Global SEO Strategies

1. Global SEO StrategiesA Presentation by Navneet Kaushal, CEO, PageTraffic

2. WHO AM I?Navneet Kaushal Founder & CEO of PageTraffic 11 Years of SEO experience Editor www.pagetrafficbuzz.com Expert author on WebProNews, Search Newz, Website Notes, DevWebPronews, PromotionWorld. Regularly quoted on ET Now, Seattle Times, Hindustan Times, Livemint, BenefitIT, AlooTechie.About PageTraffic Established in 2002 95 people strong, with offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chicago & London Offers SEO, PPC, Link Building, Web Design & Development services More than 300 clients worldwide Ranking among the top SEO Companies of India Winner of Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award 2011 Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

8. SEARCH ENGINE USAGE – BEYOND GOOGLE • Google (Global) 62.4% • Yandex (Russia) – 65% • Baidu (China) – 83.6% • Naver (Korea) – 68% • Yahoo! Japan – 47% Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

9. TOP SEARCH ENGINES ACROSS THE GLOBEUnited States – GoogleChina – BaiduJapan – Yahoo (Google / MSN)UK – GoogleFrance – GoogleGermany – GoogleCanada – GoogleKorea – NaverBrazil _ GoogleTurkey – GoogleItaly – GoogleSwitzerland – GoogleSingapore – Google Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

11. CHALLENGES OVERVIEW• Multi-regional vs multilingual websites• Site Architecture for global sites• Subdomains Vs. Subdirectories• Geo-targeting• Country Code Top Level Domain Name• Multilingual Content• Google Place Listing• Links Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

13. MULTI-REGIONAL VS MULTILINGUAL WEBSITES Multi-regional sites Target users in different Multilingual sites countries who all speak the same language. Target users in different countries who speak different languages to the users in other targeted countries.Multi-regional and multilingual sitesTarget users in different countries whospeak the same language as users insome, but not all, other targetedcountries. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

14. MULTI-REGIONAL VS MULTILINGUAL WEBSITESCULTURAL ASPECTSlanguageInternet’s Top LanguagesEnglish: 431 million usersnon-English: 857 million users 500 431 450 400 350 300 276 250 200 150 125 94 100 68 61 60 58 45 35 35 50 0 English French Japanese German Arabic Russian Spanish Korean Italian Portuguese Chinese Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

15. MULTI-REGIONAL VS MULTILINGUAL WEBSITESHow regional context influence your strategy?In Mediterranean countries Internet use is driven more bysocial factors than anything else, where Nordic countries relyon the Internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

16. MULTI-REGIONAL VS MULTILINGUAL WEBSITESHow local habits may influence your strategy.Online shoppers prefer to fill their online carts: Spanish between 12 and 1pm Germans and Italians between 2 and 4pm Danish shop from 5 to 6pm French shopping activities from 6 to 10pm British shopping hours around 8pm Swedes follow around 9pm Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

18. SITE ARCHITECTURE FOR GLOBAL SITES Which site architecture is right for your international content?• Sub Folders (ex. WWW. YOURSITE.COM/IN)• Sub domains (ex. IN.YOURSITE.COM)• Separate domains/sites (ex. WWW.YOURSITE.IN) Each of these architecture has its pros/cons Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

22. SUB FOLDERS/DIRECTORIES PROSDomain strength is passed to sub-foldersA single site will normally be stronger than many CONSProblems with wrong content ranking e.g.yourdomain.com ranking in INDIA rather thanyourdomain.com/INPotentially confusing for users looking for a ccTLD (ex..in) version of the site.Can’t have different country sites hosted from differentcountry specific servers with proper IP addresses. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

25. SUB DOMAINS (ex. IN.YOURSITE.COM) PROSEasy to see this is a country specific version of the site.No registration issues.Each subdomain can be hosted on a server with acorresponding country IP address.Maintains some of the metrics (domain trust, domainpopularity) of the root domain. CONSProblems with content ranking e.g. yourdomain.comranking in INDIA rather than in.yourdomain.com.Higher risk of mislinking. Many linkers will link to the"www" of the site out of habit. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

28. CCTLD (Eg. www.yourdomain.in) PROSVery obvious and intuitive to the user.Strongest geo-targeting signal used by Google.Good chance of getting correct links.Provides the ability for each domain to be hosted on acountry specific IP address. CONSNew site with no strength, so it may not rank at all.You’ll need to put in some serious link building effort.Can be difficult to purchase some ccTLDs.Has the potential to cause issues with duplicate content ifgeo-targeting methods are not used effectively across alldomains. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

33. KEYWORDS – REGIONAL VARIATIONS Fútbol vs. Futbol Fussball vs. Fußball Localization vs. Localisation Soccer vs. Football Average web search according to Google InsightsDE football 8 fussball 27ES football 5 futbol 61IT football 5 calcio 68 Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

34. MULTI-LINGUAL CONTENT Important Points:• Google does not include automatically translated pages in their index.• Automatic translations can lead to loss in meaning.• Link to the same content in other languages on your sites.• Use UTF-8 coding (Unicode) when non-English characters, e.g. é or ü, are needed in an URL which you are linking to on your pages.• Do not automatically serve pages in different languages based on a user’s location.• Only use one language on each page of your site.• Make sure that Meta Tags are localized based on the keyword research carried out by a native speaker of the chosen language. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

37. KEYWORD ORGANIZATION• Organize your • Brand name keywords by: – Languages • Product name – Locations • Model numbers, etc. – Target audiences – Purchase cycle – Importance – Legal requirements Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in

39. GOOGLE INSIGHTS TOOL Available in 39 languages around the world!• Assess demand for your product/service.• Check the seasonal variation in the demand.• Understand your competition’s offers and branding• See how search volume is distributed across regions and cities.• See search patterns in other Google properties. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

42. GOOGLE GLOBAL MARKETING FINDER – HOW IT WORKS Select home country (not the country you wish to target) Select the primary language of your country Enter up to 3 keyword phrases in “product keywords” box Select your export region; currently you can’t select a country but a region. Copyright © PageTraffic Web-Tech Pvt. Ltd. www.pagetraffic.com

47. GOOGLE PLACES LISTING IMPORTANT POINTS• Google Places pages are viewed by millions of people daily• 20% of all search is local oriented• Offers the best opportunity to combine social and search• Currently, only 6% of consumers are leaving content out there Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

48. GOOGLE PLACES LISTING - TIPS• Use your business name and phone number for listing.• No taglines or lengthy categories.• Ask your users for a review.• Give users ways to connect with you, the +1 button, for example.• Convert local users into mobile users.• Ensure that local business addresses are listed.• Ensure local phone numbers are included too.• Ensure links to the appropriate regional websites are present and correct. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

49. DOMAIN AND HOSTING- SIMPLE ANSWERS• Use ccTLD’s - where possible and practical• Host in the local country – where possible and practical• Be careful with proxy serving sites to fool the engines• Ensure “ALL” variations of your site URL’s are set in GWT

51. THINK LOCAL• Get links from sites with the same TLD (for example - www.otherdomain.in)• Use local street address and local telephone numbers.• Prices in local currency.• Localized information in your meta description and meta keywords helps in Bing.• Use appropriate country and language Meta Tags.• Claim or create your listing in Google Places. Copyright © www.pagetraffic.in www.pagetraffic.com

52. RECAP - GLOBAL SEO PROCESS Define Define IA – ccTLD andlanguages countries / or sub- folders/sub domains Use local Create currency / language & phone country numbers etc specific content, build local links