What is international SEO?

International SEO is the process of optimizing the website in such a way that it becomes easy for search engines to identify which country you want to target and which language you use for your business. It can be difficult to optimize the site for international clients as search engines may get confused because of content created for varying nationalities who have different languages. For that, we need planning and simple code to reach out to our international audiences

Do you need to do international SEO?

If you feel that you have a big profit from the clients that are from different countries, and speak different languages, then go for international SEO. You should make changes to your website according to the strategy of international SEO.  To accomplish the international SEO you need to focus on the following:

1. Firstly, you need to do country targeting. Create internal-friendly URL structure to specify the target country and region.
2. Second is language targeting. You can establish the language your pages are using to target with the help of language tags.
3. You should create your content in your target user’s language.

Best practices for international SEO

1. URL structures for international SEO

To target a particular country with your website, there are a few URL structures. These include a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), a subdomain, a sub directory or a subfolder. You can also create URLs with the use of general top-level domain (gTLD) with language parameters. Let’s explain these terms one by one. 

• • ccTLD: As its name defines(country code top-level domain) it uses two letters to indicate the name country to inform the users and search engine that in which country and territory the website of a specific business is registered. 

For instance:  brandname.ca

• • Sub domain: In this type of URL structure the internalized content is placed on a separate third-level domain as given below:

For example:  ca.brandname.com

• • Subdirectory: The internalized content is placed in a subdirectory, subfolder, or a root domain. 

For instance: brandname.com/ca

• • gTLD with language parameter: A general top-level domain like .com, .net, or .org is targeted to speakers of a specific language by using URL parameters. 

For instance: brandname.net/?lang=en-us

• • Different domain: internationalized content is placed on a totally different root domain as compared to non- internationalized sites.

For example: brandname,casite.com

2. Language-target for  the websites

Language: Target means telling the search engine that in which language the content of the site or pages is written. For this purpose, we use hreflang or language meta tags. The following code will tell the search engine that the alternative version of website content is available in us English language. 

Example: <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://websitetoon.com/en-us” hreflang=”en-us”/>

An international SEO checklist

• Check your site’s current total and organic traffic from other countries and languages.
• Check your site’s current organic visibility from other countries.
• Do keyword research with the countries and languages you have already identified.
• Identify your international web targeting.
• Identify the characteristics and behavior of your international audience.
• Identify and analyze your international industry and competitors.
• Make your international site structure findable and easy to navigate.
• Track each of your international web versions independently.
• Follow-up with your international search visibility.