International SEO

Expanding into a new market, or running a company in multiple countries? Then you need international SEO. When you’re expanding your footprint, you need to start off on the right foot if you want to hit the ground running in every region. International SEO can help you do that.

International SEO is all about improving your business presence on Google’s search engine results in more than one country or language. You’ll capture clicks from your target country, win more revenue, and take over the world with your brand.

While it sounds straightforward to launch a website in a new country, a lot of speed bumps can come up along the way. It isn’t as easy as copying and pasting your website for a different country or hitting ‘Translate’ and using that content. Your content needs to be primed for that specific market to maximize conversions and bring in the bucks.

There are a lot of technical considerations that go into International SEO, as well as content considerations. You need to have the right language and targeting preferences, so Google knows which versions of a page to send your visitors to. You also need to localize your content for the language and market, and add in relevant keywords based on searches in that region or specific country (all without encountering duplicate content penalties). Lastly, you need to build up your website authority by creating link profiles in multiple languages.

Our International SEO service is a delicate mix of technical SEO and inbound marketing. You need to get both right to skyrocket your rankings in multiple locations. We know it sounds tricky. That’s because it is. That’s why you need the best team on your side to help nail your International SEO.

At OMG, we’ve helped countless companies explore new frontiers and make their mark on the world. Our global SEO Gurus have the know-how and the experience to get your international sites off to a solid start, and snowball your sales.

International SEO helps you put all your eggs into one basket: your sales basket. With a well-crafted SEO strategy, all of your websites will work hard to blow up your sales around the world.

After you’ve diagnosed your business’ need for an international footprint and got the executive sign-off, you’re probably wondering: what next? An effective international SEO strategy hones in on a number of factors: localization, technical optimization, link building, and even language targeting if needed.

If you want to target a specific market, start by clearly listing your target countries and on the differences between these audiences (remember to confirm the official language). Consumers in the UK are different than those in Germany, and consumers in Chile have different shopping and searching preferences to those in Australia. Similarly, keywords with huge volumes in the US might get ZERO results in another country, even if it's in the same language. You need to get as much intel as possible on the region you’re looking to compete in, before you hit the ground running. What are the region-specific retailers that are selling your or your competitor’s products? How are your potential customers searching for your products or services? What are people searching for? What are the industry SEO benchmarks and best practices? What websites are the most influential for link building? What is your language targeting strategy and your target market is in a different language?

Once you’ve got this, it’s time to get cracking. You need an international-friendly URL structure to specify your target countries and regions. There are many ways to organize your content, but we recommend one that utilizes country-specific subdirectories. For example, if your website is something like this: thisisyourwebsite.com, then a subdirectory for Australia would look like this: thisisyourwebsite.com/au. This structure is good because it allows you to use the existing authority of your main domain to boost the visibility of your international content as you expand into new areas and even a site with a different language.

Next, set up country targeting in Google Search Console, both for your main domain and each subdirectory. Hop onto Google Search Console and claim each domain and subfolder one at a time and specify which country you want to target. Also, don’t forget to implement Hreflang tags. These are small bits of code that act as language meta-tags to tell search engines which language you are targeting with the content on your site or pages.

Another important aspect of international SEO is content. For your content to rank for specific international keywords, you want effective language targeting, which means you need to create content in your target language on a regular basis. You also need to build links back to your website from trusted local websites, such as bloggers, popular local businesses or news publications in your target region and language. All of these bring traffic to your website, while shooting you up to the top of Google rankings. With more local traffic, you’ll supercharge your brand awareness and win more revenue.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, we totally get it. Creating an international presence is tough, and it’s not something that happens overnight on a search engine. It takes time, technical prowess, and a ton of experience to knock it out of the park. Some of the changes required to your site will render big structural changes that are hard to undo. So it's important that you also consider the pros and cons. But when you get it right, it’s a cost-effective revenue generation machine for your business.

We are here to shine a spotlight on your brand on the global search engine stage. Our Gurus are on the ground in your market, so we’ve got the 411 on search trends around the world. Let us work on your technical SEO for your site using Webmaster Tools, and deliver content marketing campaigns that power your global business strategy, and catapult your website to the top of search. OMG has grown thousands of businesses with the power of international SEO. Now it’s your turn. Get in front of global customers and skyrocket sales with our International SEO service.

Easy! Fill out the form below, and one of our Growth Gurus will be in touch to arrange a quick 30-minute strategy call to learn more about your brand and what your goals are. After that, we’ll shoot through a FREE Digital Audit that covers exactly where you’re nailing it, and where your online marketing needs fine-tuning. You’ll also get a six-month digital marketing strategy designed to generate real revenue for your site.

Plus, we offer full transparency before you sign up for anything. There’s no catch and no fine print. Just campaigns that get results. Get started now by filling out the form below!

While SEO is SEO, there are a lot of differences between international SEO and local SEO. The main difference is that with international SEO, you’re targeting customers in different countries and languages on search engines — whereas local SEO is concentrated in one suburb or city.

With international SEO, your net is wider and you have huge potential to tap into a large international customer base. But this comes with the pitfalls of competing with other global companies on search engines. If you’re targeting a specific country or region, you’re going head-to-head with every other site on Earth that’s attempting to capture the same audience in the same or different language. Hello, competition. Meanwhile, local SEO is laser-focused on customers in one area, which means the audience pool is smaller but hyper-targeted and more likely to convert.

There are also different technical components to each. When you’re a global business, you often have multiple versions of your website to manage, often in different languages in different countries. You need to set everything up efficiently and optimize hundreds of pages of information to make sure your site is primed for rankings on search engines and revenue. Local SEO focuses on optimization for one business in one location with one website.

Ultimately, there are more moving parts with international SEO vs local SEO. You’re targeting a huge potential audience, so you need to have a focused strategy to get the best results on search engines. It’s all about striking a fine balance between maximizing your reach and appearing first on search results for the most relevant keywords in that market on search engines, sometimes it might even be in a different language. That’s where we’ve got you covered.

We’ll work with you to build the best strategy to reach your audience, no matter their language and convert visits into sales — no matter where you target markets are. With the help of our Gurus, sales will shoot through the roof and you’ll be on your way to global business domination.

It depends entirely on what your budget is and what your goals are. If you already have an established brand presence, your best bet is to have a main domain and then create subdirectories for each language you are targeting. This is the approach that most well-known brands use with a site in a different language, including Apple and Nike. However, if there are massive differences in content, services, or products you offer between different languages, it’s worth exploring the option to create different websites with a different country code top level domain (ccTLD). ccTLDs are URLs that contain a two-letter country code that tell users and search engines which country a website is registered. The top level domain is geo-targeted by default, which means that Google knows, without a doubt, that the top level domain is relevant to the specific country and the language. This is also where a hreflang tag might come in handy. By using the hreflang tag correctly on your site, your visitors are funnelled to the right site with the right language and can start their journey towards converting into customers.

But bear in mind: this approach requires a larger budget, because you need to create multiple websites in different languages, purchase multiple domain names and create content in a different language. You need to be crystal clear on what the best strategy is for your site, otherwise you’ll lose valuable time and money — instead of raking in the revenue.

Before you start panicking, don’t. It’s all good — we’ve got this. Our Gurus are well-versed in the ins-and-outs of SEO. We’ll work with you to find the best approach for your business. Then, just like renowned International SEO consultant Aleyda Solis, we’ll test, test and test again to make sure your SEO and content is working for your business. Scoop up more sales in every market and smash your revenue goals.