Many companies that wish to market to international audiences make the mistake of simply translating their content and redirecting users, not realizing that their standard messages won't always resonate with other cultures. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Aleyda Solis guides us through five things we all need to keep in mind as we think about how to establish an international SEO process.
Note: In the spirit of international SEO, this Whiteboard Friday was also recorded in Spanish. If you'd like to watch that version instead, you can find it on Aleyda's site.
Nota: Dentro del espíritu del SEO Internacional, este "Whiteboard Friday" también fue filmado en Español. Si deseas ver esta versión, puedes encontrarla en el sitio de Aleyda.
For reference, here's a still of this weeks' whiteboard!
Video Transcription
Hello Moz fans. It's a pleasure to be here today. I am here to talk a little about international SEO, five dos and don'ts that I see happening all the time. I would like to share them with you as an extension of my MozCon presentation about this topic.
The first one is to identify all the resources for your international SEO process from the beginning. This is very, very important that you advise your client, even if it's not a pure SEO type of thing to do, or maybe some of the aspects that they need to take into consideration, not necessarily from an SEO perspective, it is important that you are a consultant for him. You say, "Hey, please be aware that in order to go international, at some point you will need native support. You will need to reply to your clients in the appropriate language. You will also need to be mindful about international deliveries if these are tangible products to be sent; the pricing, the currency, language, cultural factors, regionality factors. If it is language targeting, country targeting... all of these aspects are very, very important. Make sure that these are aligned with the website goal, and if at some point growth is needed, how this is going to grow.
All of these alternative and additional aspects that are not necessarily purely SEO, it's very, very important that you advise your client so he is aware, because at the end, these can also be factors that might affect your work. You want this to be successful of course.
The second one is to plan the growth of your international web presence from the start. Again, it is very important that you identify where your profitable markets would be at the beginning, and where it's better to start from a profit perspective. If you are going to target a specific country because there is enough search volume going on there about your services or products, or if there are not enough, then you will first target all of the language, which is specific landing pages maybe for some countries to test a little bit the market, but not with a full international website version for each one of the countries.
It is very important that you set this very well from the beginning and you are also aware of how you are going to evolve and migrate from one to another. Take into consideration also the pros and cons and the different alternatives from international web structure that I shared through my MozCon presentation. You can check on my slides, and I have also written about them before. You can see I have international SEO checklist that I published in the Moz Blog. You can also check out also in the SEER blog I have already written about international SEO strategy.
You can check the pros and cons of these different alternatives, like ccTLDs, subdirectories, subdomains. Verify if it is not possible, for example, to start with a ccTLD for a specific country, you need to start with a subdirectory, and then see how you are going to evolve from one to the other and how we are going to treat each language or each country so that they can coexist very well, if at some point you are country targeting and language targeting at the same time. These types of things are little things, but they are things that will keep your international web structure clean, consistent, and you will not face issues to growth in the future.
The third one is do not assume the behavior and preferences of your international markets and audience in general. Seasons can be different, the seasonality, the behavior of the users. Do not assume that the top products that you have for your current markets are going to be the top products necessarily for these other markets. Do full keyword research and behavior research. Research your competitors. Research how your audience behaves and what are the types of content that they most like, the formats they consume, the top media. All of these different aspects are going to affect, at the end, your operations and how you are going to promote and publish your content there and connect with this audience. At the end this is what you want. The final goal is to connect, to convert, to get benefits of course. Please be mindful of this. Do not assume anything. Never assume, even if it is an audience that speaks your same language, we wrongly assume that they will behave the same. No, no. Please verify this with all the trends, seasonality specifically, pricing models. All of this very important.
Also, avoid automatic content translations and redirects. If someone comes from Spain, do not automatically redirect the user to your Spanish version, for example. It is better to suggest. Suggest and tell them, "Hey, we have a version that might be more suitable for you." Do not do it in an interstitial or an intrusive way, but in a friendly way. Take a look at how Amazon does it. I also shared an example in my MozCon presentation. In a very friendly way you can alert your user that there might be a better suited version for them. You are friendly with your users and friendly with search engines. You also promote your international versions, because at the end you also want to make the most out of them if you have them, of course.
The same with content. I have seen too many websites where they have just gone to Google and translated, copied and pasted the content and published it on their website. This needs to be done by a real person, a translator, a native person. You can say, "Okay, this costs too much. I am not able to do this." If you start little by little and if you focus on the markets and the products, the most important ones and prioritize them, you do not need to go with an international web version that is a million pages at the beginning. You want to start little by little. It is better that you start and prioritize your international web version little by little, not with a huge amount of content, but good quality, localized content that really connects with the right audience.
The fifth one is measure each international web presence independently, but understand the interaction of each one of them. This is very, very important because you want to set an independent profile from Google Webmaster Tools or the other tools, the search engine that you are targeting and you are working with for the country that you are targeting. So from Webmaster Tools presence, each version should have their own profile there. Also with Google Analytics or your analytical software, each presence needs to have their own profile, again if you are tracking rankings of course.
So it is good that you segment a lot so you are able to verify and validate what the behavior of your international users is per presence and to be able to make the appropriate decisions and validate much better. But at the same time it is good if you can keep also web analytics an overall profile. You can also set the multi-domain tracking so that you can see what the behavior is from one presence to another. If at some point, one user arrived to another and ended up in another version, you can also see this and you can understand these are not two independent visits, but really one visitor going from one site to another.
All of this information I am pretty sure will be valuable. If there's any other type of question that you have about international SEO, please let me know. Please leave a comment. I would love to be able to help. Also, take a look at the InternationalSEOmap.com website that I published from my MozCon presentation. Take a look at the slides and please let me know if you have any questions. Muchas gracias.
Amazing Aleyda, as always.
As you know we totally agree and have the same vision about International SEO.
For instance when it come to Google Translate or any other automatic translation tool. BUT, there is a facet where Google Translate may be useful in the prospecting phase: semantics (and we know how semantics has become even more an essential factor after Hummingbird).
Let me explain you practically:
Try with this Italian phrase: "Le migliori offerte per comprare un fuoristrada" (Best deals for buying a SUV)
When you translate the phrase with Google Translate, if you move your mouse over the translated phrase Google highlights words or phrases. Check the word "SUV": if you click on it, Google Translate will present you alternatives translations ("a jeep", "an off road vehicle").
Those alternative works the same way Google Suggest. They are suggested because English speaking users use also those alternative definition of SUV when searching for "SUV". They are synonyms or definitions semantically related to the most popular translation offered. Pure Knowledge Base at its best.
Therefore, you can use them in order to create a more natural localization of your content, being sure before that you have checked what search volume every alternative has, if one or more of them are maybe more common in a geography than in another (i.e.: think to all the different local version of English or Spanish), if one definition is declining in the usage because of natural obsolescence and evolution of living language.
Those are all informations that you should also pass to the professional translators for telling them something like: "Do your job, but remember that we know those two/three... keywords matters for SEO".
Hi Gianluca! Thanks for your comment I really appreciate it :)
Totally agree with automated translations and semantics, and something even more basic, the fact that they usually are not as effective as they should with localized terms.
For example the issue there is with Google's Global Market Finder -that uses Google translate- that I explained in the International SEO Tools post I wrote at Moz a couple of months ago: it provides results that can be totally misleading! Native support for keyword research is a must to make sure they really are the terms used by the target audience.
Hi Aleyda, first of all I like your post very much and its really informative for all of us. I also saw the explanation of your post on Content Optimize.
Really great WFB Aleyda and for me right up our street.
"Genial White Board Friday, Aleyda y para mi es muy relevante!"
My company works in about 10 languages and we know that what works in English does not necessarily work in say German, French, Spanish (Classical Spanish, Mexican Spanish) etc.
My two examples below of our site show that the English version is targeted to one specific keyword phrase but its German counter part is geared towards another, simply because the English phrase does not translate or is understood the same way in Germany. Physically the site home pages can look the same but need some keyword phrase differientation.
https://instantatlas.com/ - "interactive mapping software"
https://instantatlas.com/de/index.xhtml - "software für ihre dätenprasentation"
Another example is our Portuguese landing page, is it geared towards Portugal well No, it is geared towards Brazil (Brasil), Portuguese people like the British have a very classical way of communicating their language and they would understand this page but may not find it relevant to them. Even the supporting video in this page is PT Brasil and not PT Portuguese, it's Lang is set to pt-BR.
https://instantatlas.com/Instantatlas-visualizacao-de-dados.xhtml
So overall it is a challenge but being mindful of the factors you discuss in your WBF I agree are very essential.
Best
David
Thanks for your examples and comment David! I really appreciate them. We're definitely on the same page :)
Great! - Oh my colleague Joana has made some contributions of her own on your site in Spanish with some work that she has been doing in Argentina, where she has tried to incorporate audio interviews with her landing pages in Spanish and English.
Best,
David
I would say if you cannot afford or find a local resource or a human translation service, you cannot afford the project. Poorly translated language sites can do more harm than having just an English one.
Totally agree! And let's think beyond the initial translation for the content: You will need keyword research by someone native that understand your business, continuous support in the local language, on-going promotion and outreach to develop your popularity that should also developed in the native language, is not a "one time" investment and businesses should envision this from the beginning to make sure the budget is reasonable and they can really maintain an international Web operation. Thanks for your comment!
Great article Aleyda,
I think another "Don't" that really is the stem of Vics comment is don't go international without data. It is essential to know that to launch an international site or just international pages that there is going to be ongoing costs. Have the research and data that shows that this project will work, track geographic conversions within analytics to see if there is a market as part of your market research. Once you decide to go all out you need the data to help show that the project needs ongoing support funds but that the profit is there to justify it it.
For smaller sites or brands I love your suggestion of starting small choose a top selling product and work with it to test the market. The cost will be much lower to maintain and laucnch. If it and other similar products are selling very well larger expansion should then be discussed.
Excellent presentation. I work with a translation and global marketing firm, and we make the same points to our clients all the time.
If the budget is limited, it's better to do a phased rollout. Focus on a few markets and products to start with.
I'd have to advise against entrusting translation to college students -- or any native speaker who isn't a professional translator. The results can range from mediocre to disastrous.
More about that in my YouMoz post.
Hi Daniel,
Indeed, professional translation is always the ideal and best possible scenario, although for specific tasks, such as keyword research, the best is always to validate with native speakers, even if they're not professional translators, but they're part of the target market of the product / service.
For example, I've had in the past an experience where the professional translator that wasn't that technical (it was a technical product) output didn't took into consideration some of the "everyday" terms used to search for those specific "technical products" by the target audience, which on the other hand, were known by a native intern that we had at the time, who was a developer and knew more concisely how they were searched.
Thanks for your comment :)
Hi, Aleyda:
Thanks for the thanks.
I agree that you have to find a way of ensuring translation takes into account technical terms, as well as cultural nuances. The firm I work with uses translators who are also subject matter and technical experts -- and live in the target country. (Even professional translators who moved away just a few years ago can fall behind on current usage.)
That's great to hear! In the long-term though moving beyond "initial" content translation (that can be given by external services likes yours), an SEO project needs native professionals that work in the different areas of the Web operations to support the ongoing Web related activities, for example: communication, promotion and support (to promote the business, develop the community and partnerships, do outreach in the sector)... as if they were a company based in the country that they're targeting :) So, external services are "ok" to start, but really, if a Website is going serious targeting an international market, they need native people supporting the on-going activities.
Great video Aleyda,
Thats fantastic! The challenge for us when we took on our first international client was the scale of the project, which included trying to correlate all of the information into one strategy that was not confusing and lay out clear objectives for each language.
In Europe, due to the multitude of different languages in countries so close to each other, international SEO is extremely important, so I think you're post is going to be a great resource for us her across the atlantic.
As a multilingual web design agency, much appreciated Aleyda. I personally would like to see much more on this subject on moz.
I think like you suggested, it is really hard to make in roads in a new international or country specific market without having someone who is either native to the target audience, or has experience working in the market and knows their language, preferences and culture inside out.
Also, I think that as well as language, the culture is important. Being English, I feel comfortable targeting English markets such as Australia. Despite being on the other side of the world there are similarities culturally and in terms of behaviour. However, when we want to produce content for the Spanish South America markets, we use South American copywriter over a Spanish copywriter as they naturally have a better understanding of the culture, behaviour, buying habits etc.
Thanks Mike! Indeed, the best possible scenario is that the copywriter is native (from the specific country, since Spanish in South America is also different from country to country) and also someone who knows about the sector / product / service that they're writing about too :)
I can attest to your second point, Aleyda. I use to be responsible for translating some blog posts and monthly newsletters, and I'd always get someone internally to proofread before going live due to the esoteric terminology of the power generator industry of the industry.
Natural proficiency in the language + Technical knowledge = Win.
Indeed! Especially when it's an activity beyond translation. Let's stop thinking that a Website will only need native support at the beginning for a keyword research or content development, it's not like that. Think about ongoing operations targeting a different country that will need ongoing support: from communications, to community development, to promotion, business development, etc.
Informative stuff @Aleyda. I admit that your 5 points are very powerful for international seo. @Paul you are right, cheap translations can cost you a lot of credibility.
Hi Aleyda,
Awesome content. We are a South American SEO/Marketing online agency and we do international SEO. One thing to also keep in mind is that internet speed connections vary throughout the world and so do browser choices. In Argentina, key decision makers still use IE and so when you do an international website it is very important to take internet connection speeds and browser choices. Also people in South America are still not doing searches with long phrase but rather with short ones. Long tail is just coming into style down here. SPAM is huge and most SEOers down here think directory linkbuilding is not SPAM.
Here is an article we wrote that I think you might enjoy. It is about SEO Agencies all over the world and how they design vs Web Design Agencies. https://moz.com/ugc/website-design-wars-seo-agencies-vs-web-design-agencies-worldwide-trends
I also have it in Spanish if anyone is interested.
Create WBF Aleyda!
Carla
Great WBF on International SEO and I think having in both English and Spanish is brilliant!
This was great, I feel like a marketers job is to constantly be throwing assumptions of new markets out the door.
Great video aleyda! Really really thankful to you as the video is been so helpful to me at this moment. As an international SEO service provider and currently working with Europe country this video will help me out providing excellent ranking to my clients worldwide. You have mentioned in your video to Avoid Automated Content Tranlations. I worked for weeks using some content through one software but didn't worked well but then clicked in my mind and I asked my clients to provide me original German/Dutch Content and after putting my best efforts i got huge success ranking SERPs. Thanks a lot Aleyda! Incredible job by you!
We're currently looking to move into a Russian market, although I agree with all your points the hardest part of international SEO (especially within a small specialist niche) is getting a native speaker on board.
As soon as you've secured someone from the country they are able to help you understand points 3 and 4 (translation and buyer behaviours). It's the most vital part yet the most difficult for us!
Thanks Aleyda, I love everything International SEO related.
Today when everything "User experience" related is so important for SEO, I'd say that the bottom line is to be as local as possible for every single language - and it's not easy!
Sometimes there's even a big difference between colors or date formats between the different countries and cultures.
I believe that the only real solution is to have a local person for each language and this is also what we do for our 18 languages.
Of course there's always a lot more to do and improve in being as “localized” as possible.
I tried to translate it in English. The content is very observable. It is a personal preference.In fact it is. google the English translation to be understood. ha ha
Amazing whiteboard friday Aleyda and Good checklist
Hi
Aleyda Solis
Its really great these five point have.. thank for posting this kind of experience. I appreciate you and will follow your these 5 point of some one.
Great video Aleyda,
To the general Moz community - Moz has a selection of great international SEO providers - maybe we could work together when native agencies are required in different countries. We are UK based, but would like to build partnerships with good agencies around the globe - contact me via https://www.mash-marketing.com if this is of interest.
Gail
Hello Aleyda,
I have Completely read your information that very amazing for thrown your words for International SEO. I am a lot of thankful from your information.
Great article, Aleyda!
Great article! This is slightly on a tangent, but I was wondering if anyone has done testing on colons yet?
To play it on the safe side, I wrote to some of my freelancers: "Question your colons: Google recognizes colons as separators which delineate keyword phrases. So if the title reads ‘Toronto: Food Tour, When Pigs Fry’, Google will read the keyword phrases as being ‘Toronto’ and ‘Food Tour When Pigs Fry'." Is that the right advice to give?
Thanks,
Ailsa
Hi Aleyda! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I've learned a lot from your presentation. This would be helpful for all SEO.
hi Aleyda
it felt great to read your post.it has helped me to get the clear view of international seo.
Aleyda,
What a great discussion on international SEO! Indeed, there are a lot of considerations, especially in language and different customs. It covers excellent marketing pointers essential for every international business. Indeed, there are a lot of dangerous assumptions that cannot be miscalculated in international SEO.
Nice presentation. I like it :)
I agree with you for no. 4. Automatically redirecting the user to their native languages (auto-detecting country) is kind of rude. Google Search Engine does this.
I have my profile website, it was in first page 20 days ago, now it is in 10th page, can you please tell me why my site went to 10th page?
srinivasinfo.com
Awesome video Aleyda! And thank you for answering my questions at Brighton SEO.
I just wanted to ask if you separate your Analytics by target country or target language... e.g. would you keep US, UK and Australia together?
thats right, you just cant use google translation tool, lol
Why there is no WBF for Indian SEOs? Waiting for it
Hi Aleyda,
It's wonderful presentation, but here I would like ask one question, " If someone open the website in another country and it is not converting as their destiny language" then what kind of problems can occur for the audience and how it can heart to business while it is in US English language.
I think if the website is in the English language not any specific country basis than should not be a problem for the International audiences.
But here i would like to know your opinion.
Please let me know the real reason.
I am looking forward to your response.
Thanks,
Do you suggest using Google translate if having translated pages on your site? Or is there a better way of going about doing that? I know that Google translate can't always be trusted, but I haven't found any better source.
Thank you!
The biggest challenge for me when dealing with International SEO is getting the translation done properly, especially when you have a highly technical product.
Most translators would just translate the content literally and the message just doesn't come out right after the translation. The reason is because the translators don't understand the industry, the product, and the contexts of how the products is used and the benefits that it offers.
I think it's worthwhile to spend lots of time upfront to educate the SEO manager as well as the translator on how your product works, how it is being used, and the values/benefits it provides.
good one, very informative.
BTW great idea to do this in both languages Spanish and English!
Excellent WBF Aleyda. I am now motivated to review your Mozcon since you reference several aspects of it here :) The point about quality vs quantity for translation is a good one. Hiring a native speaker who is a professional translator is the best approach and if budget constraints requires prioritizing content to be translated, that is the best method to connect with that audience vs using a program to translate all of your content in order to save on the translation process. Poorly translated content is a turn off in any language. Thanks for sharing and have a great weekend!
Hi Aleyda,
Great Video Aleyda It's really fantastic, But i have one doubt by using IP based cloaking for International Website is it will hurt in rankings?? because one my client is targetting Four countries instead of creating sub-domains or an separate Site for those countires one of our Senior developer give these idea IP based Cloaking. Can you please explain me regards this.
Hi Aleyda,
When we try to pitch international audience, automated tool should be the last thing one should go for.
We should always go for 'GLOCALIZATION- presenting global services as per specific locality'. Adopting it gives good results.
Nice Video! Thanks
Great WBF and very apt for me at the moment. Your suggestions on CRO behavioral patterns in relation to cultural idiosyncrasies gets swept under the carpet by many firms. Mcdonaldization of global websites isn't communicating the right message in the right way and should be something we start to move away from in 2014.
Hi Aleyda
great information! really liked the way you thrown your words and insight views to how to target in both languages.
Also in Spanish, Thanks!!!
Excellent Aleyda!
I want to add 1 more point over it.
I experimented before... And i have evaluated both scenes by country and by culture... i was successful with by culture.
That's only my belief. If you want to comment over it then you can, so i can update my strategy according to it.
Quite useful post, thanks for sharing it. I think is also important to take into consideration the search engine that dominates the market you target, eg. Yandex for Russia or Baidu for China. By the way if someone would like to target the Greek market I will be glad to develop the relevant content, more info in https://www.seoingreece.org/
Hi
Good idea as already said,would not hide your IP because will hit your page rank. as well as push you down the search engines.
Thanks for the great WBF Aleyda, very confident in your speaking! :) and glad to see another SEO WBF. I haven't really delved much into International stuff but I've recently been working with a German and French company which, specifically with the German side of things has been rather tricky.. to say the least! Still looking to sink my teeth into a big juicy multilingual site and may actually look into doing that for my blog over the next few months and converting the entire site into Spanish and French, then see what kind of traffic I get as well. Would be fantastic case study as well. My Grandad speaks 8 languages and writes/reads in 3, I tried using Google translate on my blog compared to him reading it in English, totally agree from the faces he was pulling from trying to read it first in French... I was thinking of using some Fiverr gigs to translate a few posts at a time and just use a basic theme, whats your take on this or do you have any really good services you could recommend for using in translating my sites current content, preferably as I have well over 50,000 words currently that it won't cost me a fortune? :) Also not too sure why but I watched this in Spanish as well, even though I don't speak Spanish haha! Again, great post and nice to see you even gave an example from the translation basis by converting the video.
Charles - cheap translations can cost you a lot of credibility, I've seen woeful examples out there even for "crowd sourced" versions for big sites. Many localised projects are serially under costed because of the process of translation yet these days the costs have come down with so many great tools and technologies. For example, if you use the reasonably priced WPML plugin for a Wordpress compatible site you can via the backend, manage the translation XML import/export and even it's price of translation with suppliers. That way you avoid the folly of email and word docs swapping.
Charles I would also strongly suggest that if you do opt for a professional translation house even then don't go for the cheaper option. Ensure at the very least you try and take premium services for language translation that caters for 'specialist' requirements e.g. technical translation and localized proof reading.
I've never yet had my agency not come back to me about words that need clarification, I would shudder if someone emails me with translated copy and says 'there its done!' - alarm bells would ring.
As Paul says cheap translations will only land embarrassment on your brand, service offerings etc. and ultimately an unwelcome increase in your bounce rate.
University/college students are also a good resource [if budget is a constraint] who want to flex their language skills but its important to pay them for their work both in currency and credit!
I feel like I've contradicted myself with that last sentence but I'm conscious of the fact that my preference is a premium approach not open to everyone looking to develop their reach in other countries.
David
Hi Aleyda,
Great topic, and you hit some great points. However I would like to add a 6th point to your post/video.
#6. Keyword Strategy Assumption
Don't assume all english words used in english speaking countries like UK, Ireland, Australia and many others have the same meaning.
(Full list of english speaking countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_English_is_an_official_language)
Example 1:
If you are working for an elevator company in the UK be careful not to target "elevator company London" or "London elevator company". Instead try "Lift company London" or "London Lift company". I'm sure as you know Brits refer to an elevator as a "lift"
Example 2:
Let's say you are selling athletic apparel and are targeting the UK. You may not want to use the word "hood" when referring to a sweatshirt, because in the UK a "hood" is something that covers your car.
U.S. English speaking SEO experts may want to hire local experts to help with these types of translations before running a campaign in "english" speaking country.
Thanks for the article! It was a great read and watch :)
Marvin
Marvin,
Great suggestion, I have used this exact tip launching product pages in Australia, the UK and even Canada. Had we not consulted with experts in those regions we would have missed a few key terms by targeting common U.S terms vs the local preferred terms.
Ship sailing away overseas, where's the captain?
Thanks a lot,, This subject have attracted my attention as this is what I'm doing for the last three months. I have build my website www.magdik.com with 4 different languages targeting different countries. Users of the website have to chose the language of their own. They will post them selves with the ability to add the translation them selves. I have been watching the Google analytic an it is showing and increase on the number of visitors and impression as well. I have used a native translators for the two languages which I do not know. It is working....
Thanks again