Top 5 tips for multilingual international SEO

International SEO and international e-market growth can offer B2B & B2C businesses the opportunity for explosive growth. However, often an ill thought out strategy and incoherent implementation lead to frustration and wasted budgets.

Below some top tips for international SEO; to help your business avoid the main pitfalls that befalls a poor international search campaign.

1) Use the correct local search engines

Google is the main search engine in the UK but depending on your market. There may be more relevant and important local search engines.

2) Translations & localization

Translations of web copy and keywords will need to be very well done and include cultural specifics to be relevant for the local audience. An example is Portuguese spoken in Brazil and Portugal but when you take local cultural differences into account it can make a big difference to the end user.

3) Keyword research

Use search marketing specialists who can use your UK keyword model as a base for localizing keyword research in each local territory being targeted. This keyword localization work is a key element of the work to ensure that correct local phrases are being targeted to the highest sales opportunity.

4) Social Media

Social media marketing is an excellent tool; however it is used differently by the different international audiences. To maximize the impact of social media ensure that you are have localized and correctly targeted your campaigns for social media to be effective.

5) Technical international SEO

There are a lot of tactics to making sure that the technical side of an international SEO campaign is working effectively.  This includes how to set up or frame top level domains, directories, URL’s, the DNS, and where to host the website but to begin answering the how to’s you must first understand the technical/platform, and business  set up.

That’s why international SEO campaigns must always be bespoke and tailored to client’s specific situation. Because if you do not understand the platform and technical set up plus the back office works streams it is very difficult to design a best fit international SEO solution.

This article was produced by: Steve Bernard – Ecommerce SEO Expert,

Director at Seek4Commerce, a leading London SEO Company.

5 Quick SEO tips for ecommerce websites

Remove duplicate content across product pages

Many retailers fall into the trap of using the same product description across numerous product pages. However, having the same description posted across numerous pages across your websites and syndicated out via affiliates can damage the points Google attributes to your product pages.

Instead consolidate product variations into one product to ensure that maximum points can be attributed to a product.  Copying product descriptions from manufacturers or suppliers can lead to your website being damaged for content duplication. To mitigate this create unique product descriptions for all your products.

Add fresh content to your website

Regularly update your website with non product content which is linked to from your websites home page. This is great for visitors to your web store who maybe looking for articles or information on your products but also search engines who will push you up the SERP’s for having more useful things to say. One indicator of this is how often your web pages are cached by Google.

Don’t forget product SEO

It is estimated that over 80% of all web orders are generated from long tail keywords. Make sure that your product pages are optimized for Google.

4) Multi-channel search marketing

Have you ensured that you are dominating all sections of the search engine results pages?  Dominate the results for Google product search, maps, social updates, news, adwords and the natural search to put your competitors to bed.

This deeper and more proactive approach to dominating SERP’s leads to improved traffic and click through rate’s on your ads. An integrated search marketing approach can ensure e that you enjoy a much higher percentage of searches on any search result page resulting in higher sales for you not your competitors.

5) Image & video optimization

Do you have unique images and video about your products? Why not optimize video and images so that you can drive additional traffic via the Google Video & images search.  If you are an online retailer, your website is likely to be full of images – use them to gain better search rankings.

Adding the correct alt text and optimized captions can help getting your images optimized for Google image search.

This article was produced by: Steve Bernard – Ecommerce SEO Expert,

Director at Seek4Commerce, a leading London SEO Company.