International SEO with Targeted Keyword Research - Mozinar

Keyword Research and
Content for International SEO
Eli Schwartz
Join us on Twitter at #Mozinar
Questions or problems? Email community@moz.com

@5le
What I Do
http://moz.com/perks#surveymonkey

@5le
Agenda
• Why International SEO
• Size of opportunity
• Keyword research
• Content creation

@5le
Google vs Bing
90%
10%
Google?
Bing?

@5le
Internet Users Around the World
90%
10%
United States
Everywhere
Else

@5le
So, focusing on
the US only
could be as
shortsighted
as…

@5le
Languages Spoken Around the World
87%
13%
0% 0%
English
(Primary & Secondary)
Everything
Else

@5le
Ecommerce Spend Around the World
30%
70%
United States
Everywhere
Else

@5le
Look at Current Traffic in GA
There are likely international visitors that are not being satisfied

@5le
How Does Google Determine
Language of a Query?

@5le
1st: Language Preference - Google Account
Found under account settings

@5le
2nd: Browser Language Settings
To change language in Safari and IE you need to change system preferences
Chrome Firefox

@5le
3rd: User location
Language
will be
primary
country
language
(Canada =
English, Swit
zerland =
German)

@5le
4th: Google TLD
Google.com Google.com.mx(Mexico)
Results are for English speakers writing Spanish Results are for Spanish speakers

@5le
5th: Language Parsing of Query
Search
conducted on
Google.com;
results are
Portuguese

@5le
Capitalize on the International
Opportunity with SEO

@5le
International SEO isn’t so Hard (or Costly)
• ccTLD vs subdomain vs
subdirectory
• HREFLANG
• Canonicals
• Local Hosting
• Local Links
• Webmaster Tools
Geotargeting
• Local Trust Symbols
• Mobile

@5le
Don’t Machine Translate
Google can recognize machine translated content AND you will
offend real users

@5le
Foreign Content Must Be Plain Text

@5le
Geo-targeting
• Leave an escape option if the
targeting is wrong
• Send users to an an actual
URL – don’t just proxy content
• Googlebot will always be in
the US
• Ensure there are links for the
bot to find international
content

@5le
Wrong Keyword = Lonely
Shows a “Did you
mean?”, but results
are not updated.
Google.fi (Finland)

@5le
Non-English Search is Weaker than English
Large disparity in indexed pages for a major query
533 million results in English vs 98 million results in Spanish

@5le
Far Less Competition
Google.com (English) Google.com.mx (Spanish)
Compare domain authority on the 2nd results page

@5le
Spelling Correction is Not as Robust
In French spelling a word
the way it sounds doesn’t
even generate a correct
spelling suggestion
Google.com Google.fr (France)

@5le
Synonym Matching in English (Google.com)
Near identical results for both terms

@5le
Synonym Matching in German (Google.de)
Both terms mean “Customer Survey” and user intent is similar
Entirely different results on Google.de from images to ranked sites

@5le
Plurals in English (Google.com)
Near identical results for plural and singular

@5le
Plurals in Spanish (Google.com.mx)
Entirely different results
Online Surveys in Spanish (Plural) Online Survey in Spanish (Singular)

@5le
Prepositions in English (Google.com)
In English, prepositions cause only minor differences in rankings and result numbers

@5le
Prepositions in Portuguese (Google.com.br)
In Portuguese, there is a huge shift in result numbers and rankings for missing prepositions

@5le
Basic Special Characters Matter (Google.dk)
Rankings change based on whether special characters are used in the user query
“Did you mean” but
results are unchanged

@5le
Every Letter Counts (Google.com.tr)
Both words mean customer satisfaction – only difference is one letter

@5le
Compound (Concatenation) Words
Phrases can be broken by a space, dash or concatenated as one word, and in
each case search results will be different

@5le
Different Meanings for the Same Words
In Germany – a “Handy” is a cell phoneResults will be based on the local meaning

@5le
Same Language Different Meanings: “Char”
Quebec France

@5le
It’s Not Just International: Pop vs Soda
Even within one
country we have
different ways of
referring to the same
exact thing

@5le
Keyword Research
(for most languages)

@5le
Adwords Tool is NOT the Starting Point
In English, you might just go to Adwords Keyword Tool and call it a day
Internationally, just blindly trusting search volume will give you a weak keyword foundation

@5le
Understand Keyword Weaknesses
None of these are
relevant to
SurveyMonkey’s
Business

@5le
Square One: Learn Just One Word…
Put your primary keyword into Google Translate

@5le
Start Googling
Search the just discovered keyword in your target language AND country

@5le
Search Translation Alternatives Too
Some of these might be the
better keyword

@5le
Add Keyword Modifiers to Translate
Adding a modifier gives Google Translate context around the word
Without modifiers, Translate had suggested the Spanish word “estudio” as the
correct translation

@5le
Two Tabbed Searching: Translate vs Original
Use Chrome’s automatic translation
Even weak translations can tell you if
you have the right terms

@5le
Search All Translations To Get Right Word
As in English, not all translations will be relevant to your business

@5le
Some Translations Are Very INCORRECT
Attempted to use a modifier to learn
primary keyword
Google’s suggested translation was a xxx
term

@5le
Look at Number of Results for Clues
Low
number of
results
means you
are on the
wrong
track
Google.fi (Finland)

@5le
Find and Add Search Competitors to List
Once you have
the right
starter
keyword, add
all potential
competitors to
spreadsheet
workbook
Appear to be
competitive sites

@5le
View All Search Competitors in Two Tabs
English Translation via
ChromeSpanish Original
Use Chrome’s automatic translation
• View each competitor site to find keywords
• Look at the English to find important keywords
• Compare words to original and add translated word to
keywords worksheet in spreadsheet

@5le
Crawl Competitor Sites With ScreamingFrog
Same for the title, meta description, and
even keywords tag
Extract keywords from the URL
Add major words to spreadsheet

@5le
Don’t Forget About Popular Slang Terms
Means
“Sunday
Poll” which is
what
Germans call
a Political
Poll
Google.de (Germany)

@5le
Google Suggest Will Show New Keywords
Spanish English Translation
Open Google search page in two tabs: Original and Translate
Use existing keywords to find even more keywords by
not hitting enter on search box after typing a query

@5le
Use Knowledge Graph to Learn Intent (US)
Search word is Italian word
“piazza”
Knowledge graph shows
Piazza as a company and an
Italian square
Google.com

@5le
Knowledge Graph - Brazil
“piazza”
Knowledge graph shows Piazza as
a soccer player in Brazil
Google.com.br

@5le
Knowledge Graph - Germany
Search word is Italian word “piazza”
Knowledge graph shows Piazza as
Piazza Navona – a popular tourist spot
in Rome
Google.de (Germany)

@5le
Knowledge Graph - Italy
“piazza”
Knowledge graph is gone
Google.it (Italy)

@5le
Use a Thesaurus to Find Synonyms
Search all current keywords to find even more keywords

@5le
Pluralize Keywords
• Not every language has a plural
• Don’t forget non-s plurals
(Alumnus  alumni)
• Search volume of plurals could be greater than singular
• Singularize plural keywords from original list

@5le
Look Up Search Volume of Keyword List
Once you have a
large list of
keywords:
• Paste in all
keywords into
Google Keyword
Planner
• Download
results in a CSV

@5le
Translate Keywords in Google Translate
Translations may be inaccurate, but at this point it is only helpful for context

@5le
Dedupe the List to Make it Actionable
• Sort by search volume and topics
• Use previous research to inform which duplicates you
keep

@5le
Buddy Up With a Native
Native speakers will tell you which keywords
are actually correct

@5le
Content Marketing
What do you do with all of these keywords?

@5le
Translate Existing Content

@5le
Own Your International SEO

@5le
Culturally Relevant Content Topics

@5le
Make Sure Your Translations Make Sense

@5le
Double Check Translation Work

@5le
Keywords Need to Be Culturally Relevant

@5le
Leverage Keyword Data into New Content
With your research you
should know enough to
propose quality content
as long as you have the
right topic ideas...

@5le
Google Trends
Trends
data is
available
for many
years in
multiple
countries

@5le
YouTube Worlwide
Look for popular videos

@5le
Yahoo Answers
See popular topics

@5le
Competitor Links: Moz Fresh Web Explorer
• Find out why people are linking to
competitors
• Write better content
• Target the same audience

@5le
Twitter Trends
Twitter trends will show popular topics for
nearly any country

@5le
Blog Search
Google Blog search
will show topics sites
are writing using
your keywords

@5le
SurveyMonkey Audience
Conduct surveys about another country with
a US audience or conduct a survey in the
target language and country
• This survey was conducted in the US with
a US audience on SurveyMonkey Audience
• The questions were about Oktoberfest in
Germany and targeted towards topics
Germans would find interesting
• Results were incorporated into a German
post and infographic

@5le
Measure Results
Location InterfaceQueryTLD

@5le
Setup a GA Filter for International Traffic
Do NOT create
filters in your
existing
profiles, create
a new one for
this purpose
Need to be
an admin

@5le
Exclude US Traffic with a Filter
1. Create new
2. Name filter for later
edits
3. Choose “exclude”
4. Choose country
(under location)
5. Exclude multiple
countries with regular
expressions

@5le
Learn From the Data and Update
Iterate on international
efforts
• Keep doing keyword
research
• Continue to write content
• Expand into more languages
• Learn from results to
continuously improve

@5le
1. Huge growth
potential with
international
search
2. Focus on keywords
3. Watch out for
cultural nuances
4. Continue to grow
content

@5le
1. Huge growth
potential with
international
search
2. Focus on keywords
3. Watch out for
cultural nuances
4. Continue to grow
content
5. Don’t be lazy!

@5le
Merci, Gracias, Danke,
Tessekur, Thanks!
SEO Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/int-mozinar
Questions?

Email: Elis@surveymonkey.com
Twitter: @5le
Website: www.surveymonkey.com
Find this recorded #Mozinar and slide deck at http://moz.com/webinars very soon!

International SEO with Targeted Keyword Research - Mozinar

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (7)

Similar to International SEO with Targeted Keyword Research - Mozinar

Similar to International SEO with Targeted Keyword Research - Mozinar (20)

More from Eli Schwartz

More from Eli Schwartz (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

International SEO with Targeted Keyword Research - Mozinar