The Internet has brought the world closer with its power of information, now available with a click of the mouse. Websites use techniques like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to dish out relevant information to users on topics of their choice. The reality of having a global presence on the Internet has given rise to content in the online space in as many languages that are spoken and read all over the world. Here we reveal some secrets to multilingual SEO:
Today, the Internet hosts several different websites in languages other than English and sites that the major search engines do locate. These search engines are aware of the fact that though English is the chief language in use on the Internet, about 70 percent of the world’s population is not fluent in this language and prefers to read and speak in their own native tongue.
Search engines are open to sites in languages other than English, though they do prefer that these multilingual sites should be search engine optimized so that they are queried as multilingual sites. For this, they will have to be optimized in the language in which the site is written. What’s heartening is that doing SEO for multilingual sites is the same as that for a site in English—the only difference is the language being used.
Here are some secrets to multilingual SEO: By following some of these pointers, a site owner can get his multilingual site search engine optimized and be a regular part of search engine results:
Translation
This is the best way of getting a multilingual site search engine optimized. All one needs to do is translate the keywords in English into a non-English language. Often, a literal translation will not work as the translated words might not be popularly used or understood the word in a given context. So, it is a good idea to ask a native language speaker to translate the given keywords into words or expressions that are commonly used.
A site owner can also translate the entire content of his site into the language of his choice to drive home more traffic to it. As before, the help of a language expert or a native speaker will help immensely to make the site the most effective and draw the maximum traffic to the site.
URL should contain the keyword: The URL of a page should contain the keyword in a non-English language.
Create Sub-domains and Subfolders
Site owners can create sub-domains or sub-folders on their main site to host their country-specific web content in the language of their choice. Some directories will consider a sub-domain as a home page for the purposes of listings, whereas a sub-folder helps to distinguish between the different content pages.
On-site Optimization
Site owners should have an IP address belonging to the same country that they are targeting. This is because search engines look for the location of the IP address and rank the site higher, depending on the country.
So, it would help if the site is launched with the local top-level domains (TLD) such as .nl, .de, .au, or .fr. This is considered more beneficial to site owners when one compares it to having several inbound links.
Off-site Optimization
For off-page optimization on a non-English site, the site owner will have to get in touch with the highest visited local sites, apart from local sites that deal in distributing press releases or niche directories to feature their links on his non-English site. If the translated keywords are used in the link’s anchor text, it could help immensely to draw focused traffic to the website.
Picking an SEO service provider can be an uphill struggle, and if you want to translate your site into many languages and have a global reach make sure it is a practitioner of multilingual SEO.
It does not matter which language a site owner translates his web content into—to make it visible to everyone who would be interested in it, one must SEO his site or make the website search engine friendly. Only then will the site earn eyeballs and generate leads for potential sales.
