international seo and content silos | john caldwell | creatorseo
TRANSCRIPT
International SEO and
Content Silos
Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event
Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets
John Caldwell
[email protected] 513267086 2410295
• Physicist
• Headed up Global Marketing and
Intelligence Teams
• Founded CreatorSEO, Intelligence
Market and Research and Experts
• Head office in Smithstown, Shannon
•Specialise in helping businesses grow
internationally
Some of our customers ........
We don’t just consult ........
We are not just experts in SEO ........
• Introduction
• The Search Landscape and how Search Engines Work
• Silos
• International SEO
• Duplicate Content
• Tips
Areas covered:
Search Engine Optimisation - Introduction
It All Starts With Strategy
• Which market?
• Which country or countries?
• Focussing on a region?
• Emphasising particular products?
Reach Act Convert Engage
Digital strategy:
Customer analysis
Competitor benchmarking
On-line partner analysis
SWOT
Marker-place analysis:
Vision and mission
Goal setting AnalyticsManaging digital
marketing
Goals and KPI’s:
Segmentation and targeting
Brand position and value proposition
Engagement and content strategy
Integrated communication
strategy
Strategy:
search engines and social media
are the gatekeepers of your
Content visibility
If your not on page 1
of search results
you don’t exist!
Perception is reality
Best channels for revenue
Search engines – How they work?
What a Search Engine Sees
Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning
RankBrain
Is Google’s name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system used to help ranking
The Golden triangle
Which? - search engines!
… but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines
• Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..
… and let’s not forget
Search Pyramid
Social
Link Building
Keyword Research & Targeting
Accessible Quality Content
Bring all this together with intelligence
The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz
1 2 3-4 4+
What is Google looking for?
You need to think like Google:Keyword relationships and
usage – close bonds between keywords on each page
Date can be important –most recent content
– if applicable
Predict what you are looking for!
Phrases are unique
The intent of your search – information open queries
- location matters
Unique content
Google likes unique content
Does your content on a PAGE meet all the searcher’s
needs?
Are you better at giving the searcher the information they
need?
Content Silos
A content silo is the grouping of related content around key terms.
These key terms are topical grouped on areas or themes.
These are implemented on your website / digital needs
Content Silos
26
Make it easy for the search engines -content silos
Google in particular want to have a good understanding of your website’s content.
- what your promoting- how it is structured- layout of content
Content organisation!Traffic
SEO / User Experience
Content Silos
27
Key term relevancy is based on a page’s content as well as the relevance of the entire website.
Content silos help provide relevance!
If you want to rank think of sections rather than just a page.
Relevant ContentTraffic
SEO / User Experience
Content Silos
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• Silos • Relevancy• Consistency
• Amplify your content
Target the right audience with the right content
– as per your digital strategy– planned in your roadmap
Content Amplification
29
Content Example – Google.co.uk ranking
Term 1 Term 2 Term 3 Term 4 Term 5
Ranking before process >500 201 306 432 >500
Implemented Silos & taxonomy 145 61 114 92 345
Relevancy - meta / content 86 39 51 44 74
LinkedIn engagement 52 30 64 37 49
Consistency – links / language 48 27 31 33 37
New relevant content (daily) 3 4 2 5 11
Get feed for your site:[email protected]
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Think like Google!
Content - Authority - Authenticity - Trust
Some key tools
mysiteperformance.com
Marketing - Google Alerts & Google News & Google Publisher
Normally a MARKETER works
side by side with a
CODER2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
We All Want!
MARKETER and
CODER
Try things till it
works!
What really happens
20112012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Marketing incl. SEO
CustomerNeeds
Data
Growth Hacking Analytics
Baseline
Create a dashboard
Perform AB Testing
Create interventions
Make changes
One Metric That Matters?
Talk to customers
Make more changes
An
alys
e b
efo
re a
nd
aft
er c
han
ges
Internationalisation
Google.ie, Google.co.uk, Google.de, Google.fr……
Trading internationally
• Common situations:
• one country, several languages
• one language, several countries
Trading internationally
• What can be done?
• domains by country?
• main domain and subdirectories per language?
• sub domains?
• Geo targeting on Google
Trading internationally
• Best option domains by country
• creatorseo.com
• creatorseo.fr
• creatorseo.de
• but
• complicated to manage and coordinate
• one CMS for all or one per domain?
Trading internationally
• Sub-domains or Domain name alias
• us.creatorseo.com
• fr.creatorseo.com
• de.creatorseo.com
• Directories by country/language
• creatorseo.com/us/
• creatorseo.com/fr/
• creatorseo.com/de/
• One language, several countries
• creatorseo.com/es/
• mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)
• mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)
Trading internationally
• Subdomains by country
• Search Engines consider subdomains almost a completely different entity than their domain
• they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy
• Example of a sub domain
• http://spanish.creatorseo.com
• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of unrelated domain names
X
Trading internationally
A new domain starts with
ZERO domain authority
Trading internationally
• Directories by country/language
• Cheaper
• Less technical resources required
• Easier to manage and coordinate
• Directories contribute to increase the general relevancy of a domain
• Domain authority is consolidated
Trading internationally
• You don’t need multiple websites to rank internationally
Before internationalising your site
• Market research
• Site performance
• SEO implementation
• Speed of site
• Number of pages on your site – CPU and Memory
• Language or Country targeting
• Localisation costs
Competition
Competition ---- Perception is Reality
• On-line competition may not be your traditional competition
• Different competitors in different regions
SEO is about beating your competition in the targeted geographies
Audience
• Know your audience
• Cultural
• In Mediterranean counties - Internet use is driven more by social factors rather than anything else,
• where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes.
• Language
• What are they searching for?
Keyword
Avg. Monthly Searches World
wide(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches US (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches UK (exact
match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches Canada
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches Germany (exact match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches France
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches China
(exact match only)
Avg. Monthly Searches India
(exact match only)
hotels in dublin 49,500 1,900 18,100 390 590 110 10 90
dublin hotels 33,100 3,600 18,100 880 480 140 10 70
hotels dublin 18,100 590 6,600 170 1,000 390 10 10
hotel dublin 14,800 260 2,400 110 2,400 3,600 10 10
And that’s just English!
Local content
• Use local addresses and contact information
• Add local case studies/ testimonials
• with names and images
• Customise content for each country or market
• More relevant, increases local link building opportunities, and decreases duplicate content
• Currency
Design and usability
Basic requirements for any website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
• Clear purpose
• Easy to use / intuitive
• High impact- you have only 4 seconds to impress!
• Optimised for visitors
• Target audience
• Easily found by the target audience
• Content must be dynamic and interesting
Design and usability
• Different countries prefer different design aesthetics
• Recreating your website in a different language may not be enough
• Get feedback on your site from locals in your target country
Speed
Duplicate Content
Duplicate Content and Languages
• Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language on one URL. - Proxied content- Content served by a cookie - Side-by-side translations
Can be very problematic for search engines to index a page in more than one language.
You want
1 URL = 1 language
Duplicate Content and Language Flags
• Hreflang tags are intended to ensure the correct localised page is seen by Google
• You can have multi-country targeted content in the same language. - You need to combine hreflang tags + some localisation!
Ways to avoid Duplicate Content
• Use Hreflang tags
• Localised keyword optimisation
• Have local content … maybe testimonials
• Name, Address, Phone, Currencies, Google Business profile
• Localised HTML sitemaps
• Localised navigation and home page features that cater to specific audiences
• Localised images that resonate with the audience
• Obtain links from local links
Some Final Tips
• Create useful page titles
• Use informative URLs
• Provide relevant page descriptions
• Add your business to Google +
• Manage your site links
• Get a local mailing address
• Use a translator!
• Value proposition
• Call to action
• Speed
• User experience
• Relevant and most recent unique content
Google shows search results based on
what's best for the user
