International SEO Basics

International SEOIt actually means Geo-Targeting. It is the process of setting up a website in a way that Search Engines can easily identify which country by what language you want to target.

Tips:• Hosting Site on their Local IP.• Provide Content in their Local Language.• Create Design, Colour, Layout, Styles as per their choice.• Building links from local sites.• Connecting with their Local Search Engines.

Site Content in Local Language

Site Content should be in Local Language. Also Currency, Time zone should be as per the local area.

For this:• Do not use Machine Language because a user in some location may

belong to some other location.• Do not use Scripts to show the different language versions because Search

Engines do not crawl it.

It is recommended to create alternate language Subdomains/Subdirectories and let Search Engines know about Language Meta Tags.

Site Content in Local Language

For example:Suppose you have a default English language page:http://www.example.com

And you have its Hindi language version for India regionhttp://www.example.co.in

And you have its Urdu language version for Pakistan regionhttp://www.example.com.pk

Site Content in Local Language

Here you can indicate Google that Indian & Pakistani Users will see their Hindi & Urdu page and other will see Default page.To do this, just add the Language Meta Tags in the head section of the Pages

<link rel=“alternate” href=“http://www.example.com” hreflang=“x-default” />

<link rel=“alternate” href=“http://www.example.co.in” hreflang=“hi-in” />

<link rel=“alternate” href=“http://www.example.com.pk” hreflang=“ur-pk” />

Generate hreflang

In order to generate the right hreflang tags, make sure• Language Code should be as per “ISO 639-1” format.• Country Code should be as per “ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2” format.

Tool: Hreflang Generator Tools

• http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/hreflang-tags-generator/

• https://www.sistrix.com/hreflang-guide/hreflang-generator/

Sitemap

<url><loc>http://www.example.com</loc><xhtml:link rel=“alternate” hreflang=“hi-in” href=“http://www.example.co.in” /><xhtml:link rel=“alternate” hreflang=“ur-pk” href=“http://www.example.com.pk” /><changefreq>daily</changefreq></url>

Alternate SubDomain/Subdirectories

Three main ways to get this done:1. Purchase ccTLD along with gTLDSuppose you have a default domain “http://www.example.com”Then buy “http://www.example.co.in” for India& “http://www.example.com.pk” for Pakistan

Pros (+)• clear geo-targeting• easy separation of sitesCons (-)• expensive• potential availability issues

Alternate SubDomain/Subdirectories

2. Use gTLD and Country specific SubdomainSuppose you have a default domain “http://www.example.com”Then buy “http://in.example.com” for India& “http://pk.example.com” for Pakistan

Pros (+)• easy to set up• easy separation of sitesCons (-)• users might not recognize geo-targeting from the URL alone (is “de” the

language or the country?)

Alternate SubDomain/Subdirectories

3. Use gTLD and Country specific SubdirectorySuppose you have a default domain “http://www.example.com”Then buy “http://www.example.com/in/” for India& “http://www.example.com/pk/” for Pakistan

Pros (+)• easy to set up• low maintenance (same host)Cons (-)• users might not recognize geo-targeting from the URL alone• single server location• separation of sites is more difficult and less clear(e.g., example.com?loc=de, example.com?country=france, etc.)

Testing & Tracking• Each site has its separate entry in Search Console and Google Analytics.• Set the Targeted Area when adding property in Search Console.• Use International Targeting to check any issue with language markup.

Other Tools:• International SEO ROI Calculator• MOZ Local