international seo with targeted keyword research - mozinar

Keyword Research and Content for International

SEOEli Schwartz

Join us on Twitter at #MozinarQuestions or problems? Email community@moz.com

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What I Do

http://moz.com/perks#surveymonkey

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Agenda

• Why International SEO

• Size of opportunity

• Keyword research

• Content creation

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What percentage of your time do you focus on search

optimization efforts for Bing?

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What percentage of your time do you focus on search

optimization efforts for Google?

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Google vs Bing

90%

10%

Google?

Bing?

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Internet Users Around the World

90%

10% United States

Everywhere Else

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So, focusing on the US only could be as shortsighted as…

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Languages Spoken Around the World

87%

13% English (Primary & Secondary)

Everything Else

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Ecommerce Spend Around the World

30%

70%

United States

EverywhereElse

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Look at Current Traffic in GA

There are likely international visitors that are not being satisfied

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How Does Google Determine Language of a Query?

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1st: Language Preference - Google Account

Found under account settings

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2nd: Browser Language SettingsTo change language in Safari and IE you need to change system preferences

Chrome Firefox

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3rd: User location

Language will be primary country language (Canada = English, Switzerland = German)

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4th: Google TLD

Google.comGoogle.com.mx(Mexico)

Results are for English speakers writing Spanish Results are for Spanish speakers

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5th: Language Parsing of Query

Search conducted on Google.com; results are Portuguese

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Capitalize on the International Opportunity

with SEO

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International SEO isn’t so Hard (or Costly)

• ccTLD vs subdomain vs subdirectory• HREFLANG• Canonicals• Local Hosting• Local Links• Webmaster Tools

Geotargeting• Local Trust Symbols• Mobile

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Don’t Machine Translate

Google can recognize machine translated content AND you will offend real users

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Foreign Content Must Be Plain Text

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Geo-targeting

• Leave an escape option if the

targeting is wrong

• Send users to an an actual

URL – don’t just proxy content

• Googlebot will always be in

the US

• Ensure there are links for the

bot to find international

content

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Keywords Matter THE MOST

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Wrong Keyword = Lonely

Shows a “Did you mean?”, but results are not updated.

Google.fi (Finland)

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Non-English Search is Weaker than English

Large disparity in indexed pages for a major query533 million results in English vs 98 million results in Spanish

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Far Less Competition

Google.com (English) Google.com.mx (Spanish)

Compare domain authority on the 2nd results page

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Spelling Correction is Not as Robust

In French spelling a word the way it sounds doesn’t even generate a correct spelling suggestion

Google.com Google.fr (France)

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Synonym Matching in English (Google.com)

Near identical results for both terms

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Synonym Matching in German (Google.de)

Both terms mean “Customer Survey” and user intent is similarEntirely different results on Google.de from images to ranked sites

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Plurals in English (Google.com)Near identical results for plural and singular

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Plurals in Spanish (Google.com.mx)

Entirely different results

Online Surveys in Spanish (Plural) Online Survey in Spanish (Singular)

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Prepositions in English (Google.com)

In English, prepositions cause only minor differences in rankings and result numbers

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Prepositions in Portuguese (Google.com.br)

In Portuguese, there is a huge shift in result numbers and rankings for missing prepositions

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Basic Special Characters Matter (Google.dk)

Rankings change based on whether special characters are used in the user query

“Did you mean” but results are unchanged

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Every Letter Counts (Google.com.tr)Both words mean customer satisfaction – only difference is one letter

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Compound (Concatenation) WordsPhrases can be broken by a space, dash or concatenated as one word, and in each case search results will be different

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Different Meanings for the Same Words

In Germany – a “Handy” is a cell phoneResults will be based on the local meaning

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Same Language Different Meanings: “Char”

Quebec France

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It’s Not Just International: Pop vs Soda

Even within one country we have different ways of referring to the same exact thing

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Keyword Research (for most languages)

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Adwords Tool is NOT the Starting Point

In English, you might just go to Adwords Keyword Tool and call it a dayInternationally, just blindly trusting search volume will give you a weak keyword foundation

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Understand Keyword Weaknesses

None of these are relevant to SurveyMonkey’s Business

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Square One: Learn Just One Word…

Put your primary keyword into Google Translate

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Start Googling

Search the just discovered keyword in your target language AND country

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Search Translation Alternatives Too

Some of these might be the better keyword

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Add Keyword Modifiers to Translate

Adding a modifier gives Google Translate context around the wordWithout modifiers, Translate had suggested the Spanish word “estudio” as the correct translation

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Two Tabbed Searching: Translate vs Original

Use Chrome’s automatic translation

Even weak translations can tell you if you have the right terms

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Search All Translations To Get Right Word

As in English, not all translations will be relevant to your business

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Some Translations Are Very INCORRECT

Attempted to use a modifier to learn primary keywordGoogle’s suggested translation was a xxx term

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Look at Number of Results for Clues

Low number of results means you are on the wrong track

Google.fi (Finland)

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Find and Add Search Competitors to List

Once you have the right starter keyword, add all potential competitors to spreadsheet workbook

Appear to be competitive sites

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Now, Apply Your Research

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View All Search Competitors in Two Tabs

English Translation via ChromeSpanish Original

Use Chrome’s automatic translation• View each competitor site to find keywords• Look at the English to find important keywords• Compare words to original and add translated word to

keywords worksheet in spreadsheet

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Crawl Competitor Sites With ScreamingFrog

Same for the title, meta description, and even keywords tag

Extract keywords from the URL

Add major words to spreadsheet

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Don’t Forget About Popular Slang Terms

Means “Sunday Poll” which is what Germans call a Political Poll

Google.de (Germany)

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Google Suggest Will Show New Keywords

Spanish English Translation

Open Google search page in two tabs: Original and TranslateUse existing keywords to find even more keywords by not hitting enter on search box after typing a query

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Use Knowledge Graph to Learn Intent (US)

Search word is Italian word “piazza”Knowledge graph shows Piazza as a company and an Italian square

Google.com

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Knowledge Graph - Brazil

Search word is Italian word “piazza”Knowledge graph shows Piazza as a soccer player in Brazil

Google.com.br

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Knowledge Graph - Germany

Search word is Italian word “piazza”Knowledge graph shows Piazza as Piazza Navona – a popular tourist spot in Rome

Google.de (Germany)

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Knowledge Graph - Italy

Search word is Italian word “piazza”Knowledge graph is gone

Google.it (Italy)

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Use a Thesaurus to Find Synonyms

Search all current keywords to find even more keywords

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Keyword Discovery Tools

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Pluralize Keywords

• Not every language has a plural • Don’t forget non-s plurals

(Alumnus alumni)

• Search volume of plurals could be greater than singular• Singularize plural keywords from original list

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Look Up Search Volume of Keyword List

Once you have a large list of keywords:• Paste in all

keywords into Google Keyword Planner

• Download results in a CSV

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Translate Keywords in Google Translate

Translations may be inaccurate, but at this point it is only helpful for context

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Dedupe the List to Make it Actionable• Sort by search volume and topics• Use previous research to inform which duplicates you

keep

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Buddy Up With a NativeNative speakers will tell you which keywords are actually correct

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Content MarketingWhat do you do with all of these keywords?

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Translate Existing Content

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Own Your International SEO

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Culturally Relevant Content Topics

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Make Sure Your Translations Make Sense

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Double Check Translation Work

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Keywords Need to Be Culturally Relevant

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Leverage Keyword Data into New Content

With your research

you should know

enough to propose

quality content as

long as you have the

right topic ideas...

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Google Trends

Trends data is available for many years in multiple countries

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YouTube Worlwide

Look for popular videos

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Yahoo Answers

See popular topics

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Competitor Links: Moz Fresh Web Explorer

• Find out why people are linking to competitors

• Write better content• Target the same audience

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Twitter Trends

Twitter trends will show popular topics for nearly any country

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Blog Search

Google Blog search will show topics sites are writing using your keywords

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SurveyMonkey Audience

Conduct surveys about another country with a US audience or conduct a survey in the target language and country

• This survey was conducted in the US with a US audience on SurveyMonkey Audience

• The questions were about Oktoberfest in Germany and targeted towards topics Germans would find interesting

• Results were incorporated into a German post and infographic

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Measure Results

Location InterfaceQueryTLD

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Setup a GA Filter for International Traffic

Do NOT create filters in your

existing profiles, create a new one for this purpose

Need to be an admin

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Exclude US Traffic with a Filter

1. Create new

2. Name filter for

later edits

3. Choose “exclude”

4. Choose country

(under location)

5. Exclude multiple

countries with

regular

expressions

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Learn From the Data and Update

Iterate on international efforts

• Keep doing keyword

research

• Continue to write content

• Expand into more languages

• Learn from results to

continuously improve

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1. Huge growth potential with international search

2. Focus on keywords3. Watch out for

cultural nuances4. Continue to grow

content

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1. Huge growth potential with international search

2. Focus on keywords3. Watch out for

cultural nuances4. Continue to grow

content

5. Don’t be lazy!

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Merci, Gracias, Danke, Tessekur, Thanks!

SEO Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/int-mozinar

Questions?

Email: Elis@surveymonkey.comTwitter: @5leWebsite: www.surveymonkey.com

Find this recorded #Mozinar and slide deck at http://moz.com/webinars very soon!