How to Succeed at Real International SEO Scenarios - #SearchLove London

How to succeed at real (not ideal) International SEO scenarios

international seo at #searchlove by @aleyda from @woorank

From Unknown Foreigner to Local Star

Raise your handif you have International SEO experience


Raise your handif you have SUCCESSFUL International SEO experience


Going Internationalis ATTRACTIVE

NOM NOM NOM!


CCTLDS OR SUB-DIRECTORIES?LANGUAGES OR COUNTRIES?


Going Internationalcan be COMPLEX


Going Internationalrequires a LOCALIZED approach

DO I LOOK LIKE A NATIVE NOW?

Here’s what I’ve learnedafter +5 years of International SEO successes & failures

MY NAME IS ALEYDA SOLIS, INTERNATIONAL SEARCH MARKETER,

HEAD OF DIGITAL STRATEGY AT WOORANK


Challenge No. 1: Your International Strategy


WHY DID YOU BUILT THEM THEN?


“We don’t have enough resources to update all of our International sites”

DON’T TRY TO TARGET MORE THAN YOU CAN SUPPORT: PRIORITIZE THE MOST BENEFICIAL INTERNATIONAL MARKETS & CONTENT

WITHIN THOSE MARKETS TO START WITH THEM



USE YOUR WEB ANALYTICS TO IDENTIFY YOUR SITE INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC BEHAVIOUR: VISITS & CONVERSIONS VOLUME, TREND, RATE & TYPE PER

COUNTRY & LANGUAGE.

CHECK WITH YOUR WEBMASTER TOOLS WHICH QUERIES & PAGES BRING YOU INTERNATIONAL SEARCH VISIBILITY PER COUNTRY, THEIR IMPRESSIONS,

CLICKS, CTR & POSITION OVER TIME.


IDENTIFY THE SEARCH VOLUME AND TREND OPPORTUNITY FOR THE RELEVANT TERMS IN THE MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRY MARKETS USING

KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS


IDENTIFY THE SEARCH VOLUME AND TREND OPPORTUNITY FOR THE RELEVANT TERMS IN THE MOST IMPORTANT COUNTRY MARKETS USING

KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS


Suggestion Keyword Finder

USE THESE KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS

DON’T RELY ON GOOGLE GLOBAL MARKET FINDER TO IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITY, IT’S NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE


WARNING: THEY LOOK SIMILAR BUT ARE NOT THE SAME

NATIVE SUPPORT IS A MUST DURING ALL THE INTERNATIONAL SEO PROCESS, EVEN AT THE START AND WHEN IT’S IN YOUR OWN

LANGUAGE BUT TARGETING TO OTHER COUNTRIES


“Search Engine Optimization” “Search Engine Optimisation”

“User behavior” “User behaviour”

“I’m going to check my diary”“I’m going to check my agenda”

British EnglishAmerican English

VALIDATE WHAT’S REQUIRED FROM A BUSINESS, TECHNICAL, CONTENT & LANGUAGE SUPPORT PERSPECTIVE TO OPERATE

IN THE IDENTIFIED TOP MARKETS


TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY &

SUPPORT FOR MULTI COUNTRY / LANGUAGE

SETTING

MULTILINGUAL CONTENT

DEVELOPMENT & UPDATE

ONGOING NATIVE SUPPORT BUDGET &

AVAILABILITY

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCT / SERVICE

DELIVERY

INTERNATIONAL PRICING & CURRENCY

INTERNATIONAL LEGAL & OPERATION

CONSTRAINTS

WITH THE PREVIOUS DATA YOU CAN VALIDATE THE FEASIBILITY & CALCULATE THE BREAK-EVEN POINT & EXPECTED ROI FOR EACH

MARKET, USING THE INTERNATIONAL SEO ROI CALCULATOR


WITH THE PREVIOUS DATA YOU CAN VALIDATE THE FEASIBILITY & CALCULATE THE BREAK-EVEN POINT & EXPECTED ROI FOR EACH

MARKET, USING THE INTERNATIONAL SEO ROI CALCULATOR


http://www.internationalseomap.com/roi-calculator/



REMEMBER THAT YOUR GOAL IS TO BE PROFITABLE: VALIDATE IF YOUR INTERNATIONAL SEO PROJECT IS VIABLE AT THE MOMENT FOR THE

MOST IMPORTANT IDENTIFIED MARKETS


>Your International SEO potential Visits & Conversions for a break-even

Yes No

Continue with the internationaL SEO project Might be too early1. Buy & secure your ccTLDs for future activity2. Create custom alerts in Google Analytics for important countries

Challenge No. 2 - Your International Targeting


“I want a Latin America Version for my site”

YES, BECAUSE ALL LATIN AMERICA IS THE EXACT SAME RIGHT?


IDENTIFY THE BEST INTERNATIONAL TARGETING FOR YOUR SITES, ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN REQUIREMENTS & RESTRICTIONS.


Is location a factor that influence your Web operations?

Yes No

Are there enough traffic & conversions to target each country?

Language Targeting

Yes No

Country Targeting

You can start with

A CRAWLABLE & CONSISTENT INTERNATIONAL WEB STRUCTURE IS FUNDAMENTAL ALTHOUGH NOT ENOUGH TO AVOID

INTERNATIONAL SEARCH ALIGNMENT ISSUES


BETTER TO GEOTARGET

BETTER TO INHERIT POPULARITY FROM EXISTENT SITE

BETTER FOR SITES WITH MORE CONTENT

BETTER TO INHERIT POPULARITY


INTERNATIONAL SEARCH ALIGNMENT ISSUES MIGHT HAPPEN WITH SITES IN THE SAME LANGUAGE TARGETING DIFFERENT COUNTRIES


AND EVEN WITH SITES VERSIONS IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!


AVOID MISALIGNMENTS BY INCLUDING HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS SPECIFYING YOUR PAGES LANGUAGE & COUNTRY TARGETING


TAKE A LOOK AT THE HREFLANG CASE STUDY THAT @SAURAVRIMAL PUBLISHED AT THE SEER INTERACTIVE BLOG


TAKE A LOOK AT THE HREFLANG CASE STUDY THAT @SAURAVRIMAL PUBLISHED AT THE SEER INTERACTIVE BLOG

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/case-study-the-impact-of-hreflang-tag






MAKE SURE TO USE THE RIGHT LANGUAGE & COUNTRY SPECIFICATION IN YOUR HREFLANG TAGS

USE THE HREFLANG TAG GENERATOR TOOL TO CREATE YOUR HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS


SOON WITH SUPPORT TO MASSIVELY GENERATE HREFLANG TAGS

USE THE HREFLANG TAG GENERATOR TOOL TO CREATE YOUR HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS


http://www.internationalseomap.com/hreflang-tags-generator/




YOU CAN ALSO USE THE MEDIAFLOW HREFLANG SITEMAP TOOL TO GENERATE AN XML SITEMAP INCLUDING THE HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS


http://www.themediaflow.com/resources/tools/href-lang-tool/

YOU CAN ALSO USE THE MEDIAFLOW HREFLANG SITEMAP TOOL TO GENERATE AN XML SITEMAP INCLUDING THE HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS




VALIDATE THE IMPLEMENTED HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS WITH DEJANSEO HREFLANG VALIDATOR


VALIDATE THE IMPLEMENTED HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS WITH DEJANSEO HREFLANG VALIDATOR

http://flang.dejanseo.com.au/




THERE ARE ALSO NEW WARNING MESSAGES FOR INCORRECT HREFLANG IMPLEMENTATIONS IN GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS, AS THE

ONE RECEIVED BY GIANLUCA FIORELLI (HT @GFIORELLI1)


IF YOU’RE COUNTRY TARGETING AND NOT USING A CCTLD: GEOTARGET EACH SUB-DIRECTORY OR SUB-DOMAIN

WITH WEBMASTER TOOLS


AVOID AUTOMATIC REDIRECTS THAT TAKE USERS WHERE THEY HAVEN’T ASKED TO GO. SUGGEST, BUT NOT USING INTERSTITIALS. THEY’RE INTRUSIVE

AND MIGHT MESS WITH YOUR SITE CRAWLABILITY.


TAKE A LOOK AT HOW AMAZON DOES IT


AND BE CAREFUL TO NOT MIX LANGUAGE WITH COUNTRY TARGETING, YOU NEED TO BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR SITE CONTENT & FEATURES

showing a spaniard specific character in A “generic” spanish language version MIGHT NOT BE ATTRACTIVE FOR THE LATAM AUDIENCE

Challenge No. 3 - Your International Popularity


“We’re so popular here already, we just need to

extrapolate what we have”

YES, I BET PEOPLE THERE LIKE THE EXACT SAME STUFF THAN US RIGHT?


THEY’LL NEED TO REBRAND IF THEY LOOK TO TARGET AND CONNECT WITH SPANISH SPEAKING AUDIENCE IN THE FUTURE (HT @ANILOPEZ)



USE THE CONSUMER BAROMETER & TNS DIGITAL LIFE TO BETTER UNDERSTAND YOUR INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE BEHAVIOUR


http://www.consumerbarometer.com/

USE THE CONSUMER BAROMETER & TNS DIGITAL LIFE TO BETTER UNDERSTAND YOUR INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE BEHAVIOUR



USE SIMILARWEB TO IDENTIFY THE TOP WEBSITES IN THE DESIRED INDUSTRY AND COUNTRY



http://www.similarweb.com/global

USE SIMILARWEB TO IDENTIFY THE TOP WEBSITES IN THE DESIRED INDUSTRY AND COUNTRY




USE BUZZSUMO, SOCIAL CRAWLYTICS & LINK EXPLORERS (OSE, MAJESTICSEO & AHREFS) TO IDENTIFY THE MOST LINKED & SHARED

CONTENT IN EACH INTERNATIONAL MARKET & INDUSTRY

USE FOLLOWERWONK, TOPSY & BUZZSUMO TO IDENTIFY LOCAL INDUSTRY INFLUENCERS IN SOCIAL NETWORKS AND BUILD

RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEM


NATIVE SUPPORT IS A MUST TO CONNECT WITH YOUR LOCAL AUDIENCE & BECOME AN AUTHORITY, BEING A FOREIGN BRAND. JUST REMEMBER TO

RESPECT LOCAL TRADITIONS TOO.


THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT NON-ENGLISH SPEAKING MARKETS ARE USUALLY LESS COMPETITIVES, BUT LINK SPAM IS MORE COMMON. BE

CAREFUL WITH HURTING YOUR OTHER SITE VERSIONS!


Just two more resources to help you...


AN INTERNATIONAL SEO CHECKLIST



http://moz.com/blog/the-international-seo-checklist

AN INTERNATIONAL SEO CHECKLIST



AND A LIST WITH +40 INTERNATIONAL SEO TOOLS



http://moz.com/blog/40-plus-tools-to-advance-your-international-seo-process

AND A LIST WITH +40 INTERNATIONAL SEO TOOLS





LET’S GO ABROAD Now you’re ready to face these International SEO challenges



THANK YOU Do you have any questions?


FIND HERE THE AWESOME TUBE MAP UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anniemole/313981428/



How to Succeed at Real International SEO Scenarios - #SearchLove London

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