Internationalizing Your SEO By Aleyda Solis

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#SMX #22A3 @aleyda #SMX #22A3 @aleyda INTERNATIONALIZING YOUR SEO Setting Hreang for International SERP Success

Transcript of Internationalizing Your SEO By Aleyda Solis

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#SMX #22A3 @aleyda#SMX #22A3 @aleyda

INTERNATIONALIZING YOUR SEO Setting Hreflang for International SERP Success

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I’m Aleyda Solis

ORAINTI.COM @ALEYDA FB.COM/ALEYDASEOTIPS/

I do SEO I Tweet I Share

@aleyda#SMX #22A3

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I’m Aleyda Solis

@aleyda#SMX #22A3

I Write I Speak I’m Featured

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It’s time to take your search visibility abroad….

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Targeting international search audiences can be an important growth driver

emarketer.com

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Targeting international search audiences can be an important growth driver

emarketer.com

Probably you should too ;)

Some markets are still unserved

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Like this! The US can become one of many profitable markets to target

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It’s critical to connect with the audience through the relevant Web presence though

Search Results for “Cape Town Holiday Rentals” in google.co.uk: What are .co.za ccTLDs doing here?

co.uk

co.za

co.uk

co.uk

co.za

com

net

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“Car Hire Sydney” in google.co.uk full of Australian ccTLDs and only gTLD that is UK targeted

Definitely not like this

com.au

com.au

com.au

com.au

com

Hertz is ranking with its Australian ccTLD despite having a UK one targeting that query

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These misaligned search results will have worse rankings, CTR and conversions

This happens with a UK ccTLD

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Check out this other example at a more granular level comparing the same keywords performance

US positions for the UK subdirectory are similar but with much lower CTR

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And not only with different country versions, but also language ones, cannibalizing themselves

Searching from Google Spain

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Verify if you’re suffering from this issue!

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Hreflang can help you solve them!

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077

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The goal is to specify each of your URLs language & alternatively country targeting

brand.com

brand.co.uk

brand.com/es/

English for the US Default

Spanish for the US

English for the UK

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Hreflang should use ISO 639-1 values for languages and ISO 3166-1 for countries

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Requiring always a language to be specified and alternatively a country, no continent support

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ />

English

English in the US

OR

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English for the US Default

Spanish for the US

English for the UK

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/“ />

Mapping each URL to their alternate languages or countries versions

brand.com

brand.co.uk

brand.com/es/

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For every page on the sites

English for the US Default

Spanish for the US

English for the UK

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ /> <link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />

<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

brand.com/dogs/

brand.co.uk/dogs/

brand.com/es/perros/

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You can include them in the HTMLs head, HTTP headers & XML Sitemaps

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Depending on the site characteristics, it might be better to use one or the other

Add them in HTML in sites with lower

number of versions & coding flexibility

Add them in XML Sitemaps in non-

flexible sites with a high number of versions

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… or avoid completely

Only if you want to invest a lot of time validating the HTTP

headers

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A (yummy) piece of cake?

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BEWARE THE ROAD CAN BE TRICKY…

@aleyda#SMX #22A3

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Non-existing hreflang values

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Like using “en-UK” instead of “en-GB” for pages in English targeted to the UK

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Including a country without a language, which is mandatory to add

hreflang="pt-br"

hreflang="en-ca"

Not supported

hreflang="es-mx"

hreflang="en-us"

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hreflang=“fr-ca”

Using underscores instead of dashes or switching the language & countries values order

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Mistakes with the URLs added in the hreflangs

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Not including the correct URLs in the hreflang annotation

Better use absolute URLs and make sure to add the right one for the

specified language-country

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Forgetting to self-refer by specifying the current URL in the hreflangs

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Not referring back at all from one language or country version to another

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Adding non-indexable, canonicalized, error, redirected or blocked URLs in hreflangs

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Non-relevant hreflang values for the target market

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Specifying unnecessary country codes for language targeted pages

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Or adding a language or country value to a URL that is in another one

Better use absolute URLs and make sure to add the right one for the

specified language-country

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Trying to “override” a ccTLD country targeting by specifying another one in hreflangs

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Hreflang won’t change the geolocation of a ccTLD or of geotargeted sub-directories or subdomains

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Ugh! So many different types of hreflang errors :/

Incorrect hreflang country or language Values

Mistaken, non-indexable or non-existing URLs

Non-relevant target market values

Not including the hreflang tags to every version to

point back

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STOP

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Let’s use the hreflang kit to avoid & spot these issues

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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For the Generation

HREFLANG Tags Generation

1

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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Obtain the right hreflang tag pattern to use in your HTMLs with the Hreflang Generator Tool

bit.ly/generatorhreflang

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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Like this! Ready to update every page URL

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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Do you Prefer to use an XML sitemap? Include your hreflang in them with the hrefbuilder

hrefbuilder.com

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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It allows to import URLs from many sources, specify its international structure & edit values

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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As well as to validate them before their generation

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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For the Validation

HREFLANG Tags Validation

2

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There are page specific hreflang validators but these are painful to use with big sites

https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/hreflang/

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These Enterprise-level SEO Crawlers spot issues at a larger scale, whether in HTMLs or XML sitemaps

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Botify has an “internationalization” section directly segmenting each major hreflang error type

botify.com

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And you can generate any report directly by combining them…

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Like this one with URLs pointing to not compliant (not found, non-indexable, etc.) alternates

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OnPage.org has a multilingual settings report showing URLs mapping to a translated version

onpage.org

Shows each language and country version pointing out and in for each URL

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Allowing to specifically verify the alternate URLs pointed from each page

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As well as segmenting the URLs per country & Language, and the type of issues they have

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Deepcrawl lists URLs with hreflangs & alternate versions, specifying where they have been found

deepcrawl.com

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Allowing to generate reports of those URLs with errors too

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Adding non-original URLs, such as redirected or canonicalized ones in hreflang annotations

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For the On-going Monitoring

HREFLANG Tags Monitoring

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It’s a must to check for any change or issue with the Search Console International Targeting report

If you have multiple sitemaps you don’t know in which one these issues are, but you can identify their location with the crawlers

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It directly specifies the type of identified error and the number of pages affected

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As well as the URLs where these issues have been found, that you can export in CSV

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If you follow these principles, generation & validation steps, this should be your hreflang status

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And your organic search visibility & traffic growth in international markets

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It’s time to grow abroad

@aleyda#SMX #22A3

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Thanks!

@aleyda#SMX #22A3