Presented at International Search Summit 2013 San Jose. This is my process for how to get started on international search engine optimization even when you don't speak the language.

1. Launching an International
SEO Campaign
Eli Schwartz
Online Marketing Manager
SurveyMonkey
International Search Summit 2013

2. SEO @ SurveyMonkey

3. International SEO

4. SEO Opportunity
More Spanish speakers worldwide than English*
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

5. Look at page two of Google
Google.com (English) Google.es (Spanish)

6. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

7. What do actual users think?
• Random selection from
general US population
• Random assignment into
1 of 2 surveys with 16
questions
• Survey sent to 3,000
people
• Survey was open for 5
days
• 615 people participated
• Comparison of means
over a variety of indicators

8. TLD does not seem to impact trust
The difference
in trust was
insignificant

9. Spelling and grammar matter
Trust decreased
25% for
incorrect
grammar and
spelling
t(231,334) = -7.62, p < .001

10. Don’t use machine translation

11. International SEO is your plane

12. No content, no rank

13. Learn just one word…
Google Translate

14. Start Googling
Search in your target language
Google can help even in non-Google dominant languages

15. Two tabbed browsing: Translate and Original

16. Google suggest will show new keywords
Spanish English Translation

17. View search competitors in two tabs
Spanish Original
English Translation
• Add all competitors to a competitor worksheet
• View each site to find new keywords

18. Use a thesaurus

19. Keyword discovery tools
Semrush.com
Trends.Google.com
Ubersuggest.org
Ahrefs.com

20. 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
• A greater search volume for the plural version of
one word does not have bearing on other words
• Singularize plural keywords from original list

21. Look up search volume of keyword list
Adwords keyword tool

22. Dedupe the list and make it actionable

23. Verify keywords in a Google search

24. Find a native

25. Audit existing (or plan new) content

26. Start with pages on your English domain
Change to 25
URL will now show:
Change to 2500

27. Discover all your URL’s with Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog is a crawler that will show all URL’s on the site
Optimum
settings
Download here: http://bit.ly/scfrog

28. Launch Option 1: Use a translation company
http://www.smartling.com/ https://www.tolingo.com/en
http://gengo.com/ https://www.transifex.com/

29. Launch Option 2: Freelancers

30. Keyword use: quality over quantity
Priority Placement
1 Title (used in a correct phrase)
2 H1
3 Content (within text and alongside synonyms)
4 Internal links
5 Meta description (increase CTR for specific keywords

31. Interlink your new sites/languages

32. Tools for checking progress
Traffic > Rankings

33. Learn from the data and update

34. Impact
• Significant increase in Non-brand organic traffic
• Traffic referred by new keywords
• Optimal keywords included at the content
creation stage
• Content queue targeted to localized translations
• Data to learn from
• Learn lots of nouns in a foreign language

35. Summary
1. Always focus on user experience
2. Do the work yourself
3. Find a native
4. Localize content
5. Rinse and Repeat

36. Thank you!
Eli Schwartz, SurveyMonkey
eli@surveymonkey.com
@5le @surveymonkey