What is International SEO?

While many people might refer to any non-English or non-US SEO strategy as international SEO, this definition is far too narrow. International SEO is any organic search campaign that is targeted outside one’s native language or country. This means that a UK marketer working for a British company building an SEO strategy in the US is practicing international SEO; likewise, an American creating an SEO campaign for Canada is also international SEO.

Acting as if all English-speaking countries are one and the same when it comes to SEO misses out on all the cultural nuances between nations. Having spent the last two years living in Singapore, an English-speaking country, I have a better understanding than I did before on how a non-US searcher might feel seeing their search results “polluted” with foreign websites, even with a well-known brand like BestBuy (which doesn’t ship products to Singapore).

Due to the vastness of the US internet, US search users would rarely come across a domain or website that was not meant to service the US market.

Search Engines

Google might be the world’s largest search engine in the world, but it is by no means the only one. Yandex is the most popular search portal in Russia, Baidu (and others) in China, Naver and Daum in Korea, and Szenam has a significant user base in the Czech Republic.You need to understand how to optimize for these engines if you are targeting these locations, but you must also learn how locals use these engines. Long non-specific searches might be feasible on Google, but on other engines with less advanced algorithms, you can’t rely on spell checkers and even RankBrain to surface your webpage.

Keywords

Translating based on machine translating tools like Google Translate or simply modifying spelling for another locale skips out on all the specificity required. Hire an actual native speaker to help with localization.Your native translator will help you understand which cultural references are inappropriate for a different location, slang words that need to be added, and ideas on keywords to use.

Links

Focus on the efforts necessary to get in-country links. Build a content offering and link worthy pages that would make websites in that country want to link to you. Pursue media campaigns in the specific country, and don’t just expect your brand strength to carry over from your primary country.

Mobile

No international guide can ever be complete without mentioning mobile. You may have heard of mobile first economies, but some countries are really mobile-only economies. If the only computing device available to your target audience is a mobile one, make sure your webpages are lightweight, and your value proposition is easy to grasp on a small screen.

Courtesy of SearchEngineJournal

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