Translating your content into multiple languages and optimizing your site for international search opens the door to a vastly larger market. The overwhelming majority of global internet users turn to Google when they need to find a solution to a problem. However, reaching these users is no easy feat.
Things get significantly trickier if you want to target audiences that don’t speak English. This obviously requires translating your content into different languages, but it also involves making some changes to your site infrastructure to let Google know that you have multi-language content available.
If you are looking to expand into international search, you have two options. The first option is to host multiple domains that are each built for different languages or different regions. The other option is to set up one domain to handle multiple languages on one site. Depending on which route you choose, there are different tactics to signal to search engines how you have organized your multi-language content.
While Demandwell’s platform is built for creating content in English, our consultants can help you use your English SEO copy in multiple languages and set up your site to support multi-language content.
At Demandwell, we conduct all our keyword research in English. Once we’ve narrowed down the best keywords in English and built content around those, we can coach you to use translators to convert the content into multiple languages. Keywords may not translate well into other languages, but Google does a very good job at recognizing when a keyword has been translated and can target similar audiences in multiple languages. Taking a lot of care in the translation process will help your content perform well no matter what language you are targeting.
Just posting content multiple times in different languages isn’t particularly effective from an SEO standpoint. Multi-language content needs to be baked into the infrastructure of your site. It also needs to be done in a way that tells Google you have different variations of the same content in more than one language. This will help Google serve that information to whichever specific audiences might be using translated versions of a keyword.
There are nuances in the international search strategies depending on whether you have one website or multiple websites. If you do not understand how to optimize your multi-language content, then it is best to get an SEO expert involved in the conversation. It is important to effectively communicate with Google that you have different versions of the same content in multiple languages.
Expanding your brand’s reach into international search may be crucial for your business depending on your target audience. You may have no choice but to venture into international search for your SEO strategy. To attract an international audience, you need to set up the website infrastructure to support multi-language content. Demandwell can help you get your content translated effectively and optimize your site infrastructure to make your international content more visible.