Ingredients to Successful International SEO (part II)

Posted on November 1, 2009 by elmanufico

international SEOFollowing my previous post, let me talk about the specificities related to the project management in international and multilingual SEO projects. As promised, I also want to discuss here problems that may arise in international SEO.

Just like Google wants to make the world’s information universally accessible, it is up to the SEO manager to make local information as relevant as possible for his client’s target audience. This is why it is extremely important that local information is managed by a local SEO consultant. This consultant will be able to tell you if the selected keywords are the most searched ones by internet users. I therefore strongly disagree with consultants who suggest that using translation softwares would do the trick.  In most cases it won’t .

So, the organisation of international SEO project should be as follows:

1. Project management

    • Technical optimisation: the backoffice should the same for all language / country versions in most cases. This should be handled by the same consultant / project manager / IT dpt. depending your internal structure.
    • Content optimisation: following the lead of the project manager and his recommendation on the content strategy, each local consultant should handle his part and make sure that the right keywords are used everywhere in the website.
    • Popularity/linkbuilding: partnerships with other websites is a very local task and one should have a deep knowledge and understanding of the local market to make the right recommendations or contact the right websites.
    • Project management / reporting: the most important this to do is match the structure of the compagny you’re working for. Is it highly centralised or does each local team on the client’s end want a local report? Those are the kind of questions to ask but in any case everybody in the company needs to know what’s going on and communication is key here

    2. Problems in international SEO

      • Unique URL: one URL should be dedicated for one content.  You should recommend working with specific subdomain or folder. If you want to work with language parameters, make sure this parameter is always shown in the URL, and that your content does not appear in 2 different languages for the same URL.
      • IP vs. browser delivery: It’s an excellent idea to show different content to internet user based on their location or language preference. I advise you to opt for redirection based on the language of the user’s browser, because IP-to-country tools may not always give you the right country for the right IP…
      • IP delivery: Do you still want to opt for the IP redirection? You may, only if you make sure that you don’t do cloaking. Like what Google says, don’t consider GoogleBot coming from one specific country. GoogleBot mostly comes with US IP addresses, which means that it should  see exactly the same content as a US user. If you use IP redirection for specific location within the same country, you’ll need to make sure that you don’t create duplicate content.

      Don’t hesitate to drop comments or questions, have a great end of weekend. Follow me on twitter for more news!

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      2 Responses

      2. Lee Roper, on January 5, 2010 at 1:55 pm Said:

        Some very good points and an interesting subject to discuss!

        I think it is also important to ensure a level of business objective synergy occurs with international SEO. This can be achieved by gaining a clear understanding of the website owner’s offline marketing and sales strategies; if a strategy is not clear then an organisation may need help to develop their strategy. All involved need to understand the options available and how each separate acquisition method can generate different results.

        The following questions should also be considered; Who is the customer? What type of audience will be gained from each acquisition method? Should SEO focus on a specific segment or consumer profile? Should all methods of online and offline acquisition be focused on the same KPIs? Are regional targets varied and should regional sales funnel and conversion targets be different?

        In different regions, certain products or services could be more popular than others and different teams may require more detailed information about specific aspects of customer activity. This would require reports to be created with internal business objectives in mind, providing information in a clear understandable manor to all stakeholders and sponsors in a format that suits their needs.

        As much as a website owner can have varying regional needs, the site visitors may also respond more effectively to different sales and marketing messages, imagery and promotions. Regional reviews of landing pages and conversion paths should be encouraged to focus site structure and content around the most successful keywords that provide the strongest conversions on a regional basis.

        This is only one viewpoint of international SEO and online marketing, it certainly brings some interesting challenges and points to consider! Looking forward to future posts. :)

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