International SEO: How to Grow your Online Business Abroad #WAQ19

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19
INTERNATIONAL SEO
TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS ABROAD

* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti
* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries
* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”
* Blogger in Search Engine Land & Search Engine Journal
* Crawling Mondays YouTube Channel Host
* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018
BONJOUR QUÉBEC! JE SUIS ALEYDA SOLIS
ORAINTI.COM

I’VE HAD THE CHANCE TO HELP SOME GREAT BRANDS

AUJOURD’HUI JE SUIS RAVIE DE PARTAGER AVEC VOUS

Français Québécois
Canadian English
American English
TARGETING TO A WIDER AUDIENCE IS A NATURAL WAY TO
GROW OUR ONLINE BUSINESS

HOWEVER, THE PROCESS CAN BECOME COMPLEX DUE  
TO SOME USUAL CHALLENGES
LACK OF
RESOURCES TO
CREATE AND
OPTIMIZE MORE
CONTENT
NOT BEING
ABLE TO RANK
WELL WITH THE
CHOSEN
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE
RANKING IN
INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH RESULTS
WITH THE WRONG
PAGES
NOT ATTRACTING
ENOUGH TRAFFIC
WITH TARGETED
QUERIES

HERE’S HOW TO TACKLE THEM TO SUCCEED WITH AN
INTERNATIONAL SEO PROCESS
PRIORITIZE
YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
TARGETED
MARKETS
ASSESSING
AND SELECTING
THE BEST
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE
FOR YOU
CORRECTLY
GEOLOCATING
YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
WEB PAGES
LOCALIZING
YOUR CONTENT
BASED ON YOUR
AUDIENCE
PREFERENCES

PRIORITIZE YOUR INTERNATIONAL MARKETS…
LACK OF RESOURCES?

IDENTIFY WHICH
COUNTRIES AND
LANGUAGES ARE
ALREADY BRINGING
TRAFFIC AND
CONVERSIONS TO
YOUR SITE
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

THOSE MARKETS
THAT YOUR
COMPETITION AND
INDUSTRY LEADERS
ARE ALREADY
PROFITING FROM
SEMRUSH TRAFFIC ANALYSIS

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19SEMRUSH
VERIFY WHICH ARE THE COUNTRIES WITH MORE
SEARCH TRAFFIC POTENTIAL IN YOUR INDUSTRY

CONSIDER THE LEVEL OF EXISTING ORGANIC
SEARCH COMPETITION IN THESE MARKETS
SERPCHECKER

COUNTRY
AND
LANGUAGE
CURRENT ORGANIC
SEARCH TRAFFIC
SEARCH
COMPETITION
LEVEL
SEARCH VOLUME
OPPORTUNITY
SEARCH
TREND IN
MARKET
SEARCH
ENGINE
USED
CAPACITY
TO
PERFORM
BUSINESS
OTHER
TRAFFIC
DRIVES
CANADA IN
ENGLISH
300 per month High
200,000 searches
per month
Positive Google High Affiliate
USA IN
ENGLISH
500 per month Medium
300,000 searches
per month
Negative Google Medium
Social
Affiliate
USA IN
SPANISH
200 per month Medium
200,000 searches
per month
Positive Google Low
Social
Affiliate
ALIGN THIS WITH YOUR OWN MULTILINGUAL
AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS CAPACITY

Yes No
Yes No
IS LOCATION A FACTOR THAT INFLUENCES YOUR WEB OPERATIONS?
COUNTRY TARGETING LANGUAGE TARGETING
IS THERE ENOUGH TRAFFIC &
CONVERSIONS TO TARGET EACH COUNTRY?
IDENTIFY IF YOU SHOULD WHETHER LANGUAGE
OR COUNTRY TARGET FIRST

COUNTRY TARGET LANGUAGE TARGET
REMEMBER THAT THIS SHOULD BE ABOUT YOUR OWN
ORGANIZATION RESOURCES AND PRIORITIES TOO

VERIFY IF THERE’S
ENOUGH ORGANIC
SEARCH TRAFFIC TO
COMPENSATE YOUR
WEB ACTIVITY
HTTPS://WWW.ALEYDASOLIS.COM/ENGLISH/INTERNATIONAL-SEO-TOOLS/ROI-CALCULATOR/

>
Yes No
Might be too early
BUY & SECURE
YOUR CCTLDS
FOR FUTURE
ACTIVITY
CREATE
CUSTOM
ALERTS
CREATE A PILOT
PROJECT
PRIORITIZING
MAIN PAGES
NOW YOU CAN DECIDE WHICH INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH MARKETS TO TARGET
YOUR INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC POTENTIAL VISITS & CONVERSIONS FOR A BREAK-EVEN
CONTINUE WITH THE
INTERNATIONAL WEB &
SEO PROJECT

NOT BEING ABLE TO RANK WELL W/
THE INTERNATIONAL WEB STRUCTURE
2

SELECT AND TARGET YOUR WEB STRUCTURE
CCTLDS VS SUBDIRECTORIES?

AVOID USING SCRIPTS OR COOKIES TO SHOW
INTERNATIONAL VERSIONS W/ THE SAME URLS

DON’T USE
PARAMETERS FOR
YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE,
SPECIALLY FOR
COUNTRIES

www.brand.ca
www.brand.ca/categorie-a/
www.brand.com/fr-ca/
www.brand.com/fr-ca/categorie-a/
fr-ca.brand.com/
fr-ca.brand.com/categorie-a/
IF YOU’RE COUNTRY TARGETING, SELECT BETWEEN
CCTLDS, SUBDIRECTORIES & SUBDOMAINS
CCTLDS
SUB-DIRECTORIES W/ GTLDS
SUB-DOMAINS W/ GTLDS

* 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 technical resources
*Need more efforts to grow popularity with a new domain
EACH HAVE PROS & CONS TO COUNTRY TARGET
CCTLDS

YOU CAN’T USE SUBDIRECTORIES OR SUBDOMAINS
TO GEOLOCATE CCTLDS TO OTHER COUNTRIES

TAKE ALSO INTO
CONSIDERATION
THAT GOOGLE
DOESN’T SUPPORT
“REGIONS” THAT
ARE NOT
COUNTRIES TO
GEOTARGET
HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/182192?HL=EN&REF_TOPIC=2370587

www.brand.com/fr/
www.brand.com/fr/categorie-a/
fr.brand.com/
fr.brand.com/categorie-a/
IF YOU’RE LANGUAGE TARGETING, SELECT
BETWEEN USING SUBDIRECTORIES OR SUBDOMAINS

* 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 technical resources
* Need more efforts to grow popularity
* Generates shorter URL structure which can be better for larger sites
WHICH ALSO HAVE PROS & CONS TO LANGUAGE TARGET

VERIFY THE DOMAIN TYPES AND AUTHORITY OF THE
TOP SITES RANKING IN YOUR DESIRED MARKET
SERPCHECKER

Yes
Country Language
Are your top
competitors
using ccTLDs?
Yes
Yes
USE
CCTLDS
No
No
USE GEOLOCALIZED
SUBDIRECTORIES
YesNo
USE
SUBDIRECTORIES
USE SUB-
DOMAINS
No
CHOOSE YOUR INTERNATIONAL WEB STRUCTURE
ACCORDINGLY
WHAT’S YOUR INTERNATIONAL TARGET?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Do you need a
ﬂatter &
differentiated
structure?

IT’S CRITICAL TO BE
CONSISTENT WHEN
TARGETING TO
AVOID CONFUSION
AND ALIENATING
YOUR USERS

GEOLOCATE AND USE HREFLANG ANNOTATIONS
RANKING W/ WRONG URLS?

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
MISALIGNED PAGES
WILL HAVE WORSE
RANKINGS, CTR, USER
EXPERIENCE AND
CONVERSIONS

CHECK IF YOU’RE SUFFERING FROM SEARCH RESULTS
MISALIGNMENT PROBLEMS ALREADY
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE, SEMRUSH, SISTRIX, AHREFS

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19SEOMINION
USE VPNS OR THE FREE SEOMINION EXTENSION TO
SEARCH FROM ANY LOCATION AND LANGUAGE

VERIFY WHICH
DOMAIN EXTENSIONS
ARE TREATED  
AS GENERIC BY
GOOGLE TO
GEOLOCATE IF NEEDED

REGISTER & GEOLOCATE IN SEARCH CONSOLE EACH  
SUB-DIRECTORY/DOMAIN TO COUNTRY TARGET
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

IT’S BETTER TO AVOID AUTOMATIC REDIRECTS  
BASED ON THE IP LOCATION
LINK REDIRECT TRACE

REDIRECTS CAN
GIVE A BAD USER
EXPERIENCE AND
END-UP
DAMAGING YOUR
WEB VERSIONS
CRAWLABILITY

SUGGEST THE
RELEVANT
INTERNATIONAL  
WEB VERSION
INSTEAD

INDICATE EACH PAGE INTERNATIONAL TARGETING WITH
THEIR META & HTML LANG TAG
HTTP://BIT.LY/BINGLANG

AS WELL AS YOUR PAGES LANGUAGE AND COUNTRY
TARGET AND THEIR ALTERNATES WITH HREFLANG
HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/189077?HL=EN

English for the US
Default
English for Canada
English for the UK
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.ca/fr/chiens/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-ca" href=“http://www.brand.ca/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“fr-ca” href=“http://www.brand.ca/fr/chiens/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.ca/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“fr-ca" href=“http://www.brand.ca/fr/chiens/“ />
brand.ca/fr/chiens/
brand.co.uk/dogs/
brand.ca/en/dogs/
French for Canada
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“fr-ca“ href=“http://www.brand.ca/fr/chiens/“ />
EVERY PAGE SHOULD INCLUDE ITS LANGUAGE & COUNTRY
TARGETING, AND POINT TO ITS OTHER VERSIONS

USE ISO 639-1
VALUES FOR
LANGUAGES  
AND ISO 3166-1
FOR COUNTRIES
HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/189077?HL=EN

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/189077?HL=EN
YOU CAN ALSO OPTIONALLY USE USE THE X-DEFAULT
VALUE FOR UNMATCHED INTERNATIONAL VERSIONS

UNFORTUNATELY,
IT’S COMMON TO
GENERATE THEM
WITH ERRORS
HTTPS://SEARCHENGINELAND.COM/AUDITING-HREFLANG-ANNOTATIONS-COMMON-ISSUES-AVOID-219483

AVOID HREFLANG ISSUES BY FOLLOWING THIS
IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION PROCESS
ASSESS THE
LANGUAGES AND
COUNTRIES HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
SCOPE
CHOOSE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
METHOD
SPECIFY THE
HREFLANG CODE
PATTERN
MONITOR AND
TROUBLESHOOT THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
AFTER LAUNCH
VALIDATE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION IN A
TEST ENVIRONMENT
ESTABLISH HREFLANG
BEST PRACTICES
GUIDELINES TO BE
FOLLOWED WHEN A
NEW PAGE IS
PUBLISHED
HTTP://BIT.LY/HREFLANGPROCESS

USE THE CORRECT
ANNOTATIONS
AND VALUES BY
GENERATING
HREFLANG
PATTERNS WITH
GENERATOR
TOOLS
HTTPS://WWW.ALEYDASOLIS.COM/ENGLISH/INTERNATIONAL-SEO-TOOLS/HREFLANG-TAGS-GENERATOR/

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT #WAQ19DEEPCRAWL, SITEBULB, SCREAMING FROG, RYTE, BOTIFY
VALIDATE THE HREFLANG IMPLEMENTATION  
USING SEO CRAWLERS BEFORE IT IS LAUNCHED

AFTER LAUNCH, MONITOR ANY REMAINING ISSUES WITH
THE SEARCH CONSOLE INTERNATIONAL REPORT
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

LOCALIZE YOUR CONTENT TO YOUR AUDIENCE
NOT ATTRACTING TRAFFIC?

IT’S CRITICAL TO UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
SEARCH PREFERENCES IN EACH MARKET

IT’S FUNDAMENTAL TO DEVELOP A SPECIFIC KEYWORD
RESEARCH PER MARKET WITH NATIVE SUPPORT
SEMRUSH, KWFINDER, AHREFS, SISTRIX

TO IDENTIFY SPECIFIC TERMS, PREFERENCES, TRENDS
AND SEASONALITIES IN EACH MARKET
GOOGLE TRENDS, GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER

USE IT TO LOCALIZE EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR WEB  
CONTENT: URLS, TITLE, META DESCRIPTION, NAVIGATION

AVOID LEAVING CRITICAL AREAS OF YOUR CONTENT
WITHOUT TRANSLATING/LOCALIZING

TO FACILITATE THE PAGES LOCALIZATION PROCESS CREATE
A MATRIX SPECIFYING THEIR ALTERNATE VERSIONS

<Characteristic> <Main Keyword> in <Location>:
+<No. Of Items> by <Brand>
<Palabra Clave> <Característica> en <Ubicación>:
+<No. de Products> por <Marca>
English Title
THEN CREATE ANOTHER W/ PATTERNS TO GENERATE  
THE MAIN CONTENT ELEMENTS FOR EACH PAGE VERSION
Spanish Title

THE GOAL IS TO
CONNECT WITH
EACH OF YOUR
AUDIENCES
PREFERENCES
WITH YOUR WEB
EXPERIENCE

BY FOLLOWING THE PREVIOUS PROCESS YOU’LL AVOID
THE MOST COMMON INTERNATIONAL SEO CHALLENGES…
LACK OF
RESOURCES TO
CREATE AND
OPTIMIZE MORE
CONTENT
NOT BEING
ABLE TO RANK
WELL WITH THE
CHOSEN
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE
RANKING IN
INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH RESULTS
WITH THE WRONG
PAGES
NOT
LOCALIZING
YOUR CONTENT &
OFFERING TO THE
TARGET MARKET
PREFERENCES

TO TARGET, LOCALIZE AND GROW YOUR INTERNATIONAL
WEB ORGANIC SEARCH VISIBILITY AND TRAFFIC

IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETS THAT ARE ALSO PROFITABLE

IT’S TIME TO WIN ABROAD

* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti
* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries
* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”
* Blogger in Search Engine Land & Search Engine Journal
* Crawling Mondays YouTube Channel Host
* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018
MERCI, #WAQ19!
ORAINTI.COM

International SEO: How to Grow your Online Business Abroad #WAQ19

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