How To Succeed in SEO When Using Foreign Languages

It has always been a difficult process for online marketers to reach the top spot of the search engine rankings. But what most of them undervalue what could be their ticket to success, and that is the untapped market on multilingual audience.

According to some researches, consumers would less likely buy online products that are not written in their native language. To show the statistics, more than 73% of Internet users are not native English speakers. In fact, web users who use Arabic grew from 3.014% in 2000 to 25.012% in 2011. Furthermore, more than 50% of Google searches today are not written in English language.

It is obvious that today, there is cut throat competition among web marketers who use English keywords. But what’s surprising about it is the complete opposite scenario when it comes to the number of competition in the multilingual arena. Therefore, it is best to translate your website in order to reach the first page of search results without using any of your resources. In addition to that, you are more likely to generate traffic that will have a huge positive impact in your website.

You might have seen websites with poor and displeasing translations, which, as a result, gives negative impacts to your audience. This could be discouraging especially if you are still starting your website. The solution is to do your research. Find out who will be your target market and competition, and then plan for the best keywords that you could use to prevent it from being lost in translation.

Your Key Words Should Be Researched And Not Translated

Take note that researching your keywords will give you an idea about your target market as well as your competition. Do not take the risk of doing it on your own. Instead, hire an SEO expert or better yet, ask for the assistance of native-speaking copywriters or translators for the foreign language that you are targeting e.g. seo services company uk.

While most Italians, when searching for ‘low-cost flights’, are keying in “voli low cost”; the French people would key in “l’assurance automobile” for ‘car insurance’. This is the reason why direct translation is not a good method of translating. Instead, it may be more helpful for you to invest in your time and effort in keyword research rather than simply using an online translation tool.

Translate your keywords and then brainstorm for similar terms appropriate for your website. The reason for this is that some words have similar spelling but renders a different meaning. For example is the word “coche”. In most of Latin America, ‘coche’ is a baby stroller but in Spain, ‘coche’ is referring to a car. Furthermore, make sure you are in company of a good native-speaking translator to guide you with the use of their words. In Germany, for example, they use pure German language in communicating except for some technical words in English.

Available Tools

In addition to that, make sure to use available options specifically Google Ad words and Word tracker as these tools could help you check the level of competition for keywords in a particular language or location.

Baidu Keyword is perfect if you are to choose China. Take the opportunity to use Baidu’s pay-per-click network that will reveal dozens of SEO tools. The Russian Version of this is Yandex Wordstat.

In order to eliminate extra keywords that are too weak to compete, use a sample Overture PPC or Adwords campaign. All you have to do is observe it for a couple of days and then guess the value of each click through the use of conversion rate.

Due to the regular change of search engine algorithms, there is a need to continuously search for the best keywords that are appropriate for your industry or business. Yandex Metrika is a good tool to use in analyzing the results of your campaign. Observe your competition as well and try to gauge their online activities as well. If you have similar key words and they have higher ranking, then look for the reasons why.

Choose An Effective Domain Name

Most search engines prioritize high-level in-country domain names. In China, Baidu prefers local sites over other international sites. That is why it is best to have an in-country domain name. Luckily, domain names have less competition in other countries. Therefore you have better possibilities of securing a domain name with the top-performing keywords that you chose. If you are having a hard time picking for a domain name, try making a combination of your brand name and your chosen keyword. This way, you can get to be more local and targeted.

Customize Your Website According To The Country Instead Of The Language

Surely, translating your website in Spanish will not only benefit Spanish audience, but also to Latin American and other European audience. It could be cheaper but it does not mean that it is practical. You might lose your customers instead. That is because people most likely prefer sites that are especially customized and separate from other countries that speak the same language.

An originally English site can be multiplied into many other languages such as French or German, through translation. In addition to that, you can get away from Google’s and other search engine’s penalty to sites that duplicate due to their inability to detect duplication in translated sites. Of course you can still have the language translated, but you have to make sure that the content is specific and relevant to their geographic location.

There are certain benefits given by customization of domain names for each site. Adding .jp for Japan or .uk for United Kingdom, plus using geotargetting tools can help in marketing your site to the particular country indicated and thus, to your target audience.

However, of all the stated explanations, the most obvious reason for having a customized website is the consideration of culture and preferences. Of course UK, Australia and US used the same language but they have different culture. Having a customized website per country will give them the feeling that the website was especially made for them and not just for the general public.

Decide On The Right Search Engine To Use

Google could be the most popular search engine in existence. However, most Chinese do not prefer it for they find it hard to pronounce and so they refer to it as “Gu Ge”. Yahoo! has conquered Japan while Koreans patronize their own search engine, Naver. Yandex, on the other hand, is Russia’s favorite search engine because it has the capacity to cope with the complex structure of the Russian language.

There are different capacities that each search engine has. For example, as previously stated, Japan prefers Yahoo!. Ironically, Google is responsible for the continuous operation of Yahoo in Japan due to the fact that Google prefer higher keyword density at 7-8 percent and it places more weight on directory listings. In order to achieve better rankings in these search engines, you should engage in rewriting your articles to produce more keywords. After that, submit it to relevant directories of your choice.

There are advantages and disadvantages present in every search engine of your choice. For Baidu, meta-tags are given more weight, which is the exact opposite for in-bound links. In using Baidu, it is best to greet readers with the most important information as they enter your site and they even prefer sites with higher quantity of content. Make sure you know these tiny details when deciding which search engine you would like your site to appear at.

Yandex, on the other hand, counts outbound links and incoming links to affiliate sites only. They do not count links that are directed to web forums, directories that are not moderated, or sites that are controlled by non-human autobots.

Build Your In-Country Links

Link building is your next agenda as you achieve SERPs. Create more backlinks to your site and target web directories for different countries in order to get a huge amount of traffic to your site. Yandex disregards low quality links. That is why when using this, you have to pick sites that have high Thematic Citation or Quotation Index. Make sure that relevant blogs or sites from the country of your target are actually linking back to your site, as this means people from the local area find your site interesting or relevant.

Hiring A Translator

Hiring a native-speaking translator or copywriter especially if you are not, or poor at, speaking the language of your chosen country. Ask for their recommendation in order to spot the authoritative sites for you to create high-quality content. You would be surprised at the amount of help that they can provide for you apart from simply translating your site.

Participate In Social Media

Social media networks are also a good means of attracting more audience. However, be mindful in choosing locally favorite social media sites. For example in Japan they have Mixi, Russians have Vkontakte and in Brazil, Google’s Orkut competes with Facebook. Make sure that you build an online presence on each of the sites that are popular in every country.

It takes time and a huge effort to succeed in search engine optimization. Building websites for different countries is never easy. But as long as you are demonstrating your dedication in optimizing sites for foreign audience, you are on your way to the wide world of having a global audience.

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