Top 5 multilingual SEO tips
Hi guys Elizabeth here from Weglot. So today
i'm going to take you through multilingual SEO and exactly what needs to be done on your website
to ensure you're searchable in your new markets. First up let's take a look at what
multilingual SEO actually means . Multilingual SEO is the act of optimizing content
on your website for different languages so you become searchable in your new markets and people
in different countries can find your website. So let's take a look at 5 key search engine
optimization tips for your multilingual website. First up dedicated urls. One of the big fears
with multilingual websites is duplicate content. While not all duplicate content is bad, content
that appears under multiple urls may lead to penalties and even the dreaded de-indexing. To
avoid these penalties Google recommends using dedicated urls with the language indicator. The
indicator enables search engines and people to identify what language is on the website from
the url alone. For example let's take a look at Weglot's very own website.
The original page
weglot.com and then you switch to French where you'll see fr has been added at the end. There are
a few choices when it comes to domain structure. Top level domain eg example.fr subdomain
fr.example.com subdirectory example.com forward slash fr. Each of these has their pros and
cons but subdirectories and subdomains are the easiest to maintain. These are actually the ones
we got uses in our very own translation solution. Okay next up let's move on to h reflang tags.
You
may well have come across the dreaded hreflag tags when researching into multilingual SEO. Google uses
hreflang tags to help determine both the language of the page and the region it's intended for. These
tags can be inserted in the header section of the original page or submitted via a site map. For
example an hreflang tag looks something like this. But it's not easy and is also incredibly time
consuming especially if you're a beginner however if you're using Weglot to translate your website
this step is already automatically taken care for you so you don't have to worry about adding your
own code.
We've even launched our very own hreflang checker so you can check and see if everything is
working correctly. Next up: stick to one language per page. It can be tempting to translate some
parts of your website and keep others in the original language there are two times when
this might happen. First the main content is translated but the navigation text is in the
original language and secondly user-generated content such as forum discussions, comments, reviews.
These can be kept in different languages in these cases the intended language and the region of the
page can be clarified by adding the hreflang tags discussed earlier but multiple languages on a
page can end up diluting the user experience. If you translated your pages with Weglot it
automatically translates all the content of your website so you don't need to worry about
different languages on different pages. Next up translating your metadata. Translating a website
doesn't just mean translating the visible content. What about your words that you can't actually
see? Those pretty important words such as your SEO metadata for example.
Your metadata is a crucial
piece of text that will help you rank better for the new countries you're targeting. But it's not
just as simple as translating the metadata word for word. What might be a keyword in the original
language of your website won't necessarily be the same for your translated site. That means
you'll need to conduct new keyword research. This can easily be carried out either through
Ahrefs or Ubersuggest.
Okay so last tip make sure your website loads fast. One of the
relatively easy things you can do for your multilingual SEO and SEO in general actually is to
make your website load fast. Things like optimizing images on your website setting up browser caching
choosing a good hosting provider, these will all help increase your website load speed. You can
use Google's tool to check your site speed. So as you can see when creating a multilingual site
there are a few important SEO factors to consider. Let's recap our tips. Firstly use dedicated urls.
Secondly apply hreflang tags. Thirdly stick to one language per page. Number four translate your
metadata. And finally check your website load speed. If you have any questions please feel
free to leave a comment down below or contact us at support@weglot.com.
We're
always here to help. Until next time see you, bye!.
