3 tips for a successful international SEO strategy

Today, if you want to increase traffic to your site and increase your international sales at the lowest possible cost, then an international search engine optimization strategy is critical. While technical considerations should not be overlooked, the main challenge now is to create content that is appropriate to the local culture of the target market. We offer three tips to help you build an effective localized SEO strategy that will deliver results around the world.

1. Choosing the right search engine: the key to any SEO strategy
It’s important to find the most widely used search engine in your target market: not necessarily Google in every country! For example, in Russia, the most popular search engine is Yandex. In China, it is Baidu. Each of these search engines has its own algorithms and rules, which means your keywords and SEO strategies must be adjusted to ensure you rank well on the results page. To help you anticipate all these subtleties, it’s always a good idea to work with local experts who can guide you through the process.

2. Keywords: insufficient translation
In an international context, choosing keywords is much more complicated than simply translating each term. Terms vary from country to country, even between countries that use the same language.

Example 1: Synonyms
Vocabulary may vary from region to region, which can have a huge impact on your incoming traffic. For a particular word, your rankings can be very high and you want to know why your traffic is still low. For example, if your online clothing store sells sweaters in the US, the relevant keyword would be a “sweater.” In the UK, this keyword may have a high ranking, but this position will be useless because your UK customer will search for the same item by typing a different keyword: “jumper.”

Example 2: English and local language
In many cases, English words are more popular than their local translations. For example, in Germany, the term “computer” is more commonly used than “Rechner.” This preference for English words varies by country. In South America, jeans are called “jeans”, while in Spain they are called “vaqueros”.

A step-by-step guide to choosing keywords
In order to optimize your keyword research and optimize your content, you need to follow these stages:

• Translate your most used keywords and their variants to get the widest range of options.
• Use tools like SEMRush (Google’s Keyword Tool) to research keywords used by competitors
• Compare the popularity of terms in the new keyword list and choose the most relevant ones.
• You should then create a glossary of the identified keywords and provide a clear and detailed SEO briefing for your translator.

3. Localize all your content
Some translated websites may have serious consequences for SEO. Search engines believe that pages with multiple languages ??are less relevant. Therefore, it is important to localize the entire site, and don’t forget the basic elements of images, URLs, menus, etc.

Some translations also affect your trust in your visitors: it’s important to be as local as possible to win your audience.

Most importantly, building a successful international SEO strategy requires patience and perseverance. It’s important to publish localized content on a regular basis and continue to maintain these efforts over time. Maintaining an effective SEO strategy is a key factor in increasing international sales.