SEO, according to DataWorks, is an important source of traffic for websites especially if you target several markets. There are different types of SEO that you may haven’t heard of but the difference between international and local SEO are what needs to be discussed.
Local SEO targets nearby audience while international SEO aims to reach international audience and expand the web presence of your business. Having your business grow internationally is every business owner’s dream; but what are the things that needs to be considered to be internationally successful?
Listed below are the basic phases to start an international SEO process.
- Research
Start with an initial by identifying your current international organic search visibility, traffic, conversions, and conversion research rate. If your organic search visibility is positive then prioritize these markets and if you only got a minimum organic search visibility, then it means that you’ll need more resources and time to achieve your desired search visibility results.
Neil Patel stated in his blog that Keyword research can help in identifying the potential by collecting data such as relevant keyword and phrases which your international audience used as queries to look for business, products and services that relate to your business. Also get the organic search volume results per country of those keywords and the level of competition of the keywords per country especially your current rank for these keywords.
- Target
After collecting the data needed, identify which country have enough organic search volume of the relevant keywords that are vital for your international SEO process. If the results show that the organic search volume isn’t enough to target a country, then move on with targeting the language instead. If the traffic volume is of the country is low but higher when targeting its language, then start targeting the language first. By doing so, it will allow you to get your desired traffic and eventually be able to target and approach the ideal country you want so the website to will be able to connect with the audience. If you’re going to target the country, ccTLDs, sub-directories and sub-domains will help and if you’re targeting the language, sub-directories and sub-domain will be of help.
- Optimization
Once you’ve finished the steps above, optimizing it comes next. Make sure the URLs, title and meta description, headings, navigation, images, reviews and other important elements are completely displayed on the website. If your audience is not using the language they have better understanding with, direct them to the page or ask them through a pop-up box whether they want to change the language or not.
These are just the basic process of starting and entering international SEO. The process isn’t that much but it needs a lot of work, focus and effort in order to properly execute it that’ll lead to success. It will need research and correct data to achieve your desired results. Still, remember that these are only the basic process and there might be a lot of things for you to consider and continuous content and marketing support is needed to grow more in terms of structure and popularity.
