.bing.com and set location and language cookies.
• There might be local search engines in some countries that are more important than Google & you will need to optimize & rank for them to reach your audience.

For example, the top search engine in the Czech Republic is Senzam, in China, it’s Baidu, in Japan, it is Yahoo, etc.

Better user experience:

Identifying what & how to target

Are you targeting Multiple Countries with?

1. Same Language & Same Products/Services
2. Different languages & Same Products/Services
3. Same language & Different Products/Services
4. Different Languages & Different Products/Services

• Based on these factors you will have to decide between translating your website content or re-writing content
• The rule of rewriting for each country is not just for switching languages. It also applies to the same language. English in North America, the UK, Australia, and South Africa differ greatly especially when targeting long tail keywords.
• And again, it builds trust that brings higher conversions and stronger domain authority.

Better brand recognition:

Global OR Glocal

Maintaining a single brand image across all targeted countries or adapting your brand’s position locally directly impacts user perception and consequently website’s SEO performance. Decisions made in communication messaging, tonality & imagery affects user behavior and brand recognition.

Common decisions to be made

• Do you have local Contact Information such as phone numbers and addresses?
• Can we include local Project Portfolios with local Images?
• Can we register each site with local search engine directories such as creating a local Google+ page, Bing Business Portal listing, Yandex Directory listing, etc.? This investment will increase local link building and decrease the amount of duplicate content among your sites.
• Can we localize linking and Social Media?
• Authority, PageRank, and most measures of trust depend on links from within the target country. Can we use local link building strategies and social media engagement, and even gain Reviews for your brand locally?

The best route to international SEO remains a debatable subject. Usually, it arrives by gathering detailed information and experience. Making different strategies as per your offering and audience often works well.

Key influencers

• Target by country
• Target by language
• ccTLD, Subdomain or Subfolder
• Where to host & does it matter
• Language- translates, transliterate or rewrite.
• How to enforce the local intent
• Build brand reputation
• Local activity

If you’re presently tackling a multi-country/global SEO project, then I hope I’ve provided you with some helping nuggets here. The ones already been down this lane, share your experiences below.