International Sites
In order to expand their reach into international markets, many web marketers recognize the need to create an international version of their online experience. In order to construct a comprehensive and successful international SEO campaign entails more than merely translating an English language page. Additional measures must be used to indicate to an international search engine that a website is relevant to an international user including registration of additional domains, international hosting, specialized content and in-depth keyword analysis.
Key Element 1:
International Domains
Unique TLD – .com, .br, .es, .co.uk
- Search Engines regard country specific TLDs as more relevant
- Each country has specifications in order to registera unique TLD
TLD: A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet.[1] The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com, or .COM, as domain names are not case-sensitive.
Key Element 2:
International Hosting
- Localized Hosting – Host each unique experience with a host in the target country
Key Element 3:
Content with an International Focus
- Special attention should be paid to each country specific experience so as to minimize duplicate co tent across different language-centric experiences.
- This is of particular concern with same-language online brand experiences (USA, UK).
- Solutions include reverse IP lookup and varying co tent between same language sites.
- Include a mobile site map
- Submit a specific site map for each markup language being used
Key Element 5:
Keywords in the International Space
- Perform market specific keyword analysis:
- Translation software is often deficient because often cannot capture colloquialisms in the same way that a native speaker can
- Keywords often do not translate literally (even across countries that speak the same language)
- Search behavior may vary internationally
Key Element 5:
Geotargeting
- Geo targeting in geomarketing and internet marketing is the method of determining the geolocation of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, IP address, ISP or other criteria.
- Set geotargeting in Google Webmaster Tools
