How to Use SEO for an International Audience

Keeping your website’s ranking on search engine results is already a constant challenge, but what happens when you want to sell your products in other countries? The problem becomes more complex. Your English keywords and tags won’t help you rank on, say, Google.fr, so you have to start from scratch with your SEO efforts.

But is it really necessary to translate all your web copy and SEO info into the local language? You bet it is. Using the local language helps you connect with another audience through words, behaviors, and cultures. It goes beyond simply having content translated verbatim.

By creating a multi-language website, you can optimize each version for the audience (and language) you’re trying to reach.

First, Start with Your Audience

While it’s important to understand your American audience, it is critical to understand your audience in another country. After all, they have different customs and culture than you’re used to, and you will need to factor that into your web copy (and marketing in general).

If you yourself don’t intimately know this international audience, find a marketing or SEO expert who does. It’s not worth skimping here; you need someone who knows the words that will tug at this new audience’s hearts, and how to avoid insulting or offending them.

How might you offend your audience? A simple way is relying on machine translation, which can’t account for local dialect or idiomatic expressions. What could be more insulting than reading poorly translated copy, as in this example?

Also, you risk offending your audience if, for instance, you are trying to reach a very conservative market, but your marketing copy is very casual. Word choice and tone are key considerations in this process.

Dig into Keywords

Is this starting to sound familiar? Certainly it should. The process for connecting with any audience anywhere is similar, but may require more research for countries you’re less familiar with.

Here, look at your competitors’ sites, and pay attention to the keywords they use. Then use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to find out which keywords people are searching for in that region. Remember that there is often more than one word for a type of product. Just like people in different parts of the U.S. call a water fountain other things, like a bubbler, you may encounter this in your keyword research.

Don’t Forget That Location Information

In your SEO work, remember to include the city, region, or country name in your keywords so that anyone looking for the type of product you sell locally can find your site. This will help you rise the ranks of search results around the world.

Work with a Skilled Translator

Here’s where it gets critical. I can’t tell you how many companies try to skimp on this step and either use machine translation or a cheap translator. Listen up: do not try to cheap out on a translator! He is what stands between you and selling more products in other countries! You will recoup the expense quickly if you work with a translator that knows your industry and the market you want to reach.

Translate all your web copy, title tags, descriptions, and keywords, as well as marketing copy, into the target language. Have a native speaker review it for quality control. Then get it up on your site and start connecting with your new market.