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Top 20 SEO Tactics That Really Work

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18] ACROSS THE BORDER

Total average SEO impact: ★★★★★

How to set up an international SEO strategy?

International SEO is difficult, do not underestimate it. I sincerely believe that you must consider the help of our friends Google or Bing in using their advertising platforms. That being said, difficult is good, that means the threshold is higher for your competitors too. Adding to that, I serve several customers who made a serious impact with their international SEO strategy. So don’t get too gloomy but know that there is work to be done.

What are the challenges of international SEO?

Let us explore some of the biggest ones:

1. Search engines prefer local websites

Search engines are becoming more and more regionally relevant. A search query coming from one country is matched with a search result coming from the same country. A search query that seems like a local one will trigger local search results, often based upon geo-targeting from mobile devices. There are two main reasons why search engines go local. The first is relevance. They think they better serve users with local results. The second is serving more relevant ads and broadening the scope of advertising. By going local they make search engine advertising more interesting for local advertisers enlarging their advertising market. This all sounds logical and okay but it hampers an international SEO strategy. You should beat the relevance of local players. That notches up the bar for your international SEO efforts.

2. It will impact your complete website strategy

There are several things to consider. These involve selecting the right domain extension. Should you go for 1 domain and several language extensions such as www.example.com/fr (for french) and www.example.com/de (for german) or go all the way and choose www.example.fr and www.example.de?The former involves 1 website, the latter several different websites. You also may go for country subdomains such as www.uk.example.com and www.de.example.com. There are pros and cons to every option. Another question involves hosting. Ideally, you should host a website targeting the USA within the USA and the best way to do that is by going for ccTLDs (country code top-level domains). But when you opt for the best technical way in most cases you will end up with the option that requires the most time, energy, and money. Will it all be worth it? That is one reason why some companies choose search engine advertising as their gateway to online export.

3. The language issue

Going across the border generally implies going to another language area. Not only will it impact your content strategy but also your lead generation process and ordering process. Products and instructions should be labeled in that particular language. More importantly, your back office should be able to speak that language, a challenge that is not always easy to meet. Add to that the SEO process which faces higher entry barriers with a new website or new content facing local contenders favored by search engines. In this environment, you must produce better and more in-depth content than the existing contenders in that other language. Not a frivolous task.

Okay, so it’s not easy, should I crawl back into my shell?

Of course not! I just want you to know it will take energy and time before you will see some results. Just start your SEO strategy and mix it with some smart online marketing stuff. What would I do? Below is a strategy that I am familiar with. It has worked for me and several of my customers.

Step 1: Determine your goal country

You need to choose by what country you will be targeting. Many considerations are involved here (competitive strength in that country, logistical issues, legal issues, and size of market for instance). My advice: Pinpoint 1 country, do not go for more countries even if they speak the same language.

Step 2: Choose your technical strategy

Here issues like domains, separate websites and hosting will be decided upon. Again, there are many choices to make. In general, a separate website with a dedicated domain and local hosting may be the right choice from a purely SEO mindset. But there are more issues than SEO alone so think this is true from all angles.

Step 3: Decide on your commercial content

What products and services will be proposed to that particular country? Maybe it will differ from your local proposition. When a decision is made, start writing the commercial pages in that language.

Step 4: Establish a content strategy aimed at that country

How will you make a difference in website content? Here the SEO ball starts rolling. I will always begin by making a concrete plan tackling chosen keyword themes and building URL structures. Sometimes I advise you to begin with a specific theme that we start to cover completely and thoroughly. In other cases, I advise beginning with the first layer of keyword themes in a more broader sense. For example, if you are a seller of high-end leather accessories for women you could start with one particular very relevant keyword theme like “exclusive leather handbags” and make different pages around this specific theme. Another option is, to begin with, themes like “leather handbags”, “leather purses” and “leather ladies belts” and then work your way down with in-depth keyword themes.

Step 5: Start a search advertising campaign on specific keywords

In almost all cases (well, just scrap the word almost) SEO will not suffice in the short term to get things moving. I do not like a wait-and-see strategy. I prefer action. In almost all cases (well, just scrap the word almost) my customers think likewise. To stir things up I would advise using Google Ads or Bing Ads or any other search advertising platform to bring in the first orders and to study target group behavior. By doing that we will learn if our products or services will be met with enthusiasm or with total neglect. In either case, we will learn valuable insights. Besides we will also test our order processing and logistics system for selling to a new country. Another advantage, we will learn which specific keywords our target country uses. This is very, very, important! Due to language challenges, we will almost always (well, just scrap the word almost) experience some missing keywords our new target group uses. You may use a professional translating agency but they will not be able to translate your specific products and services in all the possible words our potential customers use. Translators may not understand our products very thoroughly (especially in B2B markets operating in technical markets), besides they are used to coming up with 1 or 2 translations while in practice there may be 10 synonyms for the products you want to move. It depends on the language and how many variations there are of course. Some languages are full of different words describing more or less the same products and services. By using search engine advertising we will learn synonyms if we use the right keyword type. I prefer phrase match to start such a campaign. It will trigger direct synonyms but not completely irrelevant words like the broad match will deliver. By selecting a broad match you will be overwhelmed by synonyms. I would try that after a few months. We can use the data for our SEO strategy.

Step 6: Reconsider the market

This may sound like a strange step. Why reconsider, we already have decided to go for that market? But it is wise to do. We have gathered extra information from our Google Ads or Bing Ads campaigns. We have witnessed our order processing system in practice. Are we pleased with the outcome? If so, we can take it to another level. If not, better to pull the plug while it still doesn’t hurt that much.

Step 7: Step up the SEO process

With insights from our first transactions or leads getting in and with the keyword data pouring in from search engine advertising we have more accurate ammunition to use in our SEO strategy. Now it is time to go full throttle in copywriting and publishing content. Of course, it will take time so I advise keeping the search advertising campaign running until we have enough organic traffic to tune it down (or maybe keep it as it is if the ROI is positive).

So, what to do?

Research opportunities and threads before you will dive into a new market abroad.

Do not underestimate it, but don’t be shy either.

Set up an execution plan. Beware that SEO takes time to flourish and especially in another country and even more so in another language.

Dedicate a team that will cover all content creation aimed at that specific country. You may want to translate existing content into this new language. That would be a time-saver but make sure your translation is right (especially in technical markets).

In most cases, a 1 on 1 translation doesn’t do the job.

                      Mix SEO with search engine advertising and learn from the data!

Most important

Do not expect to make a success of it overnight. Count in years, not months. That goes for your SEO efforts as well as your complete international online strategy.

Act > Learn > Optimize > Improve > Analyze > Get into the details > Perfect > International growth realized > Get some sleep