International SEO for multilingual sites
IONOS editorial team
Companies that showcase themselves online or sell products through online shops typically aim to expand their reach. High-quality content is just as important as improving search engine rankings and having an effective marketing strategy. It’s also essential to expand into international markets with a multilingual website. However, operating a multilingual website involves much more than translating the content on your website.
What are the challenges of having a multilingual website?
In the initial phase of planning a multilingual website, a lot revolves around the topic of translations. In addition to translating content on the website, it’s also necessary to translate navigation and operating elements. This often requires additional staff, depending on the scope of the internationalization measures and the available resources within your company. If you offer your website in several languages, you should also offer customer support in the respective languages as well. Additionally, you’ll need to factor in country or language-specific marketing campaigns, appropriate link building and the setting up of suitable technical structures (web hosting, domain names, SSL certification). If you manage your project using a CMS, it should also be easy to for you to enter multilingual content into your system.
Once you have these areas covered, you can focus on perhaps the most critical aspect of maintaining multilingual web projects: international SEO. This involves translating your website, adapting the keyword set and the URL, and taking care of technical tasks such as developing an appropriate page structure and correct linking and redirections.
If you plan to expand your online offerings to Eastern European and Asian markets as part of your internationalization process, you should also consider which search engines are used in those regions so you can better plan the multi-language SEO for your website. Popular search engines like Yandex (Russia), Baidu (China), or Yahoo (Japan) should be included in your international SEO strategy. For SEO in e-commerce, the importance of Amazon and its integrated search application is also increasing.
Successful internationalization not only enhances your company’s prestige but also strengthens customers’ trust in your company. Below, we have summarized what to consider when it comes to international search engine optimization and which mistakes to avoid.
SEO for multilingual websites
Optimizing your website for multiple languages can open the door to global markets and give your company international visibility. SEO for multilingual websites ensures that your website is found and is appealing in different languages and regions. Immerse yourself in the world of multilingual SEO and discover how you can expand your reach and effectively access new target groups.
Suitable domain structure
The first step of international SEO is to find a fitting domain for each international project. You should ask yourself whether it’s appropriate to use a uniform domain across all languages, which domain ending best suits your web project and how the URL should be structured. The following table shows four possible options with the unique advantages and disadvantages of each one:
| URL structure | Example | Advantage | Disadvantage |
|---|---|---|---|
| A country-specific domain (ccTLD) for each market | your-ecommerce.com | Unique geographical reference Server location irrelevant Simple distinction between different websites |
Requires more infrastructure Sometimes very strict ccTLD guidelines and limited availability Expensive |
| Subdomains with generic top level domains (gTLDs) | com.your-ecommerce.shop | Allows different server locations Simple distinction between different websites |
Users may not distinguish between local reference and language reference |
| Subdirectory containing generic top-level domains (gTLDs) | your-ecommerce.shop/com/ | Low maintenance costs | One single server location Distinction between websites not so clear |
| URL parameter | your-ecommerce.shop?loc=us | URL subdivision unnecessarily complicated |
The first three solutions are especially relevant for multilingual websites. Although URL parameters are technically feasible, they are unsuitable for website internationalization. Google explicitly discourages this approach, as such pages cannot guarantee clean indexing. Therefore, the most reliable options are the ccTLD variant, subdomain or subdirectory.
Regional domains are easily recognizable and understandable for both visitors and search engine tools. In addition, with a vast range of ccTLDs, you are not tied to a specific server location. This means you can optimize the availability and loading time of your different language versions by selecting the appropriate infrastructure. However, this domain model is also associated with high costs and comparatively time-consuming administration. It’s also important to bear in mind that each of these websites will have no history or visibility to begin with, making the initial multilingual SEO measures very cumbersome.
A generic domain is a good option for getting started with international SEO. With the subdirectory variant, all the subpages benefit from the link strength and ranking of the website. The downside of going with this variant is that you are bound to a single server location that may have more trouble subdividing pages. While combining a generic top-level domain and subdomainsprovides more flexibility, you will still face the issue of newly generated pages initially not being indexed.
The domain structure that best suits your requirements is largely dependent on your financial resources. If you have a small budget and want to base your international SEO on your homepage funds, it’s best to go with a generic top-level domain with subdirectories for different language versions. However, country-specific domains, which are more expensive, provide a more effective long-term solution. Individual URL parameters should be avoided.
Smart server selection
The server locations of international web projects used to be official factors in search engine ranking. Even though it’s now no longer vital for all language variants to be stored on a local server, in the age of mobile devices, delivering data quickly is more important than ever. It’s especially important for online shop owners to minimize loading times and prioritize a good server infrastructure as part of their international SEO measures, in addition to optimizing code. In recent years, content delivery networks have gained popularity thanks to their high-level performance and security, becoming increasingly important tools.
Even if local servers no longer directly affect your ranking in the results pages of search engines, you should use regional locations for the infrastructure of your web project, if feasible. In some countries, such as China, a local server location is required to host a project with a country-specific domain extension. Today, however, the use of CDNs is also beneficial in many cases.
Comprehensive keyword research
You should think carefully when deciding on a domain structure. The core aspect of SEO optimization for multilingual websites is a sophisticated and well-researched keyword strategy. Using relevant keywords alerts search engine crawlers of your pages, in turn, improving your ranking. One major mistake that owners of online stores make when making their website multilingual is carrying out keyword research for the source language and then using the keyword set as the basis for all other language variants.
While the context-specific direct translation of keywords might prove more valuable and user-friendly than automatically translated content, such an approach reduces the effectiveness of your international SEO measure for two reasons. For one, it fails to take into account region-specific search engines such as Baidu. Secondly, literal translations of keywords may not be relevant in the target language. Even in regions that use the same language, keywords can differ (e.g., in the UK and USA). This could mean that search engine users may be unable to find the high-quality content you’ve created.
If you only work with your original keyword set, the indexing of translated pages might be negatively impacted. It’s necessary to research specific key terms for each language (and, if relevant, for different search engines) in order to identify keywords with large search volumes that also have a high level of relevance for the respective language and language variants of your website.
Sending the right language-specific signals
Search engines aim to display the most relevant webpages for each user. For users from the United States, for example, pages are prioritized that contain local content and can be assigned to the American market. To do this, crawlers use different country-specific signals, including:
- Language style
- Distinctive grammatical characteristics
- Currencies
- Units of measurement
The more you take these elements into account for various languages, the easier it is for search engines to recognize their relevance for the respective market. Google analyzes contact numbers and addresses and uses this information to better evaluate the relevance of each page for different users.
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When carrying out international SEO for your online shop, the clearer the signals are that you send, the easier it is for search engines to categorize your site. However, even with the best algorithms, this is not always easy. It’s possible to use the hreflang attribute in some web search applications, including Google and Yandex. With this attribute, a page refers to another that provides the same content for another language or country. This allows users to be redirected to the appropriate language automatically. There are three ways to integrate the language attribute:
- Hreflang as a link element in the HTML header: You can activate an automatic redirection in the <head> area using the link element. If your online shop is available in English, Spanish and French, for example, you can simply add the following lines of code to the header for the different languages:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://en.your-ecommerce.shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="http://es.your-ecommerce.shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="http://fr.your-ecommerce.shop/" />- Hreflang in HTTP header: If your multilingual website contains files that are not in HTML format, such as PDF files, you can define hreflang in the Link area:
Link: <http://en.your-ecommerce.shop/>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="en", <http://es.your-ecommerce.shop/>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="es", <http://fr.your-ecommerce.shop/>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="fr"- Hreflang in the sitemap: Instead of markups, you can also distinguish between the different language versions in the sitemap:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<url>
<loc>http://en.your-ecommerce.shop</loc>
<xhtml:link
rel="alternate"
hreflang="en"
href="http://www.en.your-ecommerce.shop"
/>
<xhtml:link
rel="alternate"
hreflang="es"
href="http://www.es.your-ecommerce.shop"/>
<xhtml:link
rel="alternate"
hreflang="fr"
href="http://www.fr.your-ecommerce.shop"
/>
</url>Multilingual websites and duplicate content
While it is advisable to provide unique content for each language version on your site, this is not always feasible. This is particularly true when targeting markets that share the same language (e.g., UK, USA, Canada and Australia), making it a challenge to avoid duplicate content on multilingual websites. Fortunately, with a multilingual online shop, it’s not necessary to hide all such pages and prevent crawling using a robots.txt file or a noindex tag. If you offer the same content under different URLs, you can use the canonical attribute under certain conditions. Similar to hreflang, this is included as a link element in the HTML header.
If you have created separate URLs for the American, Canadian and British versions of your website and want to use the exact same content for all three shops, you can extend the HTML header with the following code:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="us" href="http://us.your-ecommerce.shop /" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ca" href="http://ca.your-ecommerce.shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="uk" href="http://uk.your-ecommerce.shop/" />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.en.your-ecommerce.shop/" />Because all three pages have been given the same attribute, search engines know not to index them separately. In this case, the “original” English version: http://www.en.your-ecommerce.shop is preferred. All SEO signals, such as external links, then count as if there is only one page.
When it comes to SEO, the golden rule is to avoid duplicate content. This naturally applies to multilingual websites as well. However, it’s not always possible, which is why the canonical attribute is used. This attribute indicates to search engines when the same content is used for several language versions.
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Country-specific link building
Off-page optimization is a crucial aspect of international SEO. High-quality, trustworthy backlinks strongly influence your search engine ranking, making your website look more reliable and trustworthy to potential customers. With country-specific links, you can also provide search engines with more useful information about which language version is relevant for each user. This aspect of multilingual SEO for websites requires a lot of time and effort, making it one of the more challenging tasks. Despite this, it’s still worth striving for profitable returns from the outset so you don’t end up having to use expensive external providers later on.
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Unique concept, page layout and design
In 2003, eBay entered the Chinese market. However, within just three years, the company was forced to withdraw, leaving the field open to its rival platform, Alibaba’s Taobao. Today, the Asian company makes more sales than eBay and Amazon put together and is also gaining ground in the Western world. Limited localization is one of many reasons which led to eBay’s catastrophic failure in China. The company’s demise was the result of attempting to apply the same formula that had been successful in the USA and Europe.
Taobao, on the other hand, has catered to its Chinese audience well, using a range of familiar elements, such as cute icons, flashing animations and a chat feature that allowed prospective buyers to contact the seller. This shows how important it is to prioritize the user experience when planning SEO for a multilingual online shop. Even if you don’t plan on expanding into markets in Asia, this demonstrates how even small and subtle changes can decide your business’s fate in a particular country.
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To tailor the different language versions of your shop to your customers’ habits and preferences, you need to identify the unique aspects of user behavior in your different target markets. An analysis of comparable providers is worth its weight in gold for finding out such information. But don’t forget, your brand still needs to be recognizable and uniform around the world.
What are the most common international SEO mistakes?
When running a website or web project with several language versions, you should take time to explore the various search engine optimization techniques for multi-language websites. However, it’s important that you don’t do this half-heartedly. Whether you’re finding keywords, implementing tags or building links, it’s easy to make mistakes that can reduce the visibility of your website.
Mistake #1: Focusing too much on IP-based redirections
Implementing hreflang tags is frequently dismissed as an unnecessary, difficult and time-consuming task. Many webstore owners would rather guide users to the correct version of the site using redirections based on IP addresses. However, there are many reasons as to why this is not always the best solution. Firstly, this makes it difficult for search engine crawlers to categorize and index your pages. Another problem is that IP detection can be inaccurate and, in some cases, completely inadequate. This can lead to users finding themselves on irrelevant pages. If the IP address is the only criterion evaluated, users could end up with the same language variant, regardless of their language preferences and location. Additionally, in large numbers, redirects can have a negative effect on the page’s loading time.
Mistake #2: Incorrect hreflang tags
If hreflang tags are incorrect, search engines might end up misinterpreting them or ignoring them completely. Errors are frequently caused by the use of incorrect country and language codes, which do not correspond to current ISO standards and do not provide the desired result. Sometimes, however, missing hreflang tags, Google Search Console settings or missing feedback can be the root of the problem. In addition, complications can arise if you give a webpage hreflang attributes and a canonical tag. For more information on this error, check out our article on hreflang basics.
Mistake #3: Illogical domain concept
As we’ve seen above, the choice of domain structure plays an integral role in international SEO. Even with the best planning, your strategy can go wrong if you fail to avoid the most common errors. The combination of a country-specific top-level domain with separate subdirectories for the individual language versions is inherently contradictory. The geographical orientation is clearly defined by the ccTLD (Google classifies it in the Search Console automatically), so the use of subdirectories only weakens it. This results in the subpages rarely appearing in relevant search results.
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Mistake #4: Poorly implemented links
Aspects such as quality, functionality and usefulness are often ignored in link building — particularly in new projects. And since link building is even more complex in multilingual websites than in other websites, even seasoned SEO experts sometimes struggle to get it all right.
For example, one common mistake is that an external link leads to the main domain rather than a specific language or country domain. Of course, this has a negative impact on your visitors and decreases the link potential of the alternative URL. Other frequent problems include links that are outdated or faulty, as well as using too many internal links.
Mistake #5: Ignoring mobile users
Optimizing your website for mobile devices is crucial in international SEO, especially since mobile internet access surpasses desktop access in certain countries. To effectively present your multilingual website internationally using SEO standards, it’s vital to ensure that it is also optimized for mobile users. A mobile-friendly website provides a better user experience, leading to higher engagement rates and lower bounce rates.
Moreover, search engines like Google factor in mobile friendliness when ranking websites. This means that multilingual websites that are also optimized for mobile devices are more likely to achieve higher search result rankings. As mentioned earlier, in many countries such as India, Brazil, China, or Indonesia, users primarily access the internet via smartphones. As such, a website not optimized for mobile devices could miss out on reaching a large portion of a company’s target audience.
Optimizing your multilingual website for mobile phones is not just advantageous but an absolute necessity if you want your international SEO efforts to be successful. It’s crucial to focus on fast loading times, adaptability to various screen sizes and a user-friendly interface for touchscreen navigation.
By addressing these factors, you can greatly improve the visibility of your multilingual website in search engines and more effectively reach a global audience.
Mistake #6: Not carrying out local keyword research
Insufficient local keyword research is another common reason why multilingual websites are not discovered. If meta titles, meta descriptions and URLs are not optimized for the specific countries and languages you are targeting, your international SEO strategy is unlikely to succeed. Proper adaptation must take into account cultural differences in search behavior, such as word choice, specific phrases, synonyms, sentence structure and grammar. To truly connect with local audiences, you should invest in professional translations and the cultural adaptation of your content as part of your multilingual SEO efforts.
