International SEO is a topic that can leave even the most knowledgeable of business owners scratching their heads. From crafting separate websites for every country, to following what big companies are doing, there are countless myths surrounding the subject that can confuse the matter even further. While the help of a local or Essex digital marketing agency could help you with your international rankings if you truly are stuck, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the most common myths surrounding International SEO and whether or not they’re true – spoiler alert, most of them aren’t!
You Need To Have Multiple Websites To Rank Internationally
Country-Coded Top-Level Domains, or ccTLDs, are essentially separate websites for your international content and one widespread myth regarding international SEO is that you don’t actually need multiple websites or even multiple sub-domains in order to rank. Your main website could easily rank across a variety of countries without the need for a domain like .co.uk (UK) or .ca (Canada). Through the use of additional folders with your multilingual or regional content, you can easily host one website and pull in and cater for visitors from across the globe.
Geo-Targeting Will Be Enough
Unfortunately, geo-targeting your content just isn’t enough to get your page ranking. While it’s important not to forgo geo-targeting completely, especially if you have pages aimed at specific areas, there are other factors that search engines will look at before the geo-targeting. Translated content from the page, translated URLS, local links from ccTLDs, NAP information (name, address, phone number) and even your server location will usually be looked at first over other international ranking factors.
Using Hreflang Tags Will Help Multi-National Content Rank Better
While hreflang tags are a vital part of international SEO campaigns, they’re not actually a ranking factor. However, you’ll need to get them right before ranking factors will actually work for your business. These tags are designed to ensure that the right content is shown in the right version of Google and there is no margin for error. You have to make sure you have the right ISO tags, Return tags, self-referential tags, that you point to the right URLs, that all of these URLs are included in an hreflang group, and make sure you use page tags or XML sitemaps, not both.
You Should Look At What Multinational Companies Are Doing
While this could help in some situations, the fact of the matter is this – not all multinational companies will be prioritising SEO practices. In fact, mistakes are extremely common in large companies and not every company uses the same international SEO techniques when they do get it right. You’ll often spend so long working out which company’s techniques will work best for your business, when you could be investing that time with more value elsewhere.
Using URL Parameters For Languages Is OK
Unique URLs are the best way to go when it comes to languages or regions. While parameters do work on most occasions, they definitely aren’t dependable and Google have even listed them as ‘not recommended’. Because of this, some parameters will naturally be indexed, but some won’t and that just isn’t a risk that anyone should take with their site when there’s a much better alternative you could choose. Opt for unique URLs instead – Google prefers them, users prefer them, and they’ll give you a much better chance at ranking internationally.
There are plenty of things you need to consider for your international SEO campaigns, from hreflang tags to avoiding language parameters in your URLs. Keeping up with Googles ever-changing algorithms and SEO ranking requirements is a must for any company on a local or international basis, so make sure you follow any updates carefully to ensure you have a better chance at ranking internationally in no time.
