International SEO Guidelines and Best Practices
As with any website, it is common knowledge to apply standard SEO best practices in order to increase your search engine rankings. However, when dealing with international search engines there are extra steps that should be taken into consideration to optimize your site properly. Here are some best practices to keep in mind when it comes to international SEO:
International SEO Guidelines and Best Practices
Foreign extension vs. Subdomain
1. Foreign searchers tend to search in their native language on local search engines
a. An Italian consumer will search in Italian on Google.it instead of on Google.com
2. Local search engines want to deliver the most relevant content for their users; results are skewed to what the local searcher would most like to see
3. Using a foreign domain extensions is the ideal scenario when targeting a specific audience in their country of origin
a. Goal: Target Italian consumers in Italy
b. Solution: Publish your site at www.website.it
4. While the ideal scenario is to have a url with a foreign extension, it is an acceptable and common practice to use a subdomain
a. A subdomain is not affected by Google’s sandbox penalty which can help your site gain exposure in the short term. Learn all the pros and cons of each strategy before moving forward.
International Hosting
1. Sites with foreign domain extensions should be hosted in originating country if possible
2. Search engines identify your site based on IP address – your site may be removed from searches if the IP address is not in the country you are targeting
3. Use Google Webmaster Central for geo-targeting content
Identify Language in Metadata
1. The language being used on the site should be identified within the meta data
a. Examples:
i. If the site is in English, use “EN”
ii. If the site is in Italian, use “IT”
2. Meta description should contain information that identifies your location (city, state, etc)
3. If you have a local address, display it on the homepage
Localized Language
1. Conduct keyword research keeping your target audience in mind, search behavior varies across countries and languages.
2. All content should be translated for the native language. A human translator should be used whenever possible instead of an automatic translation tool.
3. Use local language and spellings
a. Holiday vs. Vacation
b. Colour vs. Color
Local Inbound Linking
1. Develop a linking strategy with sites hosted in the country of origin (it is preferable to link to sites using a foreign domain extension).
Tactics to Avoid
1. Keyword Stuffing
2. Doorway Pages
3. Javascript Redirects
4. All of these tactics will negatively affect your rankings and your site will be penalized
Comment from Seth
Time: October 29, 2008, 11:58 am
I’m an SEO consultant who does a lot of work with international clients, and speaking from experience, the guidelines you list here are 100% accurate. One of my clients has dozens of international sites, and while they use country-specific domain extensions, ALL of their domains are hosted in the US.
Not ideal at all. I’ve tried convincing them of making a change, but centralized management and security is more important to them. However, using Webmaster Tools to specify the country a domain is intended for does work well.
One other thing that seems to help, is use of language tags in your page headers. And I can’t stress enough the importance of getting links that are from sites hosted in your target country.
Great blog, keep up the good work!