Introduction. What is multilingual SEO about?

Multilingual SEO (search engine optimisation) can be defined as a strategy that helps enhance a website’s different language versions’ visibility in search engines.

This approach mainly involves analysing popular key phrases and keywords to generate content that is specifically crafted for various target markets, audiences, and search engines (like Google or Amazon).

Multilingual SEO encompasses:

• building websites in each target language, ensuring they follow a logical structure;
• crafting unique content in multiple languages with the use of key phrases;
• employing user-friendly formatting;
• actions that ensure shortest possible site load time.

The effectiveness of multilingual SEO is often underestimated – however, English content (so widespread) accounts for only around one-fourth of all content on the internet!

Meaning of multilingual SEO for business

• Global reach: international SEO empowers businesses to open for prospective new markets by tailoring advertisements to users who look for goods and services in various languages.

• Better user experience: multilingual SEO improves the user experience (UX) by serving content in the user’s native language. This allows for seamless website navigation, easier understanding of product specifics, and facilitating access to important information.

• Competitive advantage: by optimising their online presence in several languages, companies are able to gain advantage over competition and establish authority as a trustworthy source in various linguistic communities.

Multilingual SEO best practices

A well-run multilingual SEO campaign requires a number of actions on two different levels: On-Site SEO (website language versions’ content and structure optimisation) and Off-Site SEO (done outside the website itself, including sponsored links and articles).

Keyword research

Identifying key phrases (keywords) is a crucial ingredient of search engine optimisation, which additionally helps find users’ most frequent queries. Site owners who understand users’ behaviour and preferences can optimise content so that it answers the most common questions typed in by users (e.g. in Google). If the user finds an in-depth explanation of an issue they look up online, they aren’t going to close the website immediately, which will significantly decrease the bounce rate and, consequently, boost the site’s ranking.

Market-specific tools

For the purpose of multilingual website content optimisation, it’s recommended to use keyword research tools with access to market-specific data.

Cultural context and nuances

Multilingual keyword research must take into consideration cultural differences and linguistic nuances. Particular terms, idioms, or preferences regarding the product may differ depending on the culture – even for the same language but spoken elsewhere.

Search engine preferences

Before any optimisation-related activities are done, you must identify the area that you wish to acquire users from. It’s therefore essential to analyse main search engines of a given region or locale, such as Baidu in China or Naver in South Korea.

What mistakes to avoid in multilingual SEO?

Wrong keywords

This error usually stems from literal translation of given elements from source language into the target one. As a result, they might be too generic or completely unsuitable, giving your website zero chance of ranking high in search results. Creating content for the website should begin with keyword research. It’s much easier to put key phrases in a text being written than take ready content and try to fit in keywords here and there (as this sounds fake).

Wrong search engine in mind

One could think that Google is the dominant search engine everywhere across the globe – but nothing further from the truth! In China, for instance, it’s actually Baidu (used by the whooping 80% of the market users; only 3% of them use Google), and in South Korea, Naver is the main choice. Each of these search engines works differently and employs separate algorithms. Before a decision is made, it’s worth investigating the matter.

Neglecting local positioning

Local positioning is used to promote products or services among customers from a given market with the use of key phrases that usually contain the name of a given city – thanks to that, you can get a high position in search results connected to the location of a user. It’s especially important for local enterprises, such as hairdressing salons or auto shop. Also, as many as 96% of consumers search for services locally – 46% of searches in Google are local.[1]

Literal, one-to-one content translation

Similarly to keywords and key phrases, content published on a website should be localised, not just translated. It’s vital, since the majority of companies operate based on customer acquisition – which is rather hard to complete if you present your new audiences with texts completely disconnected from their reality. For example: in Poland, everyone knows what Fat Thursday (tłusty czwartek) is. There, at the mere thought of that day, people have a mouthwatering vision of delicious jelly donuts with various fillings. But the seemingly identical holiday looks different in, for instance, Great Britain – there, it’s called Pancake Day, and people eat pancakes with toppings of their choice. As a result, a text targeted at one audience may be completely irrelevant to another, which might make the new group think you don’t care about them – but you do care about all your customers!

Check out our website and learn how we combine language service provider services with SEO services!

This text is based on “Multilingual SEO Essentials”, “Multilingual SEO best practices: how to optimise your website for global visibility”, and “The most common mistakes in international SEO and how to avoid them” articles on the website of locatheart translation agency.

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[1] https://pomoc.home.pl/baza-wiedzy/co-to-jest-pozycjonowanie-lokalne

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