global seo: how to enhance your website's international user experience with geo-targeting

Lionbridge Learning SeriesGlobal SEO: How to Enhance Your Website’s International User

Experience with Geo-Targeting

In This Presentation:

1. International SEOWhy Should I Care?

2. Geo-TargetingWhat Is It?

3. Geo-Targeting How Do I Do It?

INTERNATIONAL SEO: WHY SHOULD I CARE?

International SEO: Why Should I Care?

Facts:

Global population: 7,340,000,000

Global Internet users: 3,611,000,000

English Internet users: 949,000,000

Non-English Internet users: 2,662,000,000

½ the world is online: 49.1%

¾ of that is non-English: 73.7%

Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/


Top 10 Languages on the Web:



Top 10 Languages on the Web:


Share of Web Content per Language:


Are you spendingthe right amounts

in yourglobal markets?


Contentvs.Users


• We don’t see this problem in the US, but every other country experiences it every day…

• What would you do???– Not your language– Product availability for a different country– Foreign currency & pricing

• Bad user experience = BOUNCE!

GEO-TARGETING: WHAT IS IT?

Geo-Targeting: What Is It?

“Geo-targeting ensures the right content is

served up by the right search engine matching

each visitor’s search habits & intent”

• Good user experience:– Lower bounce rates– Increased conversions– Improved loyalty

• Happy customers!


Why is it Important to Your Customers?

In general, improves the user experience within each of your local markets

Speaks to the customer in their own language and dialect

Allows content to answer localized questions and needs

Uses local currency and local contact details

Works with local search engines that customers are using

Enables customers to receive local offers

Makes a customer feel like you have a local presence


Why is it Important to Your Business?

• Builds stronger relationships with customers and increases repeat visits

• Improves search engine understanding of your content

• Provides the right products, services & other content to the right markets

• Eliminates self-competition and reduces associated administration (think currency)

• Increases conversions and referrals

• Improves measurement & reporting within individual markets

• Facilitates localized testing

• Enables you to provide greater focus on high-priority markets

In general, allows more efficient use of your resources & budgets

GEO-TARGETING: HOW DO I DO IT?

Geo-Targeting: How Do I Do It?

5 Steps to Success

1.

Local Market

Research

2.

ContentStrategy

3.

Glocalize

4.

Inter-national

SEO

5.

ContinualMeasurement


1. LOCAL MARKET RESEARCH

You can NOT translate keywords and expect to

drive traffic


1. LOCAL MARKET RESEARCH• Critical for

– Understanding your customers in each locale– Knowing what content you must provide to win– Beating your competition

• To be done successfully, it must be performed– For each market you care about– In-country– Using local search engines– Before content is developed and/or localized


2. CONTENT STRATEGY

Give your customers the content they are actively seeking…

It’s “bigger” than the message you want to send


2. CONTENT STRATEGY• Critical for

– Catching your customers at their entry point into your category– If you don’t rank when a customer searches,

you aren’t part of that customer’s consideration set– If you aren’t part of the consideration set,

your competition wins

• To be done successfully, it content must– Be search engine friendly

– Be guided by the market research

– Answer the questions your customers are asking


3. GLOCALIZE

Globalize what you can and localize the rest

Globalize + Localize = Glocalize


3. GLOCALIZE• Globalize

– Consistent domain & directory strategy, e.g., ccTLD, gTLD, etc.– Human-readable URLs (no codes!)– CMS & templates by page type: products, FAQs, reviews, etc.– Not just mobile-friendly, but mobile-first– Tested in all popular browsers– Include your equity, voice, and logos

• Localize– Everything else: use local market research to transcreate– Examples: topics, phrasing, URLs, directories, metadata, tags, etc.


4. INTERNATIONAL SEO

Google dominates in most countries, but other search

engines are still preferred in over 30% of the world


4. INTERNATIONAL SEO• Critical for

– Eliminating self-competition and duplicate content errors– Maximizing pages indexed by the search engines– Winning in countries such as China, Japan, Korea, & Russia

• Be sure to include– Optimized schema (automated tools can save time)– Hreflang tags (automated tools can save time)– Localized sitemaps submitted to local search engines

• For content, videos, images, etc.– Setup webmaster tool accounts as appropriate

• Define geo-targeting rules as well as website structures


5. CONTINUAL MEASUREMENT

BenchmarkMeasure

AnalyzeUpdate

Repeat


5. CONTINUAL MEASUREMENT• Best Practices

– Establish your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)• Local search engine ranks & demand for all keywords• Number of pages indexed by each local search engine• Traffic redistribution to/from each market• Local bounce rates• Particular conversions associated with your business goals

– Use KPIs consistently around the globe for each locale– Employ tools that can handle your KPIs in each market– Benchmark all KPIs before you begin


5. CONTINUAL MEASUREMENT• Best Practices (Continued)

– Monitor all KPIs consistently at least once a month on the same date– Don’t just report numbers; analyze trends– Identify what is working and what is not– Create best practices from what is working and reapply– Look for opportunities to create new content actively

in demand by your customers– Monitor your success compared with your competition:

what are they doing right?– Correct content deemed “duplicate” by the search engines– Stay aware of the latest search engine updates & fine-tune as necessary

CASE STUDY

Case Study

Issues:• Uneven distribution of market level traffic, especially in English markets

– Inability to get the right content to the right market

– Traffic was too high in some markets & too low in others

• Low index rate of product pages by search engines

– Search engines ignored content

• Low ranking of pages for important keywords

– Competitors were winning

• Poor user experience

– Incorrect currency, pricing, products & other local content

Case Study

3 Different Pilots Conducted:• Directory Level Pilot

– Slow and unsuccessful

• Sitemap Level Pilot

– Slow with minor impact

• Page Level Pilot

– SUCCESS!

– BEST PRACTICE identified

– REAPPLY to all languages

Case Study

The Solution:• Immediate decision made to implement Hreflang at the page level

• Page cross-reference & Hreflang sitemaps created

• Proprietary tool used to generate hreflang-enabled sitemaps

• Once Google processed the new tags:

– Indexed pages doubled from 30% to 60% for the 15,000 page site

– Global English traffic redistributed to appropriate markets

– Page ranks increased

– Overall traffic increased

Case Study

English Results:• Results seen almost

immediately

• Results continued to grow over 3 months

– Existing traffic

– New traffic

• On-going maintenance substantially reduced

• Significantly improved user experience

Thank you!