Home / Blog / Top 3 Basic International SEO Requirements
Top 3 Basic International SEO Requirements
September 24, 2013 by Hall
The importance of International SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become a basic necessity to most company websites who are targeting a global audience. The global economy has significantly increased in the number of companies seeking search marketing strategies in order to connect with target audiences but all over the world. The most recent changes by search engines has shifted to become dependent on user location. This has expanded the playing field for most SEOs where usage behavior has become more relevant to an effective International SEO campaign. Fortunately, it is not as difficult as it may sound.
To make your website focused to an international audience, there are three key elements that must be implemented in order for your efforts to be worthwhile.
Technical Search RequirementsFirst and foremost, getting your technical elements set up correctly is one of the most critical basics for a SEO campaign to be valuable and successful. Starting a SEO campaign is like building a sound foundation for a house: working from the ground up to test issues for crawling and indexation, creating accurate XML sitemaps, and correctly using Webmaster Tools to target a specific country are some of the first steps to creating an operational site for an international audience. Before moving on to making the frame of the house you must define the hierarchal structure of the site for internal linking purposes. These first steps for technical SEO will provide sound groundwork to move on to the next key elements of International SEO.
Inbound LinksInbound links is a vital pillar to holding the roof for the International SEO requirements infrastructure. Creating a website that will not only produces results in country –specific searches but also coordinates with achieving results in a locally based campaign is tricky. A marketing plan for the site must include content creation that is not only useful to a local audience but is easily accessible and a valid peek of interest globally. Remember you aren't just targeting a local audience anymore. Keep user experience and your target audience in check to identify higher quality links that are relevant to a user's industry for better rankings and higher traffic.
Locally Relevant Content with IndicatorsLastly and most importantly is optimizing content. Placing a roof on the SEO infrastructure may be the most difficult part. Unlike normal sites when publishing a site targeted for an international audience the content needs to be translated to something a native speaker of that language can understand, which may not be an easy task. Need some tips?
Try creating content that isn't limited to just translation instead optimized after translation.
Don't go the easy route and just optimize in English. Make sure to look at popular keywords that are country-specific when optimizing content.
And, if at all possible having a native speaker correct your generated content always helps for review.
Most of these handy –dandy key elements are also in conjunction with the best practices for SEO and by no means explains every aspect to International SEO. However, if you cater your SEO efforts to an international audience these may be truly helpful to get you on the right track.
photo credit: Βethan via photopin cc
Pros and Cons of the Most Popular API Authentication Methods
How Does the New Title System From Google Affect My WordPress Site?