Learn what types of considerations you must make to drive your international/global SEO strategy. User behavior across countries/languages? Device types? Local keyword phrases? Content marketing? Get all the answers here. Presented by Mariel Martinez in May 2015.

1. International SEO Roadmap
Introduction
1
When you're looking at your site traffic and you realize that a good share of your visitors are either coming from other
countries or speak other languages, it might be time to think about international SEO (which is essentially
geotargeting).
Moving into new territories and categories is a radical strategy that can create major potential for incremental
business growth. To succeed, it requires a precise understanding of market dynamics, consumer behavior and the
competitive landscape of the specific markets that you target.
In this presentation, we’ll discuss an international SEO roadmap to help you manage a campaign with a multi-national
or multi-lingual target audience and identify an upselling opportunity for an existing client.
IDENTIFY TARGET OPTIMIZE PROMOTE MEASURE

2. International SEO Roadmap
Identify: Your International Seo Potential
2
Validate your client’s company characteristics from an
international perspective:
Review your client’s existing web content & development
structure (can they support a new website development
project if necessary?), digital marketing goals, business
model, company operations, geography, cultural & language
factors, pricing & currency factors.
These are some questions you might ask yourself:
Ecommerce: Can my client offer international shipping and accept payment in international currencies?
Lead Generation/B2B: Can brand representatives support communication in multiple languages (demos, ‘contact
us now’)?
Location-Based (Brick & Mortar Locations): Does my client’s business model support international expansion?
Brand: Can my client’s product/goods be distributed to other countries? (Manufacturer versus Distributor)

3. International SEO Roadmap
Identify: Your International Seo Potential
3
Take into consideration your current site
International activity:
Segment by country/language: Identify visits,
conversions & conversion rates. Is there a
trend? Identify most popular/highest
converting pages/products. Traffic sources,
channels, & device types. Use Google
Analytics.
Identify your site current international search
visibility:
Segment by Country/Language: Identify
impressions, clicks & CTR. Is there a trend?
Identify top queries, pages and current
ranking keywords. Use Google Webmaster’s
Tools, SEMRush, & BrightEdge.
Total Revenue By Country
$0
$40,000
$80,000
$1,731.50
$8,002.46
$14,882.41
$43,744.16
$1,841,950.32
United States Canada Australia UK Germany
Analyze Current
SEO Activity & Visibility
ORGANIC KEYWORDS RANKING (CANADA)
KEYWORD POSITION VOLUME
colorful socks 3 40
cool socks 13 480
funky socks 40 390
fancy socks 28 210
crazy socks 93 210

4. International SEO Roadmap
Identify: Your International Seo Potential
4
Research your international industry search activity:
Search engines (Google? Baidu? Yahoo?) Country &
language (what of multiple language speaking
countries?). Devices. Competitors. Search terms,
volume, trend & seasonality. Use Google Trends,
Wikipedia, SEMRush, BrightEdge, Google Keyword
Planner.
Top Search Engine
4%
8%
88%
Google
Bing
Other
First Language
17%
23% 60%
English
French
Other
Use Google Trends
to identify consumer
search demand

5. International SEO Roadmap
Target: Your International Search Audience
5
Set your International Target:
Country Target if your visitors location is a factor that
influence your site operations and there are enough
potential traffic and conversions per country. If not,
language target.
Because of the differences in local dialects, i.e. “cell
phone” in the US versus “mobile” in Australia, or “color”
in the US versus “colour” in the UK - it is recommended
to country target for optimal results.
Understand your International Audience behavior &
characteristics:
Demographic characteristics, cultural factors, online
buying preferences. Use tools and studies like TNS
Digital life, ComsCore data mine and Google Consumer
Barometer.
How does this country’s behavior differ from users in the
US?
Studies on Consumer Behavior can
Drive your SEO Strategy

6. International SEO Roadmap
Target: Your International Search Audience
6
Identify & Research your International Competitors:
Most popular products & content (Competitor
Content Analysis), identify their ranking keywords,
unique selling proposition, weaknesses & strengths,
other marketing activities, online community. Use
Alexa, BrightEdge, SpyFu, SimilarWeb, SEMRush,
Buzzsumo, Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO.
Define your International SEO Strategy:
With the previously identified information you can
set the best SEO strategy, the keywords & pages to
promote and define goals to target for each
International market.
Identify Top Performing Competitor Marketing
Initiatives

7. International SEO Roadmap
Optimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site
7
Make your International content
indexable with its own Web structure:
Don't use cookies or scripts to show it
t h r o u g h t h e s a m e U R L ( U R L
Parameters).
Enable a specific Web structure for
each country or language:
• For country targeting: ccTLDs, Sub-
Directories or Sub-Domains to
target each country.
• For language targeting: Sub-
Directories or Sub-Domains to
target each language.
STRUCTURE EX. PROS CONS
Country- Specific
(recommended for single
country campaigns)
example.ie
Clear geotargeting
Server location irrelevant
Easy separation of sites
Authority does not pass between domains without
the use of links
SEO efforts are therefore increased greatly for
every new ccTLD used
Requires more infrastructure
Strict ccTLD requirements (sometimes)
Subdomains with GTLDs de.example.com
Easy to set up
Can use Webmaster Tools
Geotargeting
Allows different server locations
Easy separation of sites
Users might not recognize geotargeting from the
URL alone
Authority does not flow (to any significant level)
between subdomains.
Subdirectories with
GTLDs
(recommended for multi-
country/multi-lingual
campaigns)
example.com/de/
Easy to set up
Can use Webmaster Tools
Geotargeting
Low maintenance (same host)
One domain means one SEO
campaign; building authority to
the one country directory will
have a positive, indirect impact
on other countries.
Users might not recognize geotargeting from the
URL
Single server location
Seperation of sites harder
URL Parameters (Dynamic
Serving Content URLs)
site.com?loc=de Not recommended
URL-based segmentation difficult
Users might not recognize geotargeting fro the
URL alone
Geotargeting in Webmaster Tools is not possible
The website structure will largely depend on the client’s business model, country/languages we are targeting, and budget/
scope of the SEO campaign. Some countries have very strict ccTLD making it hard to go this route. Others have a low
amount of internet users and can cause issues obtaining links from other ccTLD’s.

8. International SEO Roadmap
Optimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site
8
Localize / translate your International Website:
• Titles, meta descriptions, headings, navigation,
text content and images, URLs, prices, currency,
delivery information, etc.
• Managers/Analysts will be connected with native
speakers to avoid translation mistakes and make
the website attractive for the targeted market.
• Internationalized domain names can be tricky: It
might be better to transliterate for non-ASCII
characters (the process of exchanging non-Latin
characters for similar-looking letters in the Latin
alphabet) depending on the search volume of
keyword phrases.
www.düesseldorf.de Versus www.duesseldorf.de

9. International SEO Roadmap
Optimize: Develop An Internationally Optimized Site
9
Make your International Web versions easily findable:
Featuring a visible and crawlable menu and by suggesting your International versions when they're relevant, not
automatically redirecting users.
Indicate your pages language and country targeting:
• Through hreflang annotations: Whether in your HTMLs head area or through your XML sitemaps. Use the Media
Flow hreflang tool to add them in your XML sitemap. Verify hreflang tags in the International Targeting section in
GWT.
• You can also specify the "content-language" meta tag or html "lang", used by Bing.
• Additionally, if you're country targeting and using a gTLD, use search engines Webmaster Tools geolocation
feature.
Example of an language annotations using the HTML link element
in the header

10. International SEO Roadmap
Promote: Grow Your International Search Popularity
10
Research your international competitors link building strategies:
Identify their link sources and the existing popularity gap.
• Link volume, sources & types. Linked content. Link quality vs. quantity. Link trend over time. Social Activity & Profile.
• Keep in mind than competition is usually lower than in the US and algorithmic Google updates take much longer to
impact international Google search engines.
• Use Buzzsumo, Open Site Explorer, MajesticSEO, Search Metrics, Link Risk, Social Crawlytics, and Ahrefs.

11. International SEO Roadmap
Promote: Grow Your International Search Popularity
11
Research your international audience profile:
Identify their behavior and characteristics to be
able to connect with them.
• Favorite content topics & formats. Most
popular social networks. Favorite media &
blogs. Industry influencers.
• Use Followerwonk, Topsy, Simply Measured
and Google Trends.
Identify competitors top influencers by geo-location
(Followerwonk)

12. International SEO Roadmap
Promote: Grow Your International Search Popularity
12
Create & promote useful and easy to consume
assets to connect and build popularity among
your International audience:
• Learn to leverage local sites & cultural
factors. Track the response behavior in
different countries. Build a relationship with
local influencers & media. Identify what works
better in each country to scale.
I.E. Infographic distribution has a longer
placement cycle outside the US
• Analysts will be paired with an experienced
native speaking link builder/local agency for
manual outreach & strategy in non-English
language SEO campaigns.
• Use GroupHigh, BuzzStream, Link Prospector,
CognitiveSEO, Ontolo, Outreachr, Link Risk,
Google Alerts.

13. International SEO Roadmap
Promote: Grow Your International Search Popularity
13
Align your company's activities for link building:
Your current product, content, marketing and even,
operations activities to connect with your international
audience.
Learn quick, be constant to become an authority:
Win the popularity race against your competitors by
learning quick to connect with your audience,
optimizing and being constant with your link building
actions to become an authority in your international
industries.
Don’t forget that you can still target low-hanging fruit for
clients that already have an international presence:
*Nofollow links – turn non-equity to equity passing links
*Optimize anchor text of links
*Common/Non-common Linking sites among competitors
*Convert brand mentions to links
*Broken links – find links for your site and competitors to
get them to link to your site

14. International SEO Roadmap
Measure: Your International Seo Activity
14
Track your International Web presence
independently:
Set each Web version in Webmaster tools & rank
tracking software for the relevant search engine.
Enable profiles for sub-directories & sub-domains
in Google Analytics. Create independent
properties for each ccTLD.
Research your search visibility, performance &
visitors behavior to make decisions:
Gather, segment and analyze the relevant metrics
for each international Web version:
• Keywords & pages. Language, location, device
& sources of traffic. Rankings, visits,
conversions.
• Pay special attention to currency settings,
cross-domain tracking, country & language
traffic alignment.
Use BrightEdge, WebCeo, ClientSEO Reports.
For Ecommerce please note that Google Analytics does not support all local currencies. In some cases, ecommerce data
will be inaccurate.

15. International SEO Roadmap
A Few Things To Look Out For:
15
Opportunity Broadcasting for International SEO - one-sheeter template to upsell international SEO to existing clients
Finalized International SEO Deliverables & Audit
Advanced International SEO Keyword Research Workshop
Baidu & Yandex Ranking Factors Discussion
Questions? Please Contact Me!
Mariel Martinez
SEO Manager
Wpromote
mariel@wpromote.com
310. 321.4095 Direct