As your business expands to the rest of the world, your promotions should go beyond your home country. You need to implement a sound international search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to reach new global customers and markets. Whether you’re a multinational company or an e-commerce brand, a company that can provide top-notch international SEO services offers a competitive edge for your brand online.
Looking for the best global SEO agency feels like finding a needle in a haystack. But if you think this team isn’t necessary, here are all the reasons that say otherwise.
Key Takeaways:
- An international SEO agency can create content in the local language that doesn’t just involve direct translations but also the language’s expressions and nuances.
- People in this team will also make sure the content meets guidelines and the websites are optimized well.
- Technical SEO is still part of international SEO efforts, particularly for determining where a site is located.
1. Expertise in Language Targeting and Localization
Marketing to a global audience needs more than website translations. You need an international SEO agency that can do language targeting and cultural localization so your content doesn’t come across as offensive or nonsensical to your target audience in different countries.
Here’s why it’s important:
- A sentence that works in English may not work in other places.
- Localization fine-tunes the content to the country’s currency, date formats, local dialects, and cultural behavior.
- A well-adjusted piece of content can improve engagement and credibility across regions of the country you’re promoting.
The agency will conduct keyword research, familiarize themselves with local expressions, learn local search behaviors, and include the terms they gathered in the content to make it effective and resonate with the audience.
2. In-Depth International Keyword Research
Global markets don’t have the same keywords. If you’re ranking for “sneakers” in the U.S., you won’t rank for the same keyword in the U.K., since they use the word “trainers” for a pair of running shoes.
Even with all the keywords you searched, it won’t matter if you don’t understand unique search trends and terminologies in other countries. Search engines often emphasize local context in search engine rankings above other criteria.
The agency will then do the following:
- Determine target markets: Identify the countries and languages to focus on for the SEO strategy.
- Localize search intent: They’ll research how users react to content differently in each region by using keyword research tools with location filters.
- Analyze competitors: Study how their opponents use and implement keyword strategies.
- Check trends and search volumes: The team will see if the terms are relevant and in demand in each region.
- Consider cultural nuances: The team will use native phrases instead of direct translations that don’t work and validate their work with native speakers.
All of these steps are essential for the agency to build an international SEO agency based on actual search intent.
3. Mastery of Technical SEO Across Regions
Technical SEO is one of the foundations of SEO efforts, especially if you’re targeting multiple countries and languages. Your agency should be able to do these things:
- Implement hreflang tags correctly to tell search engines the language a webpage has.
- Structure URLs with the following:
- ccTLDs or country-code top-level domains to identify a site’s location, such as “.us” for the United States and “.uk” for the United Kingdom.
- Subdirectories, which are folders within a website’s main structure, are used to organize content.
- Subdomains that organize different sections or parts of a website’s content.
- Manage site speed and mobile optimization for different regions.
- Customize technical SEO solutions for international websites.
- Do advanced diagnostics on your website to ensure search engines correctly index content.
4. Understanding Local Search Engines
While Google is used in the United States and other countries, other countries don’t use it as their main search engine. Russia uses Yandex, China has Baidu, and Naver dominates South Korea’s internet.
International SEO experts understand how these engines’ local SEO works, especially if you want to promote your content in these countries. Taking them for granted means losing a huge amount of target markets and traffic that could keep your business afloat. The team will optimize content that meets local search engine guidelines so it appears on local search results.
5. Management of Multi-Regional Content
Search engines may get confused or dilute your site’s rankings when you publish duplicate content in various regions. You need an agency that provides global SEO services to:
- Customize content per region while keeping a consistent brand identity.
- Use regional redirects and canonical tags.
- Plan a global SEO strategy with simple execution.
6. Consistent Brand Voice Everywhere
In digital marketing, having an inconsistent brand voice that doesn’t adapt to the audience is a huge lapse. This can be damaging if you’re executing an international SEO strategy. Inconsistent translations and diluted brand identity in some markets can cause this to happen.
The agency can maintain a unified brand voice in every language it uses to promote. It aligns the content tone and message with local expectations and cultural differences. It tells stories without losing relevance. After they do, your content can be remembered by people in the language they know.
7. Analytics and Performance Tracking
One of the best practices in international SEO is tracking your traffic, not just in the U.S. but in the region you promote. You should see data on:
- Local keyword performance
- Bounce rates in other regions
- Mobile usability of your website across devices in various countries
The agency will provide you with:
- Insights on how to optimize underperforming content
- Analysis of the return on investment of your SEO efforts
- Customized dashboards for some region-specific metrics
8. Advanced Link Building
Getting links from credible local sources is one of the best international SEO practices that you need to follow. The global SEO agency knows how to get these country-specific links.
Backlinks from local domains, such as those ending in .fr, .jp, and .ph, can improve trust in your brand. Local mentions can increase your business’s reputation in search engines.
9. Compliance with International Guidelines
The agency will comply with international guidelines when it operates the SEO efforts targeted at different countries. They won’t damage your brand’s credibility or drag you down with legal issues for non-compliance and penalties from search engines.
The team will optimize forms, privacy policies, and cookie banners and make sure your content meets regional standards so you can focus on more important business matters.
Final Thoughts
Expanding your business worldwide is a huge necessity, with the world becoming increasingly connected. An agency with the best international SEO services can help pull that off with its tools, knowledge, and strategies to penetrate global markets. With these services, you can unlock massive potential for growth that can pay off for years.
OTS News on Social Media