Internationalization is a big goal for companies and though it comes with challenges, the benefits of today’s globalized world are worth it. One of the most used techniques today is having a multilingual site, so the website serves English speakers as well as other users, be their native language Spanish, French, etc.
What is internationalization?
It is the process of making a website appropriate for the global market. It involves mainly two things: 1. ensuring the pages can accommodate multiple languages and 2. ensuring the website has the right infrastructure to support such languages.
Among its advantages, internationalization helps with:
- Increasing sales.
- Boosting searchability.
- Widening the target market and target audience.
However, along with the advantages, this model needs some specific practices in order to succeed. If getting traffic in a single language can get demanding, you would need more strategic actions for a multilingual site. We’ve come to help you with that with a few tips:
1. Translate SEO elements
Before landing on your site, people will most likely see the SEO titles and meta descriptions. If these elements do not appear in their native language, not only they will be less interested in clicking on your site, but also the search engine will not rank it.
Which SEO elements you must translate?
- title
- meta description
- image alt tags
- URL
2. Ensure translated pages are indexable
If you want an optimized multilingual site, the web address must be accessible. This will, indeed, help Google index and rank the international versions of your website.
When geotargeting a site, Google has three options:
- Country-specific domains
Example: websitename.com/blog-post (English) and websitename.jp/blog-post (Japan)
- Subdomains with gTLD
Example: websitename.com/features (English) and jp.websitename.com/features (Japan)
- Subdirectories with gTLD
Example: websitename.com/features (English) and websitename.com/jp/features (Japan)
3. Make sure you know your target audience
People in different countries or regions use specific terms for search, slang, or even phrases for different purposes like products, deals, etc. Therefore, getting to know the target audience and their language customs is crucial if you want your site to be useful to them,
Do you want your website to rank? Contact us, our team of experts will be glad to help boost your site.
