Speaking in Tongues: Establishing a Successful International Web Presence #SMXeast

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Speaking in Tongues
Establishing a Successful International Web Presence

@aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2
I’m Aleyda Solis

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I help companies to connect with potential
customers all over the world

Some of them brands you likely know

To expand & diversify trafﬁc sources

With a sustainable organic trafﬁc growth

Generating actual customers,  
conversions & proﬁt from them

This usually involves deciding, conﬁguring  
& managing the following…
Avoiding
targeting
markets that
are not
profitable
Selecting
the best Web
structure to
win
international
markets
Geolocating &
Localizing each
international
Web presence

Here’s how to simplify the process
Target
ConnectPrioritize

Prioritize
Avoid targeting markets  
that are not proﬁtable

“I wish I could create relevant
content for each one of my
international sites, but there are
too many of them.”
Someone who didn’t prioritize

Avoid targeting languages & countries that don’t
have a big enough audience you can’t support
English speakers in Spain? Catalan speakers in Spain?

Identify which countries & languages are already
bringing trafﬁc & conversions to your site

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
The ones where you are additionally ranking
although not actively targeting yet
ahrefs.com
@aleyda#SMX #12A2

From where your competitors & industry
leaders are already proﬁting from
semrush.com

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Check the level of already existing 
organic search competition in those markets
@aleyda#SMX #12A2
similarweb.com

Verify if there’s enough organic search trafﬁc to
compensate a proﬁtable Web activity
Cost of international Web projectNumber of
Conversions for a
break-even Average conversion value
=
No. of Conversions for Break-evenNumber of visits
for a break-even Average Conversion Rate
=

You can use the International SEO  
ROI calculator for this
https://www.aleydasolis.com/english/international-seo-tools/roi-calculator/

Identify if you should language  
or country target first
Is location a factor that influence your Web operations?
Yes No
Is there enough traffic & conversions
to target each country?
Language
Targeting
Yes No
Country
Targeting

Now you can decide which  
international search markets to target
>Your International trafﬁc potential Visits & Conversions for a break-even
Yes No
Continue with the international
Web & SEO project
Might be too early
For most important countries
Buy & secure your
ccTLDs for future
activity
Create
custom
alerts
Create a pilot
project
prioritizing main
pages

Like this
vs
Language TargetingCountry Targeting

You can then consolidate the already existing
international versions of markets that won’t be

Target
Select the best Web structure  
to win international markets

“I enabled ccTLDs for each
country but I wasn’t able to
rank as the competition was
too high”
Someone who didn’t target with the right Web organization

There are rules of thumb like avoid using scripts or
cookies to show all versions through the same URLs

Or not using parameters, as it makes it harder
to geolocate, localize and track each version

However, your international Web setting should
be selected based on your site & target market
VS

If you’re country targeting, select between
ccTLDs, Subdirectories & Subdomains
www.yourbrand.es
www.yourbrand.es/categoria-a/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/categoria-a/
es-es.yourbrand.com/
es-es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/
ccTLDs
Sub-directories 
w/ gTLDs
Sub-domains
w/ gTLDs

Choose the best alternative to country target  
in your case using the pros & cons
* Need less technical resources
* Need less efforts to grow popularity 
* More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad
* Need more efforts to geolocate
* Need more technical resources
* Need more efforts to grow popularity
* Better than sub-directories to organize larger & more complex sites 
* Need more efforts to geolocate
* Ideal alternative to geolocate if competition is not too high
* Need more efforts to grow popularity with a new domain
ccTLDs
Sub-directories 
w/ gTLDs
Sub-domains
w/ gTLDs

If you’re language targeting, select between
using subdirectories or subdomains
Sub-directories
www.yourbrand.com
www.yourbrand.com/es/categoria-a/
Sub-domains
es.yourbrand.com/
es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/

* Need less technical resources
*Need less efforts to grow popularity
*Generates a deeper url structure
*More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad
* Need more efforts to grow popularity
* Generates shorter URL structure which can be better for larger sites
Sub-directories
Sub-domains
Select the best alternative to language target in
your case based on the pros & cons too

Take into consideration that Google only
supports countries to geotarget

It will be also very difﬁcult to use an already
geolocated ccTLD to target another country

Verify which Web structures are used  
by the top sites in the desired market
13 ccTLDs
vs.
7gTLDs

As well as those rankings for the potential
top queries in that market
https://serpchecker.com/
7 ccTLDs
vs.
2 gTLDs

What’s the authority of those top ranking sites?
Can you compete with a new ccTLD?

Yes
Choose your international Web structure
accordingly to make it competitive
What’s your international target?
Country Language
Are your top
competitors
using ccTLDs?
Yes
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher &  
a concern?
Yes
Use ccTLDs
No
No
Use Geolocalized
Sub-Directories
YesNo Do you need a
ﬂatter & more
differentiated URL
structure?
Use  
Sub-Directories
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher &  
a concern?
Use  
Sub-Domains
No

Connect
Geolocate & Localize your 
international Web presence

“I created all my content in
Spanish by translating the
one I already had in English
but never got a high share
of trafﬁc”
Someone who didn’t localized its international Web presence

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Start by localizing every aspect of your Web
content & design to your target markets
URL
Meta Description
Currency
Menu
Title
Images
H1

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Including the URLs but avoid “special” characters,
use transliteration for non-latin characters
NO
YES

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Get native support to do each market keyword
research and use the right terms in each case
RENTAS VACACIONALES
vs
ALQUILERES VACACIONALES
NO

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
This is one of the critical areas that major brands  
often overlook with international markets
YES

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
You can create a matrix with patterns to generate  
your main content elements for each version
<Characteristic> <Main Keyword> in
<Location>: +<No. Of Items> by <Brand>
<Palabra Clave> <Característica> en
<Ubicación>: +<No. de Products> por <Marca>
English Title Spanish Title

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Leverage local search seasonality, festivities,
trends and speciﬁc audience bahavior

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Check out which keywords tools support
international markets
https://www.aleydasolis.com/en/search-engine-optimization/keywords-research-tools-comparison/

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Localize not only the content, but also the overall
Web experience using local preferences & culture
In the US In Japan

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
It’s also critical to rank in your target markets with  
the relevant, optimized international Web version
US version ranking in the UK

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Misaligned pages will have worse rankings,
CTR, user experience and conversions
This happens with a UK ccTLD

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Check if you’re suffering from this already using
internal organic trafﬁc and ranking sources…

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
… as well as external ones
ahrefs.com
@aleyda#SMX #12A2

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Verify which domain extensions are treated  
as generic by Google to geolocate if needed
@aleyda#SMX #12A2
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922
@aleyda#SMX #12A2

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Register & geolocate in the Search Console each
sub-directory or sub-domain to country target

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Avoid automatic redirects based on the IP
location of the user is intrusive

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Search crawlers IPs are also not yet  
that “globally” distributed
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6144055

It’s better to suggest to visitors there
might be a more relevant version for them

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Verify for yourself how you’re doing it  
by using a proxy or search result emulator
https://www.hidemyass.com/ & https://www.accuranker.com/rank-tracker/

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
You should also indicate your international
targeting with the meta & html lang tag
http://bit.ly/binglang

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
As well as specifying your pages language  
and country alternates with hreﬂang annotations
bit.ly/hreflangannotations

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Every page should include its language & country
target, pointing to the other versions
English for the US
Default
Spanish for the US
English for the UK
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />
brand.com/dogs/
brand.co.uk/dogs/
brand.com/es/perros/
English for the US
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Using ISO 639-1 values for languages  
and ISO 3166-1 for countries

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
You can add them in the HTML Head or in XML
Sitemaps, as well as HTTP Headers
Add them in
XML Sitemaps in
non-ﬂexible
sites with a high
number of
versions
Add them in
HTML in sites
with lower
number of
versions &
coding
ﬂexibility

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Start only with the necessary ones checking
trafﬁc misalignment if there are too many

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Avoid the most common hreﬂang
implementation mistakes
https://www.semrush.com/blog/the-most-common-hreflang-mistakes-infographic/

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Beware of including incorrect hreflang values
and tags that are not supported
link rel alternate
hreflang="pt-br"
link rel alternate
hreflang="en-ca"
Not supported
link rel alternate
hreflang="es-mx"
link rel alternate
hreflang="en-us"

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Always self-refer by specifying  
the current URL in the hreﬂangs

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Each international version should also  
refer back to the ones pointing to it

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Avoid adding non-indexable, canonicalized,
error, redirected or blocked URLs in hreﬂangs

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Add the hreﬂang at the start of the HTML to
avoid that is overlooked due to errors above
http://ohgm.co.uk/hreflang-tags-not-respected-how-to-solve/

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Obtain the correct annotations  
with the Hreﬂang Generator Tool
bit.ly/generatorhreflang

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
For enterprise scenarios, generate XML sitemaps
along hreﬂang tags with the hrefbuilder
hrefbuilder.com

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Organize XML sitemaps as granular as  
possible to facilitate troubleshooting
Country
Language
Category
Page Type

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Validate them ﬁrst at a page level when
implementing, to catch and ﬁx errors early
https://technicalseo.com/seo-tools/hreflang/

@aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2 @aleyda#SMX #12A2
Verify them again after implementing them, by
using crawlers that validate them like Sitebulb

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
This will allow you to directly identify which are
the URLs with issues and ﬁx easily them

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
You can also use DeepCrawl that veriﬁes 
hreﬂang implemented in XML sitemaps too

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Monitor the existence of remaining issues with  
the Search Console International Targeting report

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Prioritize ﬁxing those errors with the  
highest number of pages affected

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
Until they are all correctly validated

@aleyda#SMX #12A2
To effectively grow your search visibility  
in your targeted international markets

Target
ConnectPrioritize
It’s about prioritizing, targeting and connecting
with your international audience
@aleyda#SMX #12A2

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It’s now your time to expand abroad!
Thanks

Speaking in Tongues: Establishing a Successful International Web Presence #SMXeast

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