Translating websites: Nail your SEO internationally
The term “international SEO” describes the optimization of the translation of a website for different international markets in order to be found better by potential customers in the search results of the respective target country. The main goal of global SEO is to increase the visibility of a website in different countries and languages in order to reach a larger target group. For a sustainable presence on the international market, various content and technical requirements must be considered and implemented.
The key to global expansion – SEO on an international level
The fact that you want to translate your website is a good sign. It means that your business is doing well enough for you to expand to new markets. Congratulations! But the next big challenge is already waiting for you.
As you will learn in this article, there is much more to translating a website than mere translation. You will have to redo your keyword research, consider cultural differences, and get to know a new audience with different interests.
BASICS
But no worries, this article is going to explain everything in detail. Afterwards you will be able to …
- … consider technical SEO aspects of being a multilingual website,
- … conduct keyword research in other languages,
- … understand the dangers of certain translation approaches,
- … and strategically grow your foreign audience.
localization
You need localization – do not just translate your website
Localization refers to the process of adjusting a website for a new market/country. Translation is just a part of that process. There is much more to consider. But let us start with translation:
- Translation
Everyone agrees that Google Translate, despite being popular, is not a good translator. There are much better tools for translation, such as deepl.com. That is because AI-driven translation tools do not just translate everything literally. They understand the meaning behind texts. For example, the phrase “it’s a piece of cake” would not make much sense in other languages. But in English, it means that something is easy. AI tools understand those things. However, we do not recommend using translation tools. Even if they are AI-driven. If you want to implement best-practice, you need the help of a translator who understands the culture of your new target audience. Here is why:
- Culture
Letting an AI translate your website may backfire, because it does not have cultural sensitivity. For example, the tone of voice of your website content may be well suited for an audience in the US, but not for a country in Asia. Consider the following scenario: Workplaces in Asia are generally much more formal and hierarchical than in western countries. If your new target audience is IT-managers in Japan, and you keep an informal tone of voice, your chances of success will be low. Also very important: Localization is not just about text. Images play a huge role as well. Photos with people revealing a lot of skin are accepted in some countries, and considered weird in other countries.
- Numbers
These are small details, but should nonetheless not be overlooked. The way you write the date will differ from region to region. Find the date format that is most common for your new target audience. Units can differ as well (for example: kilometers vs miles). Also, in some regions of the world, the separator for one thousand is a full stop and not a comma. So the number one million might be written as “100.000.000” or “100,000,000” or “100’000’000”. Be mindful of such details.
- Legal details
A piece of text on your website may be nothing special in the US, but highly illegal in for example Germany. Different countries have different stances with regard to what you are allowed to say. For example: Advertising medical products is relatively easy in the US. There are not as many rules as in Germany. In fact, if you want to advertise medical products in Germany, you may even need to consult a lawyer.
KEYWORD RESEARCH
On-page SEO
Your website has certain passages that need to be translated very carefully. Because if they are important for SEO, you have to do keyword research in addition to the translation. Never just translate the keywords you already use. Your audience might use other keywords to search for what you are offering.
Text passages that require keyword research are:
- Headers
- Meta-Tags
- Alt attributes of images
You should also include relevant keywords in your paragraphs (labeled as
in your HTML code). They are not as important as headers, but do also play a role in SEO.
Also, do not worry too much about the alt attributes of images. Those are basically descriptions you give to your images such that they can be found through the image search engine of Google. That would only be important if you have images that could potentially drive a lot of traffic to your site.
How to find local keywords from other countries
Keyword research in another language without knowledge of the other language is generally not recommended. However, if you can’t afford SEO translation, you can research the keywords that your main competition is using. It is also important to use a keyword research tool to gain insights into keyword difficulty and traffic.
WEBSITE URL
Technical SEO for multilingual websites
This is probably the most important part of multilingual SEO. Your website must not be multilingual without communicating that to search engines.
URL structure
The version of your website with the new language needs its own URL. Generally speaking, there are two ways of doing this.
Approach 1: Create a new domain
Amazon does it that way. French people use amazon.fr and Germans use amazon.de. The advantage of this is that you can use the most trusted top-level domain of your new audience. But there are many disadvantages. First, you will have to buy an additional domain. And if you are unlucky, your name has already been taken. Second, you will have to start from zero again regarding domain authority. According to Google, domain authority is a ranking factor that considers how much traffic and backlinks your website already has. It is the reason why new websites need more time to gain organic traffic.
Approach 2: Create a subfolder
We recommend approach 2. Creating a subfolder means that your URL with the new language just has a few extra characters. This is exactly the way we do it for our website – it works. Our original URL: mondis.de Our URL with English content: mondis.de/en/. If you wanted to expand to the Spanish market, you would just have to add an /es/-subfolder. This way, you do not have to buy an extra domain and start from zero again.
CORRECT CODING
Hreflang tag
Hreflang is an HTML attribute – something in your website’s code that communicates to search engines your language and targeted region. This information needs to be placed in the head region of your code.
This is how it looks like:
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”xx-XX” href=”URL”/>
“XX” stands for the region and “xx” stands for the language.
If you do not feel comfortable implementing technical tasks like this one, it is recommended to hand it over to an expert.
WELL CONNECTED
Build backlinks to dominate your new market
A huge mistake of expanding websites is not building new backlinks. Even if you already have a lot of backlinks, you need new ones. That is because the existing ones that you already have are not as effective in building your presence in your new market.
Backlinks have to be relevant. If you start collecting backlinks from websites that have nothing to do with your business, you will not succeed. And if you purchase them, you might even get penalized by Google. For this reason, you need backlinks from websites that belong to the new market you are entering.
How to build backlinks
If you have not relied on backlinks previously and do not know where to start, here is a brief guide on how it works:
First, you should never directly ask people to link to your website. This approach is not effective, because owners of big websites daily receive backlinks requests. As an owner of a successful site yourself, you probably also do not feel compelled to fulfill backlink-requests from complete strangers who offer nothing in return.
Sie sollten stattdessen eine Art von Wert anbieten. Ein erfolgreiches Angebot könnte sich so anhören:You should instead offer some sort of value. A successful offer could sound like this:
“Hi, I read your article about population decrease and found it very insightful. I have created the following infographic that you could add to it. I think it fits well into your article.”
As you can see, you will have to offer some sort of work that helps the owner of the website achieve their goals. Without this element, you are likely going to be ignored.
Also consider that backlinks can be built organically. This means that people link to your website without you even asking for it. This usually happens if you have content that is so good that people reference it when writing their own articles.
Conclusion
To successfully enter new markets, it is not enough to merely translate one’s website. The translation work needs to be performed by experts who understand the culture of the new target audience. It is not advised to rely on translation tools. Literal translation may lead to culturally insensitive content and texts with the wrong keywords.
GET IN TOUCH
Internationally visible with professional SEO translations by MONDIS
During the SEO translation, we adapt existing texts optimally to the local conditions of your target markets and advise you on all factors that will make your multilingual website more visible worldwide.
Contact: Michael Quast, Managing Director
Phone: +49 30 48496622-0
E-mail: kontakt@mondis.de