Basics of International SEO | Lesson 27/31 | SEMrush Academy
if you're doing SEO on a website that serves international customers things can be a bit more complicated some websites will include multiple languages while others might create entire sites to target specific regions or countries Google's algorithm has to not only determine the best answer to the users query but which sites or sections of a site best apply based on the location and language you also have to consider cultural and colloquial differences Spanish content written for users in Spain probably wouldn't work for users in Mexico and vice-versa another example if a user in the u.s.
Searches for football it's going to show the American version of football while a user in the UK searching the same thing would show what Americans call soccer if you're targeting customers in other countries you need to be sure you're making it as easy as possible for Google to assess what's going on with your site you'll also need to create a unique user experience for each country one common misconception is that you simply need to release a section of your site in the targeted language to rank well but even if your site has incredible visibility that might not be enough to show up in the targeted country you should never rely on Google Translate or posting auto translated content to your site the translations won't be a hundred percent accurate and can sometimes be grossly inaccurate which usually results in a poor user experience make sure your content is written by a native speaker of your target language so that you're sure to get all of the subtle nuances correct don't mix languages on the same page remember you want to be crystal clear to Google and if there are multiple languages on the same page Google isn't sure what's going on create separate pages for your targeted language it's better for Google and it's a better user experience you'll also need to extend your link building efforts and build links to your international content from the targeted country the ccTLD or country code top-level domain is also important to establishing relevancy in other countries using a country ccTLD helps to show google that you're serving customers in that country you'll need to pay attention to hosting as well Google sees the IP address of your server and if your server is geographically near or in your targeted country that's another signal of relevancy if you can get quality hosting in your targeted country it's a good idea to do so eight hreflang is also important it provides a way to explicitly tell Google which language and country you're targeting on a per page basis you can use H hreflang in the head of your page in your HTTP header or even in your XML sitemap make sure you're including local contact information for each targeted region so local customers know who to contact if they have questions if you have prices listed it's important to list them in the local currency for your targeted country when Google crawls the content it will see that the currency matches the region in the next lesson we'll talk about local SEO and how your tactics should change if you're working on a site that serves customers in a particular geographic area
