International SEO

SEO in other countries

As everybody knows, the Internet has made it possible for businesses to reach an audience they could have never imagined in the past. In fact, up to only a few years ago, companies geared their publicity to their own country and did not even dare think of International SEO, as very few people travelled abroad to buy a product, let alone hire a service.

However, thanks to the evolution of new technologies, users started to change the way to search for and buy products. As a result, businesses also started to change their strategies to be able to adapt to and cover other target audiences. This means that, nowadays, a potential customer is anyone who has a device with Internet access; and successful sales depends solely and exclusively on the business and not on users’ location, as some businesses do not or cannot ship their products or services to other countries.

Do you want to do SEO in the United Kingdom?

Do you want to do SEO in France?

Do you want to do SEO in Germany?

Why do International SEO?

It is clear that the Internet has made it easier for us to be present in other countries where we can sell our products or services without being physically there. But… what is the best way to contact users? Which is the most appropriate online marketing platform to position our business? In most countries, search engines are our main allies to break into the market and, in this regard, there is no other search engine quite as good as Google to obtain results in a foreign country.

Nonetheless, before doing International SEO there are some questions you should consider:

Is there really a niche market in that country for my product?
Who is my target audience in that country? Is it similar to the target audience in my home country?
What language does my target audience speak?
How do users search for my product in that country?
Who are my online competitors in that country?
What strategies do my competitors follow?
Is my website adapted to sell my product or service in that country (language, payment system, currency, etc.)?
Is my website adapted to this new target audience (cultural references, expressions, register, etc.)?
Is the content of my website similar to the content of my competitors’ websites? Could it be considered duplicate content?
Am I really able to manage customers from that country? Do I have a customer service that can speak with users in their mother tongue?

Obviously, you will not know the answer to most of these questions, as only a thorough market analysis can shed light on the matter. Still, such analysis is highly recommended to decide the best SEO strategy to position your website in that country. Because, predictably, the SEO strategy chosen for German users living in Germany is completely different from German users living in France. For this reason, contact our Online Marketing Agency and make an appointment. We will study your situation and create the International SEO strategy that best suits you.

Positioning your site in another country

As we have said in previous sections, to do SEO in other countries it is essential to question many aspects related to marketing. However, the most important of them all is, perhaps, knowing who is interested in your products or services. Selling your products or services in another country means, among other things:

Getting to know the culture of that place, as well as its trends and customs.
Discovering the expressions users use when searching for a product. Here we should stress the importance of English in foreign countries, e.g. a German user uses ‘catering service’ instead of ‘verpflegungsservice’ to find this service on Google.
Identifying all the keywords you could be ranked for, whether generic or specific.
Choosing the most used search engine in that country. It goes without saying that Google is the most used search engine worldwide. However, in Russia, Yandex is way more used than Google, as well as Baidu in China.
Knowing the percentage of the population who has access to internet services.
Adapting the content of your website based on what users expect from you, making sure your website is responsive.
Using the most popular social networks in that country, as it may drive traffic to your website, which in turn benefits SEO.

In summary, the most important thing when doing International SEO is to know who may be your potential customer, since this is the key to all the subsequent positioning work.

The target audience in another country

When we talk about doing SEO in other countries it does not necessarily mean that you need to have your website in different languages. It is possible that you want to do International SEO in a country where users share your mother tongue, as for example a British business which wishes to be ranked on Google in the U.S.A., Australia or Ireland. In this case, should this business make changes to its website? The answer is yes, because its product or service may be called differently in America, because there may be some expressions and references that do not mean the same in Australia, because users in Ireland do not search in the same way as users in Britain, and last but not least, because users may not feel comfortable browsing this British website as it does not look like the websites they are used to, that is, competitors’.

If we want to do International SEO, we cannot use the same tools we have been using so far in our home country. Our target audience changes, so we cannot extrapolate our strategy because users do not think the same, users do not have the same needs… they do not even see the world in the same way. Thus, the wisest thing to do when we deal with this situation is to adapt our web content based on the needs and searches from that foreign country. By so doing, we will not fall into the error of literal translations, and we will only focus on transmitting the message as good as possible.

Countries with the highest internet activity

eCommerce companies and digital economy are growing more than ever before. However, not all countries have such favourable conditions when it comes to internet access, which constitutes a major barrier to digital commerce. Therefore, if you are thinking about positioning on Google in other countries, it is important to know which are the most profitable countries for your business. In this aspect, we offer a list of European countries with the highest number of internet purchases.

The United Kingdom: 82% of users in the UK buy products and services over the internet.
Denmark: 79% of users in Denmark buy products and services over the internet.
Sweden: 79% of users in Sweden buy products and services over the internet.
Germany: 77% of users in Germany buy products and services over the internet.
Finland: 72% of users in Finland buy products and services over the internet.
France: 68% of users in France buy products and services over the internet.
Spain: 55% of users in Spain buy products and services over the internet.

It should be noted that thanks to the wide variety of products available on the market and the secure payment system, more and more people prefer shopping online; that is why an exponential increase of internet purchases is expected in the years to come.

For these and many other reasons, if you want to do International SEO it is highly important to analyze native companies in the sector. This analysis will help you identify the register, expressions and cultural references you should use on your website to satisfy your new users’ expectations. In this way, we make sure visitors have a successful user experience while browsing our page.

Remember that, before carrying out any SEO project in other countries, you should contact an Online Marketing Agency to establish an International SEO strategy. At Yagle, we study both the competition and the current situation of the market to help our clients. Contact us for further information.

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