International SEO tips

International SEO is the ability to optimise different websites for different audiences. Below you will find many different strategies that go into getting more traffic to your sites from around the world.

Use different domain extensions for different countries

Use .com for your main english website and "it" for Italy, "co.uk" for UK and use cross -domain canonical tags for websites with similar language to avoide content duplication.

Use local servers for each website

If you can afford it, I advice you to buy hosting sapce from different countries making sure that you don’t buy the cheapest option that could slow down your website. The faster your website loads, the better rank your site will have on search engines

Use the language meta tag

• English (U.S.): <meta http-equiv=“content-language” content=“en-us”>
• English (U.K.): <meta http-equiv=“content-language” content=“en-gb”>
• Italian: <meta http-equiv=“content-language” content=“it”>

Let visitors navigate to different locale sites

A list of different domain should be near the top navigation and footer.

Webmaster tools for location and sitemap

Submit a different sitemap for each website and make sure to select the right country for each domain.

Build a keyword list for each country or language

A correct and accurate translation of a keyword or term may not be what people actually use to search for a product or service locally. For this reason you need to hire a local SEO Consultant to find out the right keywords and provide native transaltion.

Keywords in the page title and URL

Google and other search engines also use the text of the URL of the page to determine the content of the web page and the page title should follow these guidelines:

• Be under 70 characters with no more than two keywords per page title
• The primary keyword should appear first
• Each page title on your website should be unique

Monitor your Rank

Keep checking your rank on search engines and track your progress.

Local site on local directories

Register websites on local sites and get inbound links from target countries. Get sites in the UK to link to your co.uk extension, sites in Italy to link to your .it extension, etc.

Avoid black -hat link building strategies

Don’t do the following:

• Link buying
• Link farming
• Article submissions

Use globally recognized fonts

It’s best to use common fonts on your website that are recognized around the world. This will help ensure the text is displayed correctly on most screens.

Use Responsive design

Responsive design is the leading solution to the mobile usability challenge and is also beneficial to search engine optimization.

Geo-target paid search campaigns

If you plan to use Google AdWords, be sure to geo-target your campaigns. This way you can create ads for particular countries and languages.

Use local social media

Use local social media to share your content and when you are tweeting, leave some space in your tweets to allow for “RT @Username” and room for users’ commentary. The more retweets you get relating to the keywords you want to rank for, the better your SEO will be.

Learn cultural differences

If your business targets customers in countries foreign to yours, learn about the different countries’ cultures to understand what appeals to them versus your country.

Research the local competition

Competition may be far different in other countries. In some cases, there are countries without any competition, and they are able to completely dominate the market.

Last personal advice on landing pages

Make sure attract more visits on your website and
turn that traffic into leads. You landing page needs to have a clear call to action.