establishing a successful international web presence #internationalseo #smx west 2017

@aleyda#InternationalSEO #12A

Establishing a Successful International Web Presence

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

@aleyda#SMX West @aleyda

Hello #SMXWest

#InternationalSEO #12A


I’m Aleyda Solis



ORAINTI.COM @ALEYDA FB.COM/ALEYDASEOTIPS/

I Do SEO

BITLY.COM/LIBROSEOALEYDA

I PublishI Share

I’m Aleyda Solis


http://ORAINTI.COM

http://@ALEYDA

http://FB.COM/ALEYDASEOTIPS/

http://BITLY.COM/LIBROSEOALEYDA


I Blog I Speak I’m Featured

I’m Aleyda Solis



I help companies to connect with potential customers all over the world



Expanding & diversifying traffic sources



With a sustainable organic traffic growth



Generating actual customers, conversions & profit from them



Here’s how you can do it too!

Avoid targeting

markets that are not profitable

Select the best Web structure to target your international

markets

Effectively geolocate & localize your

Web presence



Avoid targeting markets that are not profitable



Identify which countries & languages are already bringing traffic & conversions



The ones where your competition & industry leaders are already profiting from

https://www.similarweb.com/



Verify which are the countries with more organic search traffic potential in your industry



Check the level of already existing organic search competition there



Align this with your own multilingual & international operations capacity

Other Traffic Drivers

Used Search Engines Competitors

AuthorityAudience

Search Behavior & interests

Organic Search Traffic

Volume & Share

COUNTRY CURRENT ORGANIC SEARCH TRAFFIC

COMPETITION LEVEL SEARCH VOLUME OPPORTUNITY SEARCH TREND

IN MARKETSEARCH

ENGINE USED SPAM LEVEL

UK 100 per month High 500,000 searches per month Positive Google Low

Spain 50 per month Medium 300,000 searches per month Positive Google Medium

Country & Language

Operations Capacity



Verify if there’s enough organic search traffic to compensate a profitable Web activity

Cost of international Web projectNumber of Conversions for a break-even Average conversion value

=

No. of Conversions for Break-evenNumber of visits for a break-even Average Conversion Rate

=



Identify if you should language or country target first

Is location a factor that influence your Web operations?

Yes No

Is there enough traffic & conversions to target each country?

Language Targeting

Yes No

Country Targeting



Like they have done

vs

Language TargetingCountry Targeting



Use the International SEO ROI calculatorto facilitate this

http://www.aleydasolis.com/en/international-seo-tools/roi-calculator/



Now you can decide which international search markets to target

>Your International traffic potential Visits & Conversions for a break-even

Yes No

Continue with the international Web & SEO project

Might be too early

For most important countries

Buy & secure your ccTLDs for future activity

Create custom alerts

Create a pilot project prioritizing

main pages



Select the best Web structure to target your international markets



Avoid using scripts or cookies showing your international Web versions with the same URLs



As well as parameters for your international Web structure



If you’re country targeting, select between ccTLDs, Subdirectories & Subdomains

ccTLDswww.yourbrand.es

www.yourbrand.es/categoria-a/

Sub-directoriesw/ gTLDs www.yourbrand.com/es-es/

www.yourbrand.com/es-es/categoria-a/

Sub-domains w/ gTLDs es-es.yourbrand.com/

es-es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/


http://www.yourbrand.co.uk







Each have pros & cons to country target

* Need less technical resources * Need less efforts to grow popularity* More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad * Need more efforts to geolocate

* Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity * Better than sub-directories to organize larger & more complex sites * Need more efforts to geolocate

* Ideal alternative to geolocate if competition is not too high * Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity with a new domain

ccTLDs

Sub-directoriesw/ gTLDs

Sub-domains w/ gTLDs



If you’re language targeting, select between using subdirectories or subdomains

Sub-directorieswww.yourbrand.com

www.yourbrand.com/es/categoria-a/

Sub-domainses.yourbrand.com/

es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/


http://www.yourbrand.com

http://www.yourbrand.com/es/categoria-a/

http://es.yourbrand.com/

http://es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/


Which also have pros & cons to language target

* Need less technical resources * Need less efforts to grow popularity * Generates a deeper url structure * More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad

* Need more technical resources * Need more efforts to grow popularity * Generates shorter URL structure which can be better for larger sites

Sub-directories

Sub-domains



It’s key to be consistent though and avoid mixing international Web structures



Take into consideration that Google doesn’t support “continents” to geotarget



Verify which Web structures are used by the top sites in the desired market

13 ccTLDs vs.

7gTLDs



As well as those rankings for the potential top queries in that market

https://serpchecker.com/

7 ccTLDs vs.

2 gTLDs


https://serpchecker.com/


What’s the authority of those top ranking sites? Can you compete with a new ccTLD?


@aleyda#SMX West

Yes

@aleyda

Choose your international Web structure accordingly

What’s your international target?

Country Language

Are your top competitors using

ccTLDs? Yes

Is the domain authority of your

competition higher &

a concern?

Yes

Use ccTLDs

No

No

Use Geolocalized Sub-Directories

YesNo Do you need a flatter & more

differentiated URL structure?

Use Sub-Directories

Is the domain authority of your

competition higher &

a concern?

Use Sub-Domains

No



Effectively geolocate & localize your Web structure


@aleyda#SMX West #InternationalSEO #12A @aleyda

Avoid ranking with a non-relevant Web version in your international search results

com.au

com.au

com.au

com.au

com.au

com

http://com.au

http://com.au

http://com.au

http://com.au

http://com.au

http://com


Not only with country versions, but also language ones that will cannibalize themselves

Searching from Google Spain


Misaligned pages will have worse rankings, CTR, user experience and conversions

This happens with a UK ccTLD



Check if you’re suffering from this already!



Verify which domain extensions are treated as generic by Google to geolocate if needed

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922


https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl


Register & geolocate in GSC each sub-directory or sub-domain to country target



It’s better to avoid automatic redirects based on the IP location



As you might assume too much and give a negative user experience



Suggest the relevant international version instead



Localize every aspect of your Web content & design

URL

Meta DescriptionCurrency

Menu

Title

Images

H1



Including the URLs



Get native support to optimize the content using the relevant terms of the target markets


Remember that language might be the same but the terms could be different based on country



Not only the content, but also the design; based on local preferences & culture

In Japan In the UK



Indicate your international targeting with the meta & html lang tag

http://bit.ly/binglang


http://bit.ly/binglang


As well as specifying your pages language and country alternates with hreflang

bit.ly/hreflangannotations


http://bit.ly/hreflangannotations


Every page should include its language & country target, and point to its other versions

English for the US Default

Spanish for the US

English for the UK

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />


brand.com/dogs/

brand.co.uk/dogs/

brand.com/es/perros/

English for the US


<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />


http://brand.com

http://brand.co.uk/dogs/

http://brand.com/es/perros/


Using ISO 639-1 values for languages and ISO 3166-1 for countries



Without changing the canonical tags configuration



You can add them in the HTML Head or in XML Sitemaps, as well as HTTP Headers


Add them in XML Sitemaps in non-flexible sites with a high number of

versions

Add them in HTML in sites

with lower number of

versions & coding flexibility


Start with only the necessary ones checking traffic misalignment if there are too many



Beware of including incorrect hreflang values

hreflang="en-gb"



Adding a country without a language, which is mandatory

hreflang="pt-br"

hreflang="en-ca"

Not supported

hreflang="es-mx"

hreflang="en-us"



Using underscores instead of dashes to separate language & country values

hreflang=“fr-ca”



Forgetting to self-refer by specifying the current URL in the hreflangs



Not referring back at all from one language or country version to another



Adding non-indexable, canonicalized, error, redirected or blocked URLs in hreflangs



It’s critical to avoid these errors so the hreflang tags are not ignored…



Monitor the existence of these issues with the GSC International Targeting report



It specifies the type of error and the number of pages affected



As well as the URLs where these issues have been found



Avoid these issues by generating correct annotations with the Hreflang Generator Tool

bit.ly/generatorhreflang


http://bit.ly/generatorhreflang


Generating the XML sitemaps along hreflang tags with the hrefbuilder

hrefbuilder.com


http://hrefbuilder.com


Validate the hreflang implementation using crawlers like Botify that supports it



With OnPage.org that allows to segment each international version issues


http://onpage.org


Or DeepCrawl that verifies hreflang implemented in XML sitemaps too



If you follow these generation & validation steps you’ll be able to specify them effectively



And grow your international search visibility with effectively geolocalized Web versions



That are also profitable :)


@aleyda#InternationalSEO #12A

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establishing a successful international web presence #internationalseo #smx west 2017

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