Multilingual SEO Tips – Optimizing Websites Translated in Different Languages
Multilingual SEO is a bit different from regular SEO. It demands sharper research that collates local market insights to determine what and how the native users search for something that relates to your business. It is because the internet habits, search styles, verbiages, etc. of the local users of a particular country or market may differ from those of your country’s native audience.
Make sure you chalk out a comprehensive multilingual SEO strategy and work it out with these five multilingual SEO tips that we will discuss through this blog.
How to Plan a Multilingual SEO Strategy?
Begin your multilingual SEO strategy with an understanding of the local audience and its search habits. Translate the content on your website and the SEO metadata in the native language. As the internet habits of your local market will differ from those of yours, make sure you factor the following elements in your multilingual SEO strategy.
1. Social Media Use
Research and monitor the social media use of the native audience and leverage it to benefit the onsite SEO of your website.
2. Website Content
You cannot win if you don’t have adequate, appropriate, and alluring local language content on your website. So, evaluate the content on your website and compute how it will transpire when you translate it in the local language. Analyzing competitors in this regard proves helpful, as it gives some direction to your work, and also helps you devise a better strategy than that of the existing peers.
Some contemplation on the need and relevance to add entirely new local language content on your website also proves helpful. It facilitates a personalized web browsing experience for native users.
3. Backlink Strategy
Creating a multilingual strategy is like beginning from scratch, and cutting through the competition to build sustainable search engine prominence. Backlinks and link building are some of those many steps that you must take while optimizing your website within the native market. So, find out what works in the target country, and the multilingual market you look forward to expanding your operations in.
4. eCommerce
Multilingual SEO becomes even more essential if you are into the eCommerce business. In such a situation, you will have to involve the local market currency on your website and optimize product information, terms, and policies, etc. in the local language to simplify the transactional experience.
5. Domain Name
An English domain name may not resonate as much with the native audience of the Arab world. This is regardless of the popularity of your domain name within the English-speaking market. So, make sure you create a domain name in the local language. Before you invest time and resources in creating a local language domain name, check if you need it. If your local market audience recognizes your English domain name, you may not have to do it.
6. Search Engine Results
Check if the appearance of the search engine page and search engine results vary from market to market? To ensure you don’t falter here, test how your search results appear on various versions of Google search. It will help you fine-tune your search results with the local ones.
5 Multilingual SEO Tips for Better Local Search Results
Optimize your multilingual website with these five multilingual SEO tips.
1. Use Specific URLs
Content duplication is one of the most significant apprehensions of every multilingual website. Especially the one that appears within multiple URLs attracts penalties, leads to lowered rankings, or may also bring results as worse as deindexing.
But you can avoid penalties to duplication through Google’s best practices that suggest the use of dedicated URLs, including language indicator. The indicators help search engines distinguish URLs and also enables users to identify the language of the webpage with the help of the URL. For instance, www.example.com/es will be the Spanish version of the otherwise www.example.com.
2. Keep One Language Per Page
Multiple languages on a single page may spoil the user experience. Some websites translate the main content but keep the original text of the website in the original language. Similarly, websites that host user-generated content have multiple language content on a single webpage.
Such websites are at the risk of discussions going haywire, creating confusion, and eventually causing the user to lose interest. The website administrators can clarify the language and the region involved through the use of hreflang tags (we will come to it). But it is better to limit to one page per language.
In a few cases, though, the presence of multiple languages on a single page proves advantageous. It includes websites that engage in teaching languages to their readers. Here, the user can read the text in his language, and side-by-side also read the translated content in the language he intends to learn.
Nonetheless, Google’s multilingual site advice doesn’t recommend side-by-side translations. hreflang can simplify things, but it is better to avoid confusion and keep life simple and straightforward!
3. Use hreflang Tags
You read this word a couple of times in the preceding point. Now, let us see what it refers to. In simple words, the use of hreflang attributes helps you determine the language of the page, and the region it intends to serve. You can insert these tags in the header section of the original page of your website, or else, submit it through a sitemap.
You may also add multiple hreflang attributes if your page targets various regions at a time. But then, it isn’t as quick, or apparent. Do it only if you’ve got competent technology by your side.
4. Translate the Metadata
Translating the metadata is a crucial step in enhancing the search engine rankings in the new target countries or regions. So, don’t limit yourself to translating only the website content. Take an extra step and ensure you translate the metadata appropriately to give your website the local search engine ranking it deserves.
But then, metadata translations aren’t as obvious. For instance, something that works as a keyword in the original language may not necessarily have the same significance in the translated language. So, again, you’ve got to invest in adequate research that’s specific to the new target market.
You may do so through Ahrefs, as it simplifies keyword research through its keywords explorers that require you to select the insert the translated keywords, choosing the target country, and get vital insights pertaining to searches.
5. Increase the Website Loading Speed
When it comes to website loading speed, you’ve got less than three seconds to keep the user hooked onto your website. Anything more than that refers to a lost opportunity, unless the user is exceptionally patient, and which sadly, is seldom the case.
Now that’s one aspect, though. Search engines too don’t entertain, or like websites that take longer than expected to load. So, a slow-loading website may prove to impede your business growth in entirety, and which is why you must ensure your website loads quickly, and before the user switches to another one. Here are some steps that can prove helpful in boosting the website’s loading speed.
- CDN integration with the website
- Plugin installation that enables page caching
- Browser caching setup
- Image-size optimization
The CMS you use opens access to a lot of such plugins that can boost the loading speed of your website, without disturbing its source code. The hosting plan of your website is another significant factor that proves decisive in determining the loading speed of your website. So, check that as well.
Filose – The Comprehensive Translation Partner for Websites
Filose is one of the leading translations and localization companies in the world. The company works as a translation partner for a lot of leading and reputed global brands.
It employs several in-house, and native linguistic resources to facilitate translations in over 100 Indian and foreign languages altogether. Filose’s got excellent and proven track records that are another factor differentiating it from the crowd.
So, contact to Filose’s experts on +91-20-49007800 or email to sales@filose.com if you look forward to building an SEO-friendly multilingual website that enhances the local search visibility of your brand.
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