9 International search engine marketing strategies for 2020
In a recent survey of marketing gurus, 63 percent of marketing experts believe now more than ever, SEO matters. If you want your website to pop up at the top of the list when a person searches for a single term, you cannot just wing it. You need a marketing strategy.
You may already be at the top of your game in the United States. There’s a whole other market, though, past the United States’ borders.
Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about current international search engine marketing strategies.
Why Search Engine Marketing Strategies Matter
You might think you have a good handle on your business. You have people that stop in. You receive orders.
But your competitors understand the need for SEO for growth. In particular, you need to understand what international companies are missing.
Perhaps you’re just nervous that understanding new strategies is beyond your scope. You will not comprehend the complicated terms. Perhaps you’re worried that if you do not have completely unique material, you will not avoid plagiarism.
Rest assured that you will understand this world. After all, international SEO strategies are not much different than other SEO strategies.
1. Research Local Keywords
If you have any amount of experience, you know the foundation of a successful SEO lies in keyword research. You must conduct market research locally.
Local keyword research means that you recognize a spike in traffic from one particular foreign market, and you research keywords in that area.
Look for the local keywords that might be driving your traffic up in that part of the world. Ask yourself if those keywords have any connection to the content that generates leads on your website. Also, check to see if those keywords have any past of high click-through rates.
If indeed those keywords have a connection to lead-generating content or have high click-through rates, then you can shift your focus to this new market. You can begin optimizing.
2. Stay Current
Be aware of changing policies. Google especially likes to change things up. The situation feels like as soon as you figure out Google’s algorithm, they seem to mix it up.
So you can have the perfect Google strategy plan, but you will need to pivot when you notice the big company begin to shift their policies. Google’s change for link attribution is a great example of how things change at Google somewhat mysteriously.
With this new policy, you’re fine if you mark all of your links “no-follow.” You will not receive any penalties under this new change if you have marked your policies as such.
But if you want to differentiate your links, you can change the attributes in your comment section. You can give them the newly created label “UGC.”
If you have any compensation agreements, then you have to use the “sponsored” attribute. Otherwise, Google will penalize you, and you will lose your rankings.
Understanding Google’s SEO policy will help you adhere to their rules.
3. Look Past Google
Believe it or not, Google is not the major search engine in every country. Yes, it takes up more than 90 percent of the search market in the United States. But internationally, it has competitors.
So when you begin to target another country, look beyond Google. Look at these search engines:
- Google globally
- Baidu in China
- Yandex in Russia
- Yahoo in Japan and Hong Kong
- Seznam in the Czech Republic
- Naver in South Korea
It’s worth even considering Bing since that pops up as the default on some computers in the United States.
Limiting your keyword localization to Google can work to a degree. After all, in Brazil and India, it has more than a 90 percent market share. But more than Google exists.
In China, Google has approximately 5 percent of the market share. In Russia, it has less than 50 percent.
So look at the search engine of the area you want to reach. Then begin track keywords for that search engine.
4. Focus on Local Language or Country
It is not the question if you’re going to make your SEO language-specific or country-specific, you’ll have to make it market-specific!
Ask yourself if your business changes when a person from a different country uses it. There are various variables to take into consideration – legal implications, different measurement units, etc. It might even change if you have a cloud-based company.
If your product use does not change, then you just may need to offer your services and business in a customer’s native language. Ask yourself if someone in a different country will use your product or service if you just provide them with content in their native language.
If they will, then you need to pivot your focus to a market-based international SEO strategy.
No matter if you have a brick-and-mortar retail shop, an e-retailer with a country-specific offer, a SaaS company that has regulated offers, or a mixed retailer of both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, you need to shift your focus to a market-specific strategy.
If you’re going to make offers in Russia different than those in Germany, you need to tailor your content for that market where your traffic is spiking.
5. Focus on Localized Keyword Research for Those New Markets
Decide if you’re going to make your SEO language-specific or country-specific.
Ask yourself if your business changes when a person from a different country uses it. It should not change if you have a cloud-based company.
If your product use does not change, then you just may need to offer your services and business in a customer’s native language. Ask yourself if someone in a different country will use your product or service if you just provide them with content in their native language.
If they will, then you need to pivot your focus to a language-based international SEO strategy.
If you have a brick-and-mortar retail shop, an e-retailer with a country-specific offer, a SaaS company that has regulated offers, or a mixed retailer of both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce, then you need to shift your focus to a country-specific strategy.
If you’re going to make offers in Russia different than those in Germany, you need to tailor your content for that country where your traffic is spiking.
6. Research Your Competitor
Next, you need to move away from your own site and see what your competitor is doing in this new market. Run your new localized keyword research through a rank tracking tool.
You can always start with the search engine for the area you’re researching. Plug each keyword into the search engine and see what top ten websites show up.
From the list of competitors, you can determine which keywords your competitors are using that push them to the top of the rankings. You can also figure out which of your competitors’ keywords overlap with your own target keywords.
Do not forget to look at the URL structure your competitors use. This matters as well in rankings.
Look at Competitors’ Strategies
Examine how your competitors do business and market themselves. Ask these questions:
1. What is their site structure and URL structure?
2. What do they offer?
3. What does their content look like?
4. Do they use images?
5. Finish your research by checking your competitor’s on-page optimization.
Overlap Keywords
If you share a chunk of the same keywords with your competitor, you need to ask yourself, what can you do to rise to the top of the search engine research page?
Focus on international SEO strategy the same way you execute local SEO strategy.
1. Create the best content on the web.
2. Focus on dominating on-page optimization
3. Put together a better backlink profile to your content
When you do your homework by reading your competitor’s content and on-page optimization, you can create superior content and on-page optimization for your own site and then rank higher than them.
Snag Unique Localized Keywords
In your research, you may discover localized keywords that your competitor has not yet used. Use those words as a springboard for creating new content.
7. Create a Superior URL and Site Structure
No single blanket strategy for the URL structure fits the bill for a superior ranking for international SEO. You have choices on how to structure your site and URLs to create the best international SEO results.
On the positive side, this means you can actually succeed using any one of three different URL structure if you plan them outright. You have three basic structures from which to pick: country-coded top-level domains, subdirectories, and subdomains with generic top-level domains.
Using ccTLDs
If you use country-coded top-level domains, then you create a separate, country-specific website for the market you’re aiming to reach.
If your company plans on making different offers from one market to the next, then a site-specific to that country makes sense. On the positive side, this type of structure will give you the chance to customize your site for a given country.
On the downside, if you plan on reaching out to several dozen countries, you have a lot of work ahead of you. You will need to design a website for each country.
International SEO Strategy Using Subdirectories
With subdirectories, you create a subdirectory or subfolder under the umbrella of your main site. So you can have a subdirectory specific to each country where you’re marketing.
This strategy works well if you are a big online retailer with multiple brick-and-mortar locations. Your offer and content may change from country to country, but not enough to justify a whole new site for each country.
Plus, you can translate your inventory across the subdirectories.
When you have a subfolder, you still tell Google that you are targeting your content geographically. You can also translate offers and content from one page to the next efficiently. Your subdirectories will also make your main site authoritative.
On the downside, a visitor may struggle to understand your country-specific offers. You also have to withstand the temptation to duplicate any of your content or layout.
Also, withstand the temptation to use automatic redirection. Google says this does not work well for internationalism.
Google says no. Automatic redirection is bad for international SEO.
International SEO Strategy Using Subdomains
With subdomains, you use a subdomain URL structure that creates an entirely new site. Popular sites like Alibaba and Facebook use this structure.
Your web design team may actually prefer this structure over others. They find it easier. You can also keep your offer and content separate from country to country.
Plus, you keep the “company.com” part of your URL.
With the subdomain strategy, you will need to build up your domain authority from nothing. Plus, some users may not immediately realize they’re browsing local material when they look at the URL.
You will also need a good team to manage the multiple websites this strategy requires.
Your product or service is different and you add that as your subdomain.
8. Modify Your Content
Once you’ve determined your URL structure, you can begin to focus on your content.
You want to modify your content in two ways:
1. Modify the content with local keywords
2. Modify your content to meet the demands of your market
Use your localized keyword research guide for your content decisions. You can only duplicate your content to a certain degree, especially if you have a big inventory of items that need to be translated. This might become a problem. Search engines do not like duplicate content. The hreflang tag will help to better structure the SEO activities.
You should plan on re-doing your on-page SEO optimization so you rank for the new localized keywords you discovered in your research.
Then go back to those unique keywords you discovered–the ones your competitor isn’t using. Create new content with those keywords to bump your site to the top of the search engine report.
Remember to look for keywords in multiple regions of the area you’re targeting. For example, Germany is a country and not necessary a market. Look at the different regions to see where keywords rank in each region.
Research and React
All of the best Google strategic methods locally have served you well. Now it’s time to use some international SEO strategies to bump your website to the top.
Once you’ve conducted your keyword research for the international market, you can begin to modify your content with the right SEO strategy. Ultimately search engine optimization strategies will serve you well. Implement these strategies to see your website rise to the top of the local, international market and achieve the international success you’ve always dreamed of.
If you want to see this kind of success, check out our services. We’d love to help you.
If you’re still feeling a little overwhelmed, we can put together a great SEO strategy for you.
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