Understanding International SEO – Everything You Need To Know

If you own a business or website, or you sell items or services online, then you are probably considering breaking into other markets. That probably means taking your business global. 

At first glance, this seems straightforward. You own a website, and everyone on the internet can access it, right? Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it first seems. Just because your services are present on the web doesn’t mean that web users are finding out about them and going on to make the sale that pays your overheads. This is where SEO comes in. 

As SEOs ourselves, we work endlessly helping our businesses showcase their products, services, or information to the right markets; however, when those markets are overseas or in different languages or cultural systems, the playing field isn’t as clearly defined. This is where international SEO comes in. So, what is international SEO? 

International SEO is an attempt at optimising a business’s presence online so that it becomes appropriate for targeted markets overseas. This may include aspects of technical SEO, web development, content-based SEO and conversion rate optimisation. It can take many forms, however, it usually requires: 

• International Market Trend Research
• Subdomain Strategy
• Hreflang tag implementation
• Multilingual Content and Content Localisation
• Crawl Budget and Scalability Considerations
• Compliance Considerations
• Schema Implementation

Find out everything you need to know about global SEO below from the team here at Wildcat Digital. 

International Market Trend Research

Before launching any international SEO campaign, the first step is research.

Why Market Research Is Step One in International SEO

Identifying viable markets to push your products or services into is a key consideration for any marketing strategy. Asking ‘what market are we about to push these products into’ is a viable question every business owner should be asking when engaging with any marketing campaign. 

Going global with your website doesn’t mean that you are appearing regularly in one regional market and not the rest. It’s a little more calculated than that. As SEOs, we tend to target specific international markets where we think that we will get a suitable return for our campaign investments. For instance, as we are based in the UK, we tend to target the USA and Canada first as these countries share a similar language and market trends as we do. This makes these markets more viable than markets that don’t share these similarities. 

Tools to use for international SEO research:

• SEMrush
• Ahrefs
• Google Trends

These tools can help uncover international search volumes, buyer behaviours, and competitive landscapes, allowing you to prioritise your global efforts effectively.

Subdomain or Subfolder Strategy: Finding the Right URL Structure

When expanding to international markets, how you structure your URLs can have a big impact on SEO.

You’ll need to decide whether to use subdomains (e.g. us.example.com) or subfolders (e.g. example.com/us/). Both options have pros and cons. The optimal choice often depends on your specific goals, resources, and even the nature of your content.

Subfolders: Leveraging Existing Authority

Subfolders, such as example.com/us/ or example.com/fr/, are directories within your main domain. This structure allows you to:

• Consolidate SEO Efforts: By housing all content under a single domain, you can concentrate your link-building and content marketing strategies, enhancing the overall authority of your site.​
• Simplify Analytics and Tracking: Managing a unified domain simplifies the setup and monitoring of analytics tools, providing a comprehensive view of user behaviour across different regions.​
• Easier Sitewide Maintenance: With a single content management system (CMS), updates and maintenance become more straightforward, reducing the complexity of managing multiple sites.​
  

Subfolders are better for businesses aiming to maintain a cohesive brand identity while targeting multiple regions. They are also beneficial when resources are limited, as they require less technical overhead compared to managing multiple subdomains. 

Subdomains: Flexibility and Autonomy

Subdomains, like us.example.com or fr.example.com, function as separate entities from your main domain. This approach offers:

• Content and Design Flexibility: Subdomains allow for tailored content, design, and functionality specific to each region, accommodating cultural nuances and preferences.​
• Independent Management: Each subdomain can be managed separately, which is beneficial for large organisations with distinct teams handling different regional sites.​
  
• Targeted SEO Strategies: With subdomains, you can implement region-specific SEO strategies, focusing on local keywords and search behaviours.​

However, it’s important to note that subdomains are often treated as separate websites by search engines. This means that the authority and link equity of your main domain may not automatically benefit your subdomains, potentially requiring additional SEO efforts for each.​

How to Make the Right Choice

Making the right choice for your website is clearly important for keeping and progressing your SEO efforts. Consider the following factors when deciding between subdomains and subfolders:

• Resource Availability: If you have the resources to manage multiple sites and develop region-specific strategies, subdomains may be suitable. Otherwise, subfolders offer a more manageable solution.​
• Brand Consistency: For a unified brand experience across regions, subfolders are preferable. If regional autonomy is desired, subdomains provide the necessary separation.​
• Technical Infrastructure: Assess your current CMS and hosting capabilities. Some systems may favour one structure over the other, influencing your decision.​

Both subdomains and subfolders have their place in international SEO. Your choice should align with your business objectives, technical capabilities, and the level of localisation required for your international audiences.​

For a visual representation, consider creating comparative diagrams illustrating the hierarchy and structure of subdomains versus subfolders. This can aid in understanding the implications of each approach.​

If you need further assistance in determining the best structure for your international SEO strategy, feel free to reach out to our team at Wildcat Digital.

Hreflang Tag Implementation

When implementing an international SEO strategy, Hreflang tags should be your second port of call. 

New to hreflang tags? Review my previous blog, Hreflang Tags 101. 

In short, hreflang tags are HTML attributes that help search engines understand the language and region a webpage is intended for. They are used to tell search engines which version of a website to show a user based on their location or language. This helps ensure users see the most relevant content in their language and region, for instance, showing a French version of a website to users who live in France or a French-speaking nation. 

Here’s an example of an hreflang tag below? 

<url>

  <loc>https://wildcatdigital.co.uk/fr/</loc>

  <xhtml:link rel=”alternate”  hreflang=”fr” href=”https://wildcatdigital.co.uk/fr/” />

<url>

  <loc>https://wildcatdigital.co.uk/fr/</loc>

  <xhtml:link rel=”alternate”  hreflang=”fr” href=”https://wildcatdigital.co.uk/fr/” />

Let’s get into it. 

What are the Best Practices for Implementing Hreflang Tags?

To ensure effective international SEO, consider the following best practices:

Include Self-Referencing Hreflang Tags

Every page should reference itself as well as its alternate versions. This self-referencing helps search engines confirm the correct language and regional targeting for each page.

Ensure Bidirectional Linking

If Page A references Page B as an alternate, Page B must also reference Page A. This reciprocal linking confirms the relationship between language versions.

Use Correct Language and Region Codes

Use ISO 639-1 codes for languages and ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 codes for regions. For example, use en-GB for English (United Kingdom or Great Britain) and en-US for English (United States).

Implement the x-default Hreflang Tag

For pages that serve as a default or fallback (such as a language selector), use the x-default hreflang value to guide users properly.

Maintain Consistent Canonical Tags

Ensure that canonical tags are consistent across all language versions to prevent conflicting signals to search engines.

CMS-Specific Solutions

Depending on your CMS, you may be able to speed up the process by using plugins or other tools. 

• WordPress: Utilise plugins like Polylang or WPML to manage multilingual content and hreflang tags effectively.
• Shopify: Employ apps such as Langify or Weglot to handle language versions and hreflang implementation.
• Wix: Leverage the built-in multilingual feature, but verify the accuracy of automatically generated hreflang tags.

Validating Your Hreflang Tags

After implementation, it’s crucial to validate your hreflang tags. We find the following tools useful:

• Google Search Console: Use the International Targeting report to identify and fix hreflang errors.
• Third-Party Tools: Tools like Dentsu’s Hreflang Tags Testing Tool can help verify the correctness of your hreflang annotations.

Multilingual Content and Content Localisation

Once your hreflang tags have been implemented, you can now show your website to different regions and reach out globally. English is considered the lingua franca of the world, allowing our native tongue to provide our content for many global searchers. However, missing out on French, Spanish and other languages means that you miss out on very large portions of the globe right off the bat. To help, you also need to convert the text on your website (as well as prices) to international equivalents. 

Let’s break it down. 

Why Multilingual Content Matters

• Enhanced User Experience: Users are more likely to engage with content presented in their native language, leading to increased trust and loyalty.​ How many times have you shopped in a foreign language online successfully? 
• Improved SEO Performance: Search engines favour websites that cater to users’ language preferences, boosting visibility in regional search results.​
• Expanded Market Reach: By speaking your audience’s language, you open doors to new markets and opportunities.​

How to Craft Effective Multilingual Content

• Understand Your Audience: Research cultural nuances, preferences, and colloquialisms to ensure your content resonates.​
• Prioritise Localisation Over Translation: While translation converts words, localisation adapts the message to fit cultural contexts, ensuring relevance and relatability.​ Users like to know that the money they spend online is going to businesses locally. Reviewing your content per local, and changing local idioms and phrases to a more international phrasing can help users feel more comfortable when converting. 
• Maintain Consistent Branding: Ensure that your brand’s voice and identity remain consistent across all languages. This helps to grow and maintain ongoing brand recognition and trust.​
• Utilise Professional Tools and Services: If you are struggling, you can hire professionals specialising in multilingual content creation to ensure accuracy and cultural appropriateness.​ These services can be found by contacting local SEO or copywriting teams within that location to help localise your content. 

Implementing Multilingual Content Strategically

Implementing multilingual content can be simplified across many Content Management Systems, including WordPress, Shopify and WIX. This can be helped by using plugins such as Polylang. However, for custom CMS, SEOs may need to get more creative. This may require the services of local content or SEO teams to help you adjust your content to meet local styles. 

Here are some tips that can help you strategically build your international strategy: 

• Be Methodical: Reaching out to many different locals will require you to understand the spending patterns of that area. This will require you to research keywords in that area, and hire content writers fluent in that language and tone of voice to help. 
• Consider Your Metadata: When updating your content, don’t forget to recreate the metadata for each localised page, too. This includes metadescriptions, title tags and headers, where necessary. Don’t worry about content duplication issues between localised pages, as your hreflang tags will allow search engines to understand the locality of each page. 
• Monitor and Adjust: Marketing and SEO require constant reiteration, and international rollout is no different. Set up effective monitors and analytics for each local to see what works, where. Campaigns that work in the UK may not work the same internationally, requiring you to adjust your strategy per market accordingly. These differences may open up better strategies for other local campaigns in future. 

Crawl Budget and Scalability Considerations

Creating websites and marketing campaigns in other regional markets can double or triple the size of your website. In many cases, this can cause issues with the technical side of things. It can also cause issues with how your business operates structurally. 

As SEOs ourselves, our goal is the eventual success of the businesses that we work for. This may require us to understand the implications of a scaling business. This may include additional costs for: 

• Copywriters and Local SEO Teams
• Technical Improvements
• Hosting
• Postage or Local Taxes and Tariffs 

Let’s review each to see how a growing international campaign can incur additional costs to business owners. 

Copywriters and Local SEO Teams

As mentioned above, taking a marketing campaign international is often more effective when paired with an international SEO agency. Here at Wildcat Digital, we specialise in content for English-speaking countries and the Western world. However, if you are looking to target a French-speaking market effectively, we may need the services of a French-speaking content team for support. This will incur additional costs that you may want to consider. 

Technical Improvements

Whilst many SEO agencies are versed in international and mobile strategy, you will need to consider the costs of internationalisation in your campaign budget. International SEO requires additional coding and technical understanding to ensure correct implementation. This may require you to increase the involvement of your developers or an SEO versed in internationalisation to help with proper implementation. Ensure that your scope is aligned with your budget across all teams before you advance with an international SEO strategy. This may require the rollout across one local first to understand capacity, and then for business owners to consider this cost across all targeted locals. 

Hosting Considerations for International SEO

When you internationalise your website, you will create many new pages for your international content to be served to users. This can require you to increase your hosting allowances to allow for this additional website size. 

If your website is hosted on an introductory package, you may need to increase this spend (and therefore hosting size) to allow for the additional documents. Speak with your SEO and provide them with the hosting details if you haven’t already, to allow them to preempt this concern before an issue arises. They may need to increase your hosting size/ allowances to accommodate your additional web pages. 

Postage or Local Taxes and Tariffs

When offering your services to other countries, you will potentially be met with additional postage costs and additional delivery times. In more recent times, you may also be hit with tariffs that come with international trading, too. 

You can replace expected delivery times on pages targeted to different locations quickly, whilst editing the content, or by using a search and replace plugin for most websites. However, as long delivery times for online shopping are reportedly the reason why 50% of shoppers drop off, you may want to change how your products are delivered to your customers. This means that, if you predominantly sell products via your international store, you may need to involve the services of a logistics and warehousing company to help with your delivery times. 

Many online stores outsource their order fulfilment to a third-party provider to help reduce international shipping times. You may want to consider this approach to keep your international shipping times down to meet the customers’ expectations. However, these services do require further budget allowances.

Keeping your eye on geopolitical trade and the reliability of international markets will lead to a steadier international marketing approach. 

Compliance Considerations for International SEO

When going global, your website will need to meet the compliance considerations for all of the international markets that you plan to enter. This changes from country to country and from region to region.

Different countries have varying regulations concerning data privacy and content. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) mandates strict data handling practices for EU citizens’ data, even for companies trading from outside the EU. 

Similarly, other regions have their own regulations, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States. It’s crucial to familiarise yourself with these laws to avoid legal complications. 

Cookie Consent for International SEO 

Cookie Consent is a key consideration for an international online rollout. For instance, the EU requires a strong Cookie Policy, so ensuring that your cookies are managed according to the regulations of the market that you are entering is crucial. 

Services like Cookiehub can be implemented quickly and at a cost of under €10 per domain. Outsourcing your cookie compliance can allow for dynamic Cookie Policies for regional regulations quickly and effectively, saving you time and effort, and allowing you to focus on growing your brand and business. 

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Privacy Policies for International SEO

For best practices, ensure that the data that you collect from and for your users is compliant with the regulations local to them. This may require that your data collection practices and user rights do not infringe on local or international laws or codes of practice. In many cases, you naturally won’t infringe on these laws or codes of practices, however, disclaimers and policies may need to be altered for each location before your campaigns are pushed live to ensure compliance. 

To ensure best practices: 

• Update Content Around Contact Forms: Many legal disclaimers ought to be issued at the point of contact or sale. Ensure that you issue the correct link to the localised privacy policy (or part of the privacy policy) at this point of contact with your business. This could include a tickbox at the point of contact, and keeping an updated link to your privacy policy on every page of your website. 
• Remain Compliant: Of course, remaining compliant with your users’ privacy is the best practice here. Many businesses won’t collect or use their customers’ data outside of analytics and marketing use. Ensuring that you keep your customers’ data safe will likely keep you within local laws, as they are typically based on common sense. 
• Regional Translations: Ensure that your privacy policy is translated into every language that you target. You may not need to create a separate URL for each language; simply offer all regional variants of your policy on the same page. However, translating this policy to different languages will likely make your website more compliant than the competition that doesn’t. As Google and other search engines prefer to promote businesses with are internationally compliant, this may give you the edge in your international campaign. 

Schema implementation for International SEO

A schema is a short bit of code that is added to websites and web pages to help search engines pull important data from the page. This information is understood by search engines and is often served to the user on the search engine results page, promoting those websites above those that don’t use it.  

Find out more about schema with our blogs What is Schema in SEO? and Is Structured Data a Google Ranking Factor?.

Implementing the correct schema on your international pages (especially where translations have occurred) can help search engines serve the correct version of your content to the right users in a structured way. As prices, shipping times, availability and even language will change for each location, we suggest implementing a dynamic schema for each to save on time spent creating a schema for each page individually. 

For best results, ensure that you have: 

• Applied Schema to Every Language Version of Your Content
• Used the Correct Schema
  •  inLanguage schema is essential for translated pages
  • Product schema allows prices to be shown, as well as shipping times in SERPs. These will need to be localised to include foreign currencies, prices, and availability if fulfilment services are required. 
  • FAQPage schema will allow your product or service-related questions and answers to be shown when searched. Translating these pages and adding this schema dynamically will allow you to answer questions in different languages.
• Align Your Schema with Your Hreflang Tags (for instance, ensure that your /fr/ hreflang tags that direct traffic to French-speaking pages also have the corresponding inLanguage schema)

When adding schema to your site, remember to validate the schema either by validating the URL or code snippet. You can validate your schema here. 

Get Help International SEO With From Wildcat Digital

At Wildcat Digital, we help many of our clients take their businesses global using up-to-date SEO strategies. 

Speak with our team for help with Hreflang tag implementation, translation services, subfolder or subdomain technical SEO implementation, and full internationalisation strategies. 

Building an international website isn’t as easy as it first seems, so its always advisable to have an SEO by your side when making pivotal moves in the market. Investing now in a marketing strategy will help visibility in these untapped markets, helping your business return its investment. Book a consultation, or visit our International SEO Page to learn more.