One of the most challenging tasks in search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing for an international audience. Improving a brand's image in multiple countries while simultaneously avoiding duplicate content issues incurs a wide array of obstacles including foreign link building, successful management of top level domains (TLDs), choosing the right web hosts, and a significant amount of content translation into foreign languages.
While your business goals will assuredly play an important role in the scale of your international effort, it's important to note that without creating individual microsites for each region you intend to target, your global SEO efforts are facing an uphill battle from the start. What follows are SEO best practices for overcoming the obstacles inherent to managing multiple international microsites.
Language targeting
Obviously, the most important aspect of targeting other languages is creating content in that language. However, quite often companies assume that simple word-for-word translation will be sufficient to create new content. The primary problem with this strategy is that direct translations don't account for cultural connotations. For example, this Chinese retailer in Europe states: "We sale shoes." If you're serious about globally targeting your audiences online, you should consider using the services of a translation firm such as Keylingo. These firms can provide culturally accurate translations that won't tarnish your brand image abroad.
A task that goes hand in hand with your translation efforts will be researching keywords in foreign languages. While "web design company" may be an excellent phrase to target in English speaking countries, and the corresponding translation may even sound culturally adequate to your target consumers, it may simply be a phrase that doesn't get searched for in your target region. It's important that your "on page" content targets relevant keywords for each language.
In addition to your website content, your meta tags are a great place to let search engines know which words and phrases your site is associated with. When optimizing meta tags, you may want to try having the same word listed in several languages. (Google has specifically stated that these additional words won't be counted as duplicate content.) Following this theme can be a very useful way for you to target a broader audience, especially if the target region is diverse and multilingual.
While translating your content appropriately can be one of the most challenging aspects of international SEO, building microsites in countries that speak the same language (the U.S. and the U.K. for example) presents its own challenges. In this situation you'll need to have at least 60 percent unique content on your pages to avoid duplicate content penalties.
Local registration
Registering with Google or Yahoo locally is a simple and necessary step. You'll need a physical address in the target area to take advantage of local listings. So, if you don't already have an office in the region, you'll need to either set one up or get a post office box. This part of the process is extremely straightforward, but, just as with many of the other tactics, if you're not careful, you'll end up hurting yourself. A full scale global effort is likely to incur penalties if you register multiple local listings with one website. Instead, you'll need multiple microsites all pointing to their own local listing to benefit from local tools.
Where your site is hosted matters
An often overlooked factor of multi-site management is where to host each of your sites. Most of the time companies will simply setup a virtual host on their current server and run the new microsites off the same server as their current site. The problem with this is that Google and other search engines pay close attention to where a site is hosted and add value to sites hosted in the country from which the user is searching. For example, if you're in Germany and searching for a product on Google.de, Google will favor sites that are hosted in Germany. However, don't fret too much about which city your site is hosted in (unless you're just particularly eager to support local business). Search engines mainly care about which country your site is hosted in, so look for the best deals in the countries you are targeting.
Also, if you plan on making any headway with your international microsites, you'll need each of them to be hosted on the TLDs (.com, .co.uk, .de, etc.) corresponding to your target market.
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