International SEO campaigns are increasingly important for companies looking to tailor their online approach to particular territories. Any international business or brand with a multilingual website should give some consideration to an international SEO strategy.

International SEO campaigns are very complex and tricky and involve a range of challenges which need to be overcome. But if some essential aspects are kept in mind, the groundwork for a fruitful campaign is laid.

Irrespective of which market you are targeting you need to conduct a market research to identify opportunities and then tailor your strategy to the respective market. What works for one country may not necessarily work for others. Also consider the fact that there are different search engines out there. While Google dominates most markets, there are other search engines (e.g. Yandex in Russia or Baidu in China) that enjoy a greater presence in other countries. Bear in mind that they all run their own algorithms and will therefore have an impact on how you plan your strategy. This blog post, however, focuses on aspects to consider when running an international SEO campaign on Google.

Identifying relevant keywords

As with any SEO campaign you should determine which keywords and terms you want to rank for. In the case of a multilingual SEO project, it will be indispensable to have a native speaker in order to make sure you identify the correct keywords – online translators will not do a particularly good job here since they are not necessarily capable of identifying the correct meaning of a keyword.

Native speakers are important

If you cannot get hold of a native speaker you may then want to have a look at which keywords competitors rank for. Identify which keywords in your niche are the ones that people search for most on the respective Google domain. This is crucial since search engine results differ from country to country. Useful tools in this context are the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Google’s Global Market Finder which is very helpful in identifying foreign opportunities as it helps you to identify keywords in nearly 60 different languages.

Top-Level Domains

Google has several country-code TLDs, each of which show different results targeted for the respective country. If you aim to get higher rankings in a country-specific Google version then you should consider a country-code TLD - for example www.yourwebsite.it, www.yourwebsite.ca, or www.yourwebsite.au - depending on the country where you want to achieve better rankings. So if you set up a new ccTLD you also need to have your site content translated. Bear in mind that it is not advisable to simply translate that content literally, but it is instead better to try and incorporate the most important keywords in the respective language.

A global link-building strategy

A thoroughly planned global link-building strategy is crucial to a multilingual SEO campaign. For example, if your target country is Italy and you want your website to rank highly within Google.it search results, try to target links from Italian websites. Ideally you will also try to get links from sites that have a host IP address in Italy.

An appropriate content strategy is a key element when it comes to link-building. The better the quality of your content, the more likely you will harvest some good quality links. If you are to produce content in a different language there is nothing better than having a native speaker to deal with it. When browsing the Web, you come across so many pieces of content with poor uses of language and grammar. This makes it more difficult to understand and therefore puts readers off, even though the content may not necessarily be that bad. So you do not want to waste your resources by putting together some great content but make it unreadable through a poor use of language.

Also, bear in mind that your content must be unique and creative. The type of content must then be tailored to the country you are targeting. A very controversial piece of content may be successful in one country but meet with criticism in another one – understanding the culture and norms of a country is far from straightforward, but vital to the success of your campaign.

Stay social

As Google is increasingly taking social media signals into account, social media should form an essential part of any international SEO campaign, with shares on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ of high importance.

Stay social

It is however worth noting that the use of social media varies heavily in different markets. Whereas Twitter is well-established in the UK, for example, it has not yet penetrated the German market in the same way. It is critical to research the use of different social media channels in different countries in order to identify opportunities identify alternatives to the three networks that command market share in the English-speaking world.

If your business operates in a number of countries it’s not hard to see the benefits of an international SEO campaign, but the each territory presents its own challenges and requires a unique strategic approach. Launching a search campaign in a new country requires meticulous research, planning and patience – it is not simply enough to translate your site and hope for the best.