How To Correctly Setup Your SEO For Different Countries

Do you want to see a great increase in traffic? Of course who doesn't want to. The easiest way out to do that is to optimize your Search Engine Optimization strategies for different languages and countries. The international market in today's time for your content is huge, trust us on that. Also, most of the world does not speak English. But in case you are only targeting English speakers based in your country, then you are essentially missing out on a huge audience. So in order to take advantage of the huge international market and multilingual market, you will have to make sure that you are using a few best practices. Hence, our SEO company is here. In this article, we will show you exactly how to set up your Search Engine Optimization that is SEO for different countries and languages.

STEPS TO SET UP SEO FOR DIFFERENT COUNTRIES

1. Make A Proper SEO Plan

The first step in optimizing your website for international readers is to make sure that you have a perfect SEO plan in place before you even get started with it. The process can be complicated quite a lot of times, and if you do not know what you are doing, you can get lost quickly and mess up things. You can take our help in this if you can't figure out what To do next. But do try as we have tried to make things simpler for you. To start things off, first figure out where your current traffic is coming from and if you already have a large international audience then you should probably start with that country first and then target the rest.

2. Decide If You Really Need An International SEO

We will be totally honest in this thing. Most of the smaller websites do not need to worry about the hassles which come along with setting up for different languages and countries. It is surely a difficult process which requires maintaining multiple websites in different languages. It is obviously a huge challenge as well, and if you are not ready for it, it might just be too much work and you will end up getting frustrated. Hence, you need to decide whether you really want to target different countries or different languages, or both of them.

3. Choose A Domain And URL Structure

Once you decide to go ahead with it and put in the required efforts to reap benefits, the next step is to choose a Domain and URL structure. The most important factor in creating a website that is customized for varied and multiple locations and languages is developing a URL structure. It may sound simple but it is really not and you will know it once you are into it. Here's some more information about choosing a domain and URL structure.

Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLDs)

A top level domain which is also known as TLD, is basically the phrase at the end of your domain name. The most common one is .com, that is a generic domain name which can be used for any particular country in the world. In it, there's no need of specifying any particular location. There are different TLDs for some countries though, such as  .mx for Mexico,  .co.uk for the United Kingdom, etc.

If you are going to target a specific country, then this may be your best strategy and will prove to be effective for sure. The idea that a strong TLD will enhance your rankings is a myth, but it does apply to international results as shown in research and past trends. A country focused TLD will definitely help you rank better in a particular location. According to a research by SEMRush, search engine results are much more accurate when using ccTLDs than the other options available.

HOW TO SET UP LANGUAGE SEO

Use A Human Translation

First and most important thing to do while setting up language SEO is that you need to use human translation. Yes, we know that Google Translate has come a long way. However, if you have ever seen poorly translated English, you know how exactly it feels like to read a content of your interest that is not written clearly by a native speaker. This is the reason why we recommend hiring a freelance translator on a website such as Upwork to do the job perfectly for you without burning hole in your pockets.

Create A Sitemap

To help search engines find your content easily, you will need to create a detailed sitemap with the language content that in entailed in the data. If you use WordPress, then we recommend a simple, free tool such as Yoast SEO or Google XML Sitemaps that will do this for you in no time.

Use hreflang & Alternate Tag

One of the possible difficulties you might encounter with multiple languages SEO is that of duplicate content. To avoid that, we recommend you to use the hreflang and alternate tags. These tools basically indicate Google that your page is an alternate version of another page wherein just the language is different.

Detect The Language Correctly

If you are just getting started with different locations as well as languages for your website, then you might think that the smart thing is to automatically redirect users to the language of their country. Although this seems to be the simplest solution, it really is not that easy and accurate. Countries do have a huge variety of languages, and it is a very bad idea to assume that one's language is based on one’s location. So do not mistaken in this step and take wise decision of detecting the language correctly.

Review And Check For Issues

The final step in setting up Language SEO is to make sure that everything is functioning properly. Before you even start building with off page SEO, you will have to make sure that all your efforts are worthwhile. To double check your website, simply go into the Google Search Console and make sure that everything is functioning well.

WRAPPING UP

Once you have decided to optimize your website for international audiences and additional languages, all you need to do is set it up properly. We hope that this article was helpful to you in understanding what it takes and how to set up your SEO for different countries. In case you need any help with it, feel free to get in touch with our SEO Company.