International SEO Strategy - Helga Bendea - Seocamp

#seocamp

How to Develop a Successful International SEO Strategy

Helga Bendea

#seocamp

International SEO Strategy | Key Elements

Helga BendeaHow to Develop a Successful International SEO Strategy - 27/09/2016

2

Content Accessibility Structure TargetingMarkets

Which languages and/or countries?

Translated or customized content?

User choice or automatic redirects?

Domains, subdomains or subfolders?

When and how to use SEO language / country markup?

#seocamp

Markets

How to Develop a Successful International SEO Strategy - 27/09/2016

3

The success of the whole strategy

depends on the selection of the

appropriate languages / countries that

the website should target.

Helga Bendea

This choice should be made after careful

consideration of the real benefits for

the business in terms of ROI.

#seocamp

Which websites should do international SEO?


4

A website should consider an

international SEO strategy

only if the ROI generated by

international visitors is

positive, i.e. the revenues

are enough to generate

profit after covering all the

costs of international SEO.

ROI

Revenues Costs

Costs

100

Revenues VisitsConversion

Rate

Average

Conversion

Value

#seocamp

Choosing languages and/or countries


5

Language-specific

Websites with no country-

specific offers

Small/medium sites, typically

corporate websites

Not enough budget for

translation/localization

Websites with country-specific

offers

Medium/large sites, typically

e-commerce (currency, etc.)

Dedicated translation and

localization budget for each

country

Websites with country-specific

offers targeting countries with

more than one official language

Large sites

Enough budget for the

localization process

Country-specific Language and country-specific

#seocamp

Content


6

A successful international content

strategy is based on:

Helga Bendea

Relevant, targeted content

Custom keyword analysis for each

language / country

High-quality content translation /

localization

#seocamp

Key elements of content optimization


7

Title and

Meta DescriptionURL

Heading Tags

Navigation Elements

Images and Alt Texts Main Content

Reviews

Phone and ContactsCurrency and Shipping

Helga Bendea

#seocamp

Content translation vs customized content


8

Translated content Customized content

Easier and quick implementation and

maintenance

Reduced content production and

management costs

Uniform global brand image

SEO-friendly markup needed to

prevent duplicate content (only for the same language for different

countries: ex. US EN, UK EN, AU EN, .com in EN)

Standard or even poor UX when

localization is necessary

More difficult and longer implementation

and maintenance

Higher content production and

management costs

Market-specific brand image

Unique content with no risk of duplication

for versions in the same language

Personalized UX based on user location,

language and culture

#seocamp

Accessibility


9

The content that is inaccessible to

search engine bots has zero visibility in

search engine results.

Helga Bendea

Lack of SEO targeting or accessibility

optimizations can lead to bad user

experience.

#seocamp

Accessibility: what is best for SEO?


10

Standard accessibility to all versions

All versions are accessible to search

engine bots and to all users worldwide

Accessibility based on user cookies or choice

Inaccessibility and automatic redirects

Best UX: users can select the version

they want and/or a cookie is set up to

store preferences for next visits

Bad UX if the redirects lead the user to

an inappropriate version

Lack of international SEO might lead to

bad UX: users reaching versions of the

site intended for other markets via

search engines

All versions are accessible to search

engine bots and indexed

Not OK if users must only have access

to a specific version

If access to other markets is totally

restricted (no market selection possible)

rule needed to exclude bots from

IP-based redirects

OK only if business policies require to

restrict user access or if location

selection is allowed

#seocamp

Structure


11

The choice of the website structure is

mainly influenced by:

Helga Bendea

Market structure: multilingual /

multiregional

Website type, size and budget

Brand image and link popularity

strategy

#seocamp

Multilingual / multiregional website structure


12

ccTLDs(Country-Code Top-Level Domains)

Subdirectories Subdomains

example.com/fr fr.example.com

#seocamp

ccTLDs | Advantages & disadvantages


13

Easy separation of sites and web

analytics

More expensive and limited

availability (for some domains)

Helga Bendea

Server location is irrelevant, however

sites can be hosted on country-specific

servers

Very strong geolocation signal for the

users; usually results in higher

click-through rates and conversions

The strongest geolocation signal for

search engines, very useful for ranking

in a specific countryHigher costs for infrastructure, IT

resources and maintenance

Strict ccTLDs legal requirements in

some countries

Domain authority and backlink value is

not shared among sites: need to invest

in backlink campaigns for each domain

#seocamp

Subdirectories | Advantages & disadvantages


14

Easy to set up and manage Much weaker geolocation signal for

search engines than ccTLDs

Helga Bendea

example.com/fr

Low maintenance costs with same host

Can use Google Search Console to set

up geo-targeting

Consolidated domain authority:

backlinks to any subdirectory provide

link value to the whole website

May be less intuitive for users

expecting a ccTLD for local sites

More difficult separation of different

site versions

#seocamp

Subdomains | Advantages & disadvantages


15

Easier to set up and manage than

ccTLDs

Weaker geolocation signal for search

engines than ccTLDs

Helga Bendea

fr.example.com

Each subdomain can be hosted on

different country-specific servers

Can use Google Search Console to set

up geo-targeting

Easy separation of sites

More difficult to set up and maintain

than subdirectories; more difficult

web analytics set up (in some cases)

May be confusing for users since the

subdomain can represent the country

or the language

Domain authority is transmitted only

in part to the subdomains and backlink

value is split among sub-domains

#seocamp

Targeting


16

In terms of content, SEO-friendly language /

country markup helps search engines

differentiate local versions of the same

content. No risk of duplicate content for the

versions in the same language.

Helga Bendea

In terms of accessibility and UX, this markup

ensures visibility in search engines to the

appropriate website version for a specific

market.

#seocamp

Language/country markup | Best practices 17

Include the annotations of all alternate content version

URLs that are available on your site

Implement for each page having multilingual /

multiregional versions

Do not implement for pages/site versions having highly

customized content (no content duplication risk)

It helps Google serve the right page to visitors in search

results based on their language/location

Document location signal used by Bing to determine

rankings of a content in search results. Other signals:

<html lang=""> and <title lang="">

rel="alternate" hreflang meta http-equiv="content-language"

<link rel="alternate" href="http://domain.com/fr-fr/" hreflang=“fr-fr" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://domain.com/fr-ca/" hreflang="fr-ca" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://domain.com/en-ca/" hreflang="en-ca" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://domain.com/" hreflang="x-default" />

How to Develop a Successful International SEO Strategy - 27/09/2016 Helga Bendea

#seocamp

Conclusions


18

A successful international SEO strategy is

tailored to the client’s business. There are no

universal best solutions.

Helga Bendea

Investing in high-quality targeted content and

UX is essential to long-term performance on

each market.

The elements of the strategy are tightly

connected. Each element influences overall

results.

#seocamp

Thank you

Helga Bendea

SEO Lead

Accenture Interactive Italy

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/helgabendea

International SEO Strategy - Helga Bendea - Seocamp

Internet

Transcript of International SEO Strategy - Helga Bendea - Seocamp