The ultimate goal of global Internet marketing is to deliver the best site to the user, with the most appropriate marketing message for the particular audience.  This involves being able to determine the appropriate language and deliver the best possible user interface while trying to take the users location into account.  Meanwhile, there are a host of search engine optimization factors to take into account when developing a Global SEO strategy. In this blog post we discuss the impact of web hosting decisions and the importance of idomatic keyword research when developing an International SEO campaign.

Geolocation/Web Address/Hosting

One of the most important technical decisions to be made at the outset of a global Internet marketing campaign when it comes to SEO is how to manage the various domains that go along with such a large-scale marketing effort.  This decision can affect not only your rankings, but it also has the potential to affect how you will be able to manage the site(s) and even how much you may end up investing in this marketing effort.

There are generally two commonly accepted options when it comes to launching a website/websites in different countries.  The first option is to host all of the various language variations on one site, separating the languages by subdomains or subdirectories.  The second option is to create a dedicated site for each language you are targeting.

Obviously, there are pros and cons on both sides.  By keeping all of the content on one site and delivering the content on subdirectories or subdomains, you generally will have greater centralized control when it comes to management of the site.  This method is also very advantageous from an SEO perspective because all of the links will be coming in to one singular domain, as opposed to separate domains for each different language.  This method can also be more effective when it comes to suppressing the possibility of duplicate content in the search engines.

When it comes to using multiple sites, the costs to entry are generally lower.  You can launch one site, and then launch additional sites as they become needed.  Also, by having multiple sites, it opens up the opportunity to rank well in multiple country-specific search engines.  This method also enables you to set up country specific hosting, thereby adding that benefit to your SEO efforts to target a specific country.

How do you parse the language differences?  Subdomain, subdirectory, top-level-domain?  Pros and cons of each.

Benefits of using one site with subdomains/subdirectories:

• Centralized management of the site is easier
• All of the links and traffic come to one domain
• Can be easier to avoid duplicate content issues

Benefits of using multiple sites:

• Ability to add sites as they are ready to launch
• Rank well in multiple countries for each country specific site
• Country specific hosting for each site

Many times it makes sense to host your site in the country being targeted.

International Keyword Research

You can’t conduct keyword research in English and simply translate to your target market’s language.  One must do research based on idiomatic expressions and determining potential traffic for the words you will be targeting.

A classic example is the keyword phrase “laptop computer”. This is a very common term in English that receives over 1,000,000 queries per month in Google alone. Seemingly we could translate the keyword phrase to “computadora del regazo” or “computer of the lap” to target Spanish users. However, “computadora del regazo” is not a phrase that Spanish speakers use in conversation, much less to search for ‘portable’ computers in search engines.

The preferred expression to refer to laptop computers in Latin American Spanish is “computadora portatile”, which if one directly translate to English is “portable computer”. In English the keyword phrase “portable computer” gets 1/20th the search volume that “laptop computer” receives. However, in Latin American Spanish “computadora del regazo” generates too little traffic to generate monthly estimates while “computadora portatile” is estimated to have 700 queries per month. As an added twist, if we were to target Spanish speakers from Spain it would be preferable to use the keyword “ordenador portatil”.

The above example identifies the need to conduct extensive keyword research when ‘translating’ a campaign to a foreign language. The best case scenario is to have a native speaker oversee and/or conduct the keyword research. At a minimum, one should use a foreign language/English dictionary that includes idiomatic expressions and is as local to the target market as possible.

References:

http://mcanerin.blogspot.com/2008/09/3-factors-of-international-seo.html

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2008/06/international_s.html

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 7:47 am and is filed under Global Interactive Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.