How to Plan an Effective International SEO Strategy?

If you're selling products or services via the Internet to clients all over the globe and want to be able to interact with them in their language, you're going to require a localised website. However, if you want to boost sales and increase traffic to your website, the way you market yourself must go beyond website localisation. To rank highly on search engines in regional markets, you have to implement an international SEO strategy.

For local search engines to serve the appropriate pages from your website in search results for the target market, they must take into account specific cultural, linguistic, and technical requirements. This complexity is added by international SEO. Without a strong International SEO Company, you'll probably struggle to connect with your target market and put your plans for international growth in jeopardy.

How does international SEO work?

Based on the user's language and location, Google and other search providers can modify the results.

You can inform search engines that your website is intended for visitors from a specific country or for people who are searching for your products or services in a particular language with the aid of international SEO.

International SEO takes into account language targeting, rel="noopener" target="_blank" hreflang tags, specific URL structures, and other localization signals.

1. Identify your market approach

Since an approach that is successful in one market is not always the best approach for another, a good international SEO strategy should be scalable while still allowing for local market adaptation.

It largely depends on your industry and target market. A language-based segmentation strategy is probably adequate, for instance, if you provide the same goods or services to audiences speaking various languages around the world. Microsoft adopts this strategy because its product lineup is essentially the same in every market. This means that the content on its website, which is hosted in subfolders on a single domain, is the same in each language.

However, you may need to approach each country separately and may even need to have specific country websites if you're bringing an entirely distinct brand proposition into each regional market, offering a tailored product range (for an eCommerce brand, for example), or operating in a market with a different regulatory environment.

2. Choose the right domain and URL structure

Work with an international SEO Company with local market experience and native-speaking experts in-country before choosing a domain for your brand to make sure that your choice of company name and domain will elicit the intended company associations and answers from local consumers.

If more than one word is present in your domain name, check that the words blend well together and cannot be misread to create new words that might embarrass you or hinder your company's promotional efforts.

For instance, the domain name "itscrap.com" chosen by the electronics recycling company IT Scrap amused UK visitors, and "lesbocages.com," chosen by Les Bocages, also raised a few eyebrows.

All of these domains have since been retired or redirected, but the English examples serve as a helpful reminder of how difficult it can be to choose a brand name and a domain name when dealing with different languages and geographical regions, especially when you take into account regional slang and idioms. Hire the best Global SEO Company in Mumbai so that you can choose the right domain and URL structure. 

3. Localise and research your keywords

It's time to consider your keywords for each market after determining the language orientation in your target market. It's much less likely that users will find your goods or services in the regional SERPs if you don't optimize your content (including service pages, product descriptions, or blog posts) with the appropriate localized keywords for your target market.

Avoid using machine translation services like Google Translate if you already have a large selection of English keywords. Making sure your localized keywords are as culturally relevant as possible is your aim; in this situation, machine translation quality falls short of expectations. When the same word has multiple meanings or local search behavior reveals users using hybrid language, such as local language combined with English search terms, machine translation performs poorly contextually as well.

4. Answer questions in the region’s native language and the right context.

The most crucial aspect of international SEO is to make sure you can communicate with your customers in their own language. This requires doing your research to ensure that you always reply to inquiries in the language of the target audience and within the appropriate context. Hire the Best international SEO Services in Mumbai so that you don’t face difficulties in answering the questions in native language. 

5. Consider how your plan will impact user experience as a whole.

SEO on a global scale involves more than just content and keywords. It also involves ensuring that your site's user experience is consistent throughout.

This entails accessing multimedia resources with native speakers and filling out forms in a variety of languages and currencies.

6. Don't send users to random websites based on their IP addresses.

It might appear to be the ideal answer. However, users may find it annoying when search engines or visitors are automatically redirected based on IP addresses. Search engines may also find it confusing, making it unlikely that users will ever find specific content.

Instead, make a different version of a page known to visitors and search engines. Display a banner with an announcement and a link to the suggested page at the top or bottom of the page. Hire the best Global SEO Company in Mumbai to help you with random websites.