What Is Multilingual SEO?
Multilingual SEO involves translating your website’s content into multiple languages to enable users searching on Google in specific languages to find your website in organic search results. For instance, if you translate your English content into Spanish to target search engine users in Spain, you are essentially performing multilingual SEO.
By implementing multilingual SEO, you can expand your reach to a global audience and increase sales for your business. In this comprehensive guide, we will provide you with a step-by-step approach to implementing multilingual website SEO.
Step 1: Identify Your Markets
If you’re looking to expand your business, it’s important to identify countries with high search demand for your products or services. Once you’ve determined these countries, you should translate your website’s content into the dominant languages of those regions. For instance, if you plan to enter the French market, you would need to translate your website into French, and if you intend to enter Russia, you would need to translate your website into Russian.
Step 2: Keyword Research for Your Targeted Countries
Once you have identified your target countries, it’s time to conduct thorough keyword research. Consider hiring a native speaker or a qualified translator who can assist in brainstorming seed keywords in the country-specific language. Seed keywords are broad phrases or single words related to your business that serve as a starting point to identify more specific and relevant keywords.
You can then use keyword research tools to expand on your seed keyword list and obtain metrics such as search volume and keyword difficulty. While some people may rely on auto-translation tools such as Google Translate to directly translate keywords from English into other languages, it’s important to note that these tools are often unreliable and can negatively impact your multilingual SEO and keyword research efforts.
That’s why it’s crucial to have a native speaker or translator involved in the process, as they possess a deeper understanding of the language and culture of your target audience, and can help identify the specific keywords and phrases your ideal customers use. So, avoid relying solely on automated translation tools and prioritize working with a qualified expert to ensure the success of your multilingual SEO and keyword research strategy.
Step 3: Decide Your URL Structure
To create a multilingual website, it’s essential to use dedicated URLs for each language and country version. This will enable Google to index your website correctly and add it to its extensive database of webpages, ensuring that it’s displayed to users searching in specific languages.
When selecting a URL structure for your multilingual website, you have several options to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
Separate Domains
One of the most commonly used options for creating a multilingual website is to use separate domains or country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Examples of this include www.oleg.ru, www.oleg.fr, and www.oleg.de. As users are typically familiar with the top-level domain of their country, they are more likely to feel at home when they land on your website.
However, this option requires purchasing and managing multiple domains, which can be a significant investment in terms of IT infrastructure. From an SEO perspective, building links to each domain individually can be time-consuming. On the other hand, using separate domains provides the opportunity to use localized hosting, which could help to improve your page load times.
Subfolder
Using subfolders is another popular option for creating a multilingual website. With this approach, all of your content is located within a single domain, as seen in www.olegdigital.com/ru/, www.olegdigital.com/fr/, and www.olegdigital.com/de/.
Setting up various subfolders is relatively simple. If you wish to add a new language version to your website, all you need to do is introduce a new subfolder for that language and begin creating individual pages within it. This approach is easier from an IT standpoint than introducing subfolders and pages on an entirely separate hosting setup.
However, using localized hosting is not possible with this option.
Subdomain
Subdomains are also a viable option to consider. Examples of this include ru.olegdigital.com, fr.olegdigital.com, and de.olegdigital.com.
The drawbacks of using subdomains are comparable to those of ccTLDs. They can be challenging to set up and maintain from a technical standpoint. Furthermore, some SEO experts believe that Google views subdomains as distinct domains, necessitating the creation of SEO authority for multiple domains rather than a single primary domain.
However, similar to ccTLDs, using subdomains enables you to use localized hosting, which can enhance page speed.
URL Parameters
Avoid using parameterized URLs for language SEO, as Google does not recommend this option. Examples of parameterized URLs include www.olegdigital.com?loc=ru, www.olegdigital.com?loc=fr, and www.olegdigital.com?loc=de.
Search engines can find it challenging to comprehend and provide the appropriate language versions to users when URLs have parameters. As a result, it is best to avoid this option altogether.
Step 4: Translate and Optimize Your Pages
After setting up your URL structure, the next crucial step is to translate your pages and optimize them for your target keywords. Relying solely on translation tools, like Google Translate, to generate literal translations from English to other languages is not recommended. These tools lack the ability to consider nuance, often resulting in formal or incorrect translations. Manual translation performed by a human being is the best approach.
Apart from translating the on-page copy, other elements like currencies, time zones, and image alt texts should also be translated. Additionally, optimize your pages for the following on-page SEO elements while translating your website content:
Title Tags
Here are some suggestions for crafting effective title tags for your translated pages:
- Keep it concise: Limit your title tags to less than 60 characters to avoid truncation by Google.
- Include your multilingual SEO keyword: This helps Google to understand the topic of your page and rank it accordingly.
- Avoid clickbait: Ensure that your page content delivers on what your title promises.
Meta Descriptions
When your page appears in search results, the meta description provides a brief summary of your page.
While meta descriptions don’t directly impact your ranking, they can influence your click-through rate (CTR).
Here are some tips for creating meta descriptions for your translated pages:
- Keep it concise. Google will truncate meta descriptions over 120 characters.
- Use your multilingual SEO keyword. This will help Google understand what the page is about.
- Use active voice. Speak directly to the searcher.
URL Slugs
When users search for something, Google displays a URL slug to show which page they’ll land on after clicking. Here are some tips for creating effective URL slugs on your multilingual site:
- Keep them short and descriptive. Google cuts off longer URLs, so use your language-specific target keywords to make them shorter and more informative.
- Use hyphens instead of underscores to separate words.
- Use lowercase text to ensure consistency.
- Use safe characters to avoid appearing spammy. Avoid symbols in your URL slugs.
- Don’t use dates in your URL slugs, as they make your content look outdated.
Internal Links
Internal links refer to links that direct users from one page to another within your website.
By linking to appropriate internal resources, you can assist visitors in navigating your site and locating additional information. Google also employs these links to locate more pages on your site.
When optimizing a multi-language website, make sure to include internal links to pages in the same language. For example, if you have Spanish pages, link them to other pertinent Spanish pages on your site.
This approach will not only lead your users to the correct language version of your pages, but it will also aid Google in understanding the connection between pages.
Step 5: Implement Hreflang
Once you have translated your website content and optimized it, it’s time to implement hreflang attributes on your multilingual site.
Hreflang is an HTML attribute that informs search engines about the location and geographical targeting of a webpage.
Hreflang ensures that search engines serve the right language version of your pages to users.
By adding hreflang tags to your pages, you can inform Google about the alternate, language-specific versions of your pages.
When implementing hreflang tags, follow these best practices:
- Place them in the section of your pages.
- Use the correct ISO 639-1 language code for each page.
- Use them on all pages that have been translated into multiple languages.
- Use self-referencing hreflang on every page, which points back to itself.
For instance, if you want to add hreflang tags between an English page (https://olegdigital.com/blog/hello) and a Spanish page (https://olegdigital.com/blog/hola), both pages should have the following hreflang tags:
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”es” href=”https://olegdigital.com/blog/hola” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en” href=”https://olegdigital.com/blog/hello” />
The first one specifies the URL of the alternate Spanish version of the page. The second one is a self-referencing tag that points back to the page itself.
Don’t forget to add both hreflang tags to the Spanish page as well.
Step 6: Build Backlinks
Obtaining backlinks is a crucial step in establishing a successful multilingual website.
Backlinks are considered as “votes” by search engines such as Google. Typically, the more “votes” you receive, the higher your chance of ranking well in search results.
It is essential to acquire backlinks from relevant websites that align with your niche and language. For instance, if you have translated your content into French and sell bodybuilding supplements, securing a link from a French health and fitness blog covering supplements could be valuable.
When building links, prioritize reputable, high-authority websites. Links from high-authority sites carry more significance. These sites generally produce high-quality content and can be in the form of niche websites, bloggers, or news websites.
Several strategies are available for building backlinks to your multilingual website, including:
Broken Link Building
The process of broken link building entails searching for non-functional links on other websites and reaching out to the website owners to propose substituting them with a functioning link from your website.
The strategy works because having broken links on a website can have a negative impact on user experience. When website owners are informed of these broken links, they are likely to replace them with functional ones.
To begin with, you can search for broken links on the websites of your competitors in your specific market.
Digital PR
The goal of digital PR is to generate media coverage for your brand, which can increase awareness of your business, products, and services. In addition, digital PR can complement your link building efforts in new markets.
One way to begin is by sharing newsworthy stories with journalists, who love a good story. If you have conducted new research that impacts your industry, journalists may want to feature your findings and provide a backlink to your site. For instance, if you work in the recruitment industry, you could conduct a study on the growing interest in remote work among employees and publish a comprehensive report on your website.
After publishing your report, create a list of target media outlets to pitch your story to.
Competitor Backlink Research
Studying your competitors’ backlinks can offer valuable information about the types of content that usually generate links in your industry. By creating similar content on your website, you increase your chances of earning backlinks.
If you aim to increase traffic and revenue by translating your website content into other languages, multilingual SEO is the optimal strategy.