As your business grows beyond borders, the need for a solid international SEO audit becomes impossible to ignore. A website that might be performing well in your country might struggle in another nation. And in most cases, it’s not just about search engines but also people, their preferences, and how they might be searching.
Expanding your business’s global reach is merely about translating content. It’s more about understanding how your audience might behave in different regions and aligning your digital presence accordingly. When done right, multi-country SEO can increase your market share and improve brand visibility even more.
However, if we’re being honest, getting international SEO right isn’t easy at all. There are language barriers and cultural differences, which affect search behavior and technical complexities,
Including The Following:
- Hreflang tags.
- Country-specific domains.
- Localized keyword targeting.
So, without a clear strategy, there’s a chance of getting lost in the process. Thankfully, though, if you’re trying to do everything alone, it might be better to start your journey with an international SEO audit. Here’s how you can begin
1: Define Your International SEO Goals:
Before diving into the technical stuff, it’s always best to take a step back and ask yourself why you want to conduct an international SEO audit?
A: Identifying Demographics You Want to Target
First things first, you need to identify the countries and languages you want to target. However, while you’re at it, it’s important to remember that some countries speak multiple languages while one language is used in many nations. So, instead of blindly targeting the language,
Think About -
- The people you’re trying to reach.
- Will they be interested in your product or not?
B: Geo-Targeting vs. Linguistic Targeting
Now comes the choice between linguistic targeting and geo-targeting. To begin with, geo-targeting focuses on specific countries. So, for example, if you wanted to target users in Japan, you’d have to optimize your website for that region.
Linguistic targeting, on the other hand, is all about language. For instance, if you are targeting Spanish speakers worldwide, you’ll be able to garner users from Spain, Uruguay, Argentina, Panama, Mexico, El Salvador, etc.
C: Analyzing Market Potential
Learning market potential is all about understanding search demand in a region, the local competition you may have, and people’s buying behavior.
So, even if you find a market big enough to advertise your product, there’s always a chance that the buyers might not be interested in your product.
2: Evaluate URL Structure For International Targeting
Once you have cleared up your goals, the next step in your international SEO audit is choosing the right URL structure. And for that, you’ll have to choose between three options – ccTLDs, subdomains, and subdirectories.
- ccTLDs: Also known as country code top-level domains, ccTLDs are great for building trust with local users. However, they can be quite expensive to manage and harder to scale. Here’s how they may look like – example.fr or example.de. The first one is a French website while the latter is from Denmark.
- Subdirectories: These are a part of your main domain and may look like – example.com/fr/. They are much easier to set up and manage, especially if you are working on a centralized website. However, in most cases, they will not seem or feel ‘local’ to users of a specific demographic.
- Subdomains: Contrary to the other two, subdomains are somewhere in between. They look like fr.example.com and offer excellent flexibility all around. You can also optimize them separately and don’t feel too weird to local users.
3: Conduct Technical SEO Analysis
Now that your structure is in place, it’s time to get a bit technical. A strong SEO audit isn’t complete without checking behind-the-scenes stuff – because even great content can fail if your website isn’t technically sound. Here’s how you can improve it -
A: Crawlability And Indexing
By using tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console, you can find out which pages of your website are not indexed yet. This way, you can start examining the page and audit it accordingly. Sometimes, a simple no-index tag or a messed-up robots.txt file can block entire sections without you knowing it.
B: Page Speed Optimization
No one likes a slow-loading website, especially international users who may have a different network speed compared to yours.
But How Do You Optimize Your Page Speed?
- Compressing images.
- Using caching.
- Reducing unnecessary scripts.
There are some additional steps you may need to take, considering the type of website you have, but the aforesaid steps can offer a great head-start anyway.
C: Mobile Friendliness
Most people, nowadays, are browsing on their phones instead of desktops. So, before you make your website live, test it on different devices. Besides, it’s also important to make sure that the platform looks good and works smoothly everywhere.
Here Are Some Tips That Can Help You Make Your Website More Mobile-Friendly -
- Eliminate pop-ups.
- Make the navigation of the website more visible by using good fonts.
- Use large buttons and create a proper visual hierarchy.
- Write short CTAs (call-to-actions).
- Declutter the design of the website.
While you’re at it, make sure that the security of your website is good enough as well. Use HTTPS on all pages and keep a backup of whatever you are writing or providing on your website. This would build a sense of trust among users and search engines.
4: Keyword Research For Each Market
Keyword research isn’t just about finding search terms and words that people are using. It’s more about understanding your audience and what they are looking for.
So, when you are doing an international SEO audit, finding keywords in English and translating them into another language won’t work. Instead, you’ll have to -
A: Local Trends & Cultural Nuances
Trends, especially when you’re targeting a specific demographic, depend largely on the locals. For example, in Alabama, local trends are generally focused on tourism, agriculture, and manufacturing. New York, on the other hand, is more focused on technology, real estate, and fashion.
Understanding Local Trends Of A City Or A Location Can Be Done In Two Ways -
- Visit the place and talk to the locals to learn more about what they need.
- Use a tool like Google Trends or region-specific keyword planners to check what people are usually searching for.
B: Branded & Non-Branded Keywords
Branded keywords can help you track brand awareness across different markets and, in some cases, industries. However, non-branded keywords are all about reaching new users who might not know anything about your company yet.
- For example, a branded keyword could be Apple iPhone, as it’s directly referencing the tech-focused organization, called Apple.
- A non-branded keyword, on the other hand, is a digital marketing agency. This refers to a type of product your company might be offering, but doesn’t give away or mention the name of your organization at all.
C: Hreflang Implementation
Your keyword strategy should always work together with hreflang implementation. In case your keyphrases are off, or your hreflang tags don’t match your webpage’s intent, users might land on the wrong version of your website.
Here’s A Step-By-Step Process Of How You Can Implement Hreflang Tags Effectively -
Firstly, you need to add the ‘hreflang’ tag to the section of every page and its corresponding regional/language variants. Make sure that all international versions of a URL have the same ‘hreflang’ tags.
Secondly, it’s important to include a self-referencing tag (such as href="https://example.com/en-us" with hreflang="en-US") for every page as well. If the page has a regional or language variant, include the reciprocal tag there as well. You can also include ‘hreflang’ annotations in the sitemap.
5: Optimize Content For Multilingual/Multiregional Audiences
When it comes to global visibility, content still plays a leading role – no matter which industry you are working in. But the thing is – the similar type of content isn’t going to work everywhere.
So, you have to...
A: Consider Localizing
When it comes to optimizing your content for multiregional audiences, the first thing you need to do is create unique content for each demographic. Refrain from translating your existing pages word for word. Instead, localize the message and consider tone, cultural references, and product preferences of your audience while you’re at it.
B: Hire A Professional Translator
Using Google Translate is a cool idea when it comes to writing content in a foreign language. But at the end of the day, it’s not human. So, sometimes, your ideas can get, uh... lost in translation. Instead of risking a sudden surge of misunderstanding, it might be better to work with a professional translator. They’ll understand your idea better and communicate it profoundly with your audience due to their excellent grasp of the language.
C: Metadata Optimization
Apart from the main content, your title tags, URLs, and meta descriptions should also be written in the target language. This, in turn, can improve click-through rates on your website even more and send stronger signals to search engines. Also, if you are using geo-targeting SEO, it’s important to ensure that each version of your website’s content matches the local intent. This helps search engines serve the right version to the right user. And yeah, it also improves trust.
The Bottom Line
While conducting an international SEO audit can be beneficial for your business, the process of doing so can also be quite hectic. So, if you’re not well-versed in the process, it might be better to get help from an agency and get it done as soon as possible.
