How to Manage SEO for Multi-Language Websites
People throughout the world rely on search engines to find information and make purchases. Search engines are the most powerful driver for website traffic. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is essential in boosting online visibility and attracting traffic.
The confusion may come in when you have a multi-language website. You cannot auto-translate your website and hope that search engines do the rest. Multi-language SEO needs to be done correctly, ensuring search engines are able to crawl and index you pages, ensuring your content is placed in front of the right audience at the right time.
As with traditional SEO, multi-language SEO is a process of researching and understanding the best keywords and search terms in different languages. It involves the optimising and configuring of your website, helping you connect with a diverse and multilingual audience.
This type of SEO is not as simple as auto-translating your website using Google Translate. It requires preparation, but the good news is that there are best practices and a number of tools you can use to streamline the process.
Multi-language SEO is essential if you want to expand your business into a new market or country. Seventy six percent of global internet users are more likely to engage with content in their first language.
When you translate your website, case studies, and landing pages to each market, you can enjoy a number of benefits, including:
Reach a wider audience – connect with a global audience, ensuring your site is accessible to more potential customers
Improved user experience (UX) – When you offer content in your audiences fist language, it improves their experience, boosting engagement and conversions
Improved ranking – You can improve your ranking in local search results, driving targeted traffic from different countries and regions
Competitive edge – you can stand out in markets where your competitors haven't optimised for multiple languages
It is essential when you are managing a multi-language websites, that you follow the best practices to ensure search engines can crawl and index your pages properly.
The first step to any effective SEO strategy is keyword research. Don't leave your campaign up to guesswork. Use a SEO keyword research tools to find the search volume of your targeted keywords. Ahrehs, SEMRush, and Moz are great tools when it comes to multi-language keyword research.
Once your keyword research is completed, you need to translate your website. Yes, there is Google Translate, but it's not perfect and we don't recommend it for your important pages that need to drive conversions. We recommend using a professional translator, who knows and understands the language you are targeting.
Don't skip this step! You need to optimise your web pages for success.
You will need to create a unique URL for each language you are targeting. Your URL is important in helping search engines index your translated pages.
Your title tags need to be well-written and concise, along with compelling meta descriptions, which are important parts of a successful multi-language SEO strategy.
As with any successful SEO strategy, it takes time to start seeing results, but once it starts working, you will enjoy an increase in website traffic and conversions. SEO isn't a do once and leave strategy, it requires ongoing monitoring and adjusting. Track your success, monitor your website performance, and make necessary adjustments when needed.
If your website targets different countries and languages, you will find multi-language SEO a major benefit, helping you communicate with your global audience effectively in their first language. This does require keyword research, translation, on-page optimisation, and ongoing monitoring. If you need help with your multi-language SEO strategy, get in touch with Genie Crawl today. We are here to help.
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