Even though 25.3% of the internet’s content is in English, the rest of the top ten languages being used online consists of 51.6% of the rest of the world’s internet content. Due to this, one way of broadening your audience is by creating your eCommerce site accessible in different languages and locations.
But is creating a Multilingual SEO keyword research and strategy even worth it? With how many online users are English speakers, will multilingual SEO make a difference in the amount of traffic your website will receive?
To learn more about multilingual SEO keyword research, its benefits, and its application, keep reading!
Multilingual SEO and Multiregional SEO: Is there a Difference?
To begin with, our discussion on multilingual and multiregional SEO, let’s first define them.
Multilingual SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its online content in several languages so target language speakers can easily find it.
Meanwhile, multiregional SEO is the process of optimizing a website for specific nations or regions.
These two SEO practices go hand in hand when you’re planning to enter new digital markets from around the world. However, we will primarily discuss multilingual SEO keyword research, but later on, you will see how these practices work together, especially regarding site structure in SEO.
What are the Benefits of Multilingual SEO Keyword Research?
If you’re a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) looking to go international, SEO is one of the best ways to market your business abroad.
Each country has its cultural preferences. Even simple keywords like “cell phone” for the US market would be different in other markets. For example, the equivalent keyword for “cell phone” in the German market is “handy,” while even in other English-speaking countries like the UK, it would be “mobile.”
The SERP of geographical regions will have different user preferences and intentions, making multilingual SEO keyword research essential.
Keyword research is fundamental in creating an SEO strategy and digital content. You will better understand your target audience by conducting keyword research on your target locale or language speakers.
You can utilize a keyword research tool and evaluate it based on your niche. From here, you can begin to create a profile on your target audience, which will make it easier to create content that is relevant and optimized.
Another benefit in creating multilingual SEO keyword research is that it can help increase your SERP ranking. When discussing multilingual SEO, you will need to specify the country or region you’re targeting and the language you’ll be using.
An example of this is by making your URL structure internationally friendly. Search engines can quickly identify where to place your website and content, making it easier for your target locale to locate. Also, implementing your multilingual keyword research in your translated meta title and meta descriptions will help with your SERP ranking.
Lastly, by conducting a multilingual SEO keyword research and strategy for your website, you’re opening your business to new markets that your competitors haven’t tapped into. Even if the international users were proficient in English, about 60% have stated that they still preferred reading content in their native language.
Visual Capitalists reported that even though China had the largest internet users, the top 100 million websites had only 1.9% of the content in Chinese. In short, there was an apparent demand and market for more Chinese content, but the vast majority of websites (including your competitors) have not tapped into it.
How Translation Services Support Your Multilingual SEO Content
Multilingual SEO keywords should act as the seed of your translated content. It’s meaningless to translate content for a foreign market, and no one will read it because you failed to optimize it through your multilingual SEO keywords.
To give us an idea of the process of multilingual SEO and the role of translation in creating content for our target locale, we interviewed someone from the translation industry.
Kate Banaag, one of the international SEO experts of Tomedes, a translation services company that has worked on several SEO-related projects for businesses seeking to expand to foreign markets, gave some tips and insights for first-time multilingual SEO researchers.
Kate explained that starting keyword research for multilingual SEO can be challenging because it demands a deep understanding of the particularities and nuances of the foreign market you’re targeting.
“I would also say that a mastery of the target language is needed to make a successful international SEO strategy,” Kate explained. “But if you’re not fluent in your target locale’s language, I suggest working with someone that’s a professional when it comes to translation alongside a native or someone who has a professional grasp of the language.“
Let’s clarify. Multilingual SEO keywords are NOT translations of the keyword from your local market. These keywords might act as an “equivalent” of your niche’s keywords, but they are their own keywords with their own demand and ranking in their respective local Search Engines.
If you’re fluent in your target locale’s language and culture, you can create your multilingual content on your own.
But suppose you’re not familiar with your target locale’s language and culture. In that case, you can always seek out the help of experts who specialize in your target locale’s language and multilingual SEO.
4 Things to Consider in Multilingual SEO Keyword Research
Since we have already discussed the importance of multilingual SEO keyword research, below are some considerations when planning out your research:
1. Research on Your Locale’s Market
When doing local market research, look into their cultural preferences, evaluate local competitors, identify trends in the market you’re planning to enter, and more. Also, you can look into how local competitors have promoted themselves online and pick up strategies.
You will also need to consider the ethics in digital marketing when targeting a locale, like data privacy and accuracy, misleading representation, and other possible pitfalls that could become a marketing disaster.
Some translation services specialize in marketing to your target locale and can help you out with research. Because research is the backbone of your SEO strategy, it’s okay to seek out assistance from professionals.
2. Have a Clear Understanding of Your Target Locale’s User Intention
Once you research your target locale, you will realize that even though all user intentions fall under commercial, navigational, transactional, and information, there will always be something inherently different about it from your usual target demographic.
This is where having a good understanding of consumer behavior comes into play. With intention comes expectations of your products and services. It’s always good to customize your products and services to suit your target locale’s preferences.
3. The Value of Multilingual Keyword List
Another essential part of your multilingual SEO keyword research is creating a keyword list. You can use keyword research tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush in developing a keyword list. You can evaluate high-value keywords through keyword research tools, identify which keywords are being used by your competitors, and see if the keywords you’ll be using have high traffic.
4. Go to the Online Platforms Where Your Target Locale “ Virtually Hang Out”
While researching your target locale, you will discover that not all social media and search engine platforms are being utilized. Whether you decide to have your business on Facebook or Google, it will depend on your target locale’s preferences.
For example, even though Facebook is the most commonly used social media platform, Japanese users don’t use it. Twitter, however, is often used by the Japanese as one of the websites where they can get updated.
And it’s not just social media platforms. Certain countries prefer other specific search engines than Google.
Another example, Google is banned in Mainland China. So if you’re looking to enter China’s digital market, you will need to research Baidu, their most popular search engine website. As for Hong Kong and Taiwan, Yahoo is their go-to search engine website.
The 5Cs: Tips For Multilingual and Multiregional SEO
Since we’ve discussed how you can get started with your multilingual SEO keyword research, here are just some other tips you can apply to your multilingual SEO strategy.
1. Conduct multilingual keyword research using the strategy mentioned above such as:
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Localized market research
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Identifying User Intention
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Creating a Keyword List for Your Target Locale
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Cultural and Online Platform Preference
2. Create a great URL structure using ccTLD, subdomain, and subdirectory for Multilingual and Multiregional SEO.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but many people tend to forget when implementing multilingual SEO or changing it for their website. When discussing multilingual and multiregional SEO, you might have heard about geotargeting..
Geotargeting is a practice under multilingual and multiregional SEO wherein you create content or marketing tactics tailored to consumers from a specific country or region. There’s a clear distinction between your target country or region and your target language speakers.
Depending on how you go about this, it will affect your URL structure, as follows:
Country Code Top-level Domain
This URL structure relies on a specific country or sovereign state. It’s nifty if you want to market your business internationally because, through the structure of your URL, you can specifically target a foreign market.
By just adding a two-character top-level domain (TLD) to the URL, like .UK for the United Kingdom.
Let’s get a bit meta here with our example:
But a disadvantage in creating a ccTLD is that you will have to build the domain authority for each domain you create, which is costly to maintain.
Subdomain
If you don’t have the time to maintain a new domain and want to consolidate the website’s domain authority, then creating subdomains might be for you. Creating a subdomain is a great way of entering new markets without compromising your website’s original domain authority.
One example of this is what Tomedes did, when they decided to create a site solely for French speakers and not target a specific country. When creating a subdomain, the two characters are at the front of the URL.
For example, fr means French language.
When building a website in another language, you will need to also create hreflang tags. The hreflang tags are vital if you’re planning to create a multilingual website because it helps Google identify the language and location of your domain or subdomain.
For example, You want Google to identify your website in Spanish. es can stand for Spanish or Spain.
hreflang=” es” – Spanish language
hreflang=” es-es” – Spanish language that’s targeting Spain
hreflang=” es-mx” – Spanish language that’s targeting Mexico
Subdirectory
Subdirectories branch off from subdomains, which helps in keeping the content of your website the same across different languages. It’s a great way to keep track and organize your website while at the same time improving your SEO.
Going back to Tomedes’ French subdomain as our example, the highlighted portion of the URL is the subdirectory for our French legal translation webpage. You can optimize it by implementing your multilingual SEO keyword research in the URL.
3. Create a good landing page
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to create good content, especially on your landing page. Not only does it need to have high-quality written content, but your landing page must be easy to navigate.
On average, users stay on a website for only 15 seconds if they can’t immediately find what they’re looking for.
4. Conduct competitor keyword research
In conducting keyword research, you can easily keep track of which competitor is ranking for what keyword and find out the techniques and strategies on how they implement their keywords into their SEO strategy.
5. Collaborate with a translation services company
As mentioned, you could always do multilingual SEO keyword research on your own. However, you run the risk of not having high-quality translations integrated into your website and lacking the cultural context of your target locale to conduct keyword research.
Some translation services companies specialize in multilingual SEO. They can also provide assistance in local market research and create multilingual content for your website to increase your website’s traffic.
Read More: 7 Reasons Why You Must Invest In SEO
Read Also: https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/interview-massivepeak/
