3 Ways to get lost in International SEO and how to Find Success

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT @PUBCON#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT @PUBCON
3 WAYS TO GET LOST IN
INTERNATIONAL SEO
(AND HOW TO FIND SUCCESS)

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT @PUBCON
* SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti
* SEO Speaker at +100 Events in +20 countries
* Author “SEO. Las Claves Esenciales.”
* Blogger in Search Engine Land & Search Engine Journal
* Featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Hufﬁngton Post
* European Search Personality of the Year in 2018
HELLO! I’M ALEYDA SOLIS
ORAINTI.COM

I’VE HAD THE CHANCE TO HELP SOME GREAT BRANDS

TODAY I’M EXCITED TO SHARE WITH YOU

TAKING YOUR BUSINESS ABROAD  
IS A NATURAL WAY TO GROW …

HOWEVER, THE PROCESS CAN BECOME COMPLEX DUE  
TO 3 COMMON INTERNATIONALIZATION CHALLENGES
1 2 3
LACK OF
RESOURCES
MAINTAIN YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
WEB PRESENCE
NOT BEING ABLE
TO RANK WELL WITH
THE CHOSEN
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE
RANKING IN
INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH RESULTS
WITH THE WRONG
PAGES

LACK OF RESOURCES TO MAINTAIN
ALL INTERNATIONAL WEB PRESENCE
1

IT’S WHY YOU NEED TO PRIORITIZE
YOUR INTERNATIONAL MARKETS…
1

IDENTIFY WHICH
COUNTRIES AND
LANGUAGES ARE
ALREADY BRINGING
TRAFFIC AND
CONVERSIONS TO
YOUR SITE
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

THOSE MARKETS
THAT YOUR
COMPETITION AND
INDUSTRY LEADERS
ARE ALREADY
PROFITING FROM
SEMRUSH TRAFFIC ANALYSIS

VERIFY WHICH ARE
THE COUNTRIES
WITH MORE SEARCH
TRAFFIC POTENTIAL
IN YOUR INDUSTRY
SEMRUSH

CONSIDER THE LEVEL OF EXISTING ORGANIC
SEARCH COMPETITION IN THESE MARKETS
SERPCHECKER

COUNTRY
CURRENT ORGANIC
SEARCH TRAFFIC
SEARCH
COMPETITION
LEVEL
SEARCH VOLUME
OPPORTUNITY
SEARCH
TREND IN
MARKET
SEARCH
ENGINE
USED
CAPACITY
TO
PERFORM
BUSINESS
OTHER
TRAFFIC
DRIVES
UK 100 per month High
500,000 searches
per month
Positive Google High Affiliate
Spain 50 per month Medium
300,000 searches
per month
Positive Google Low
Social
Affiliate
ALIGN THIS WITH YOUR OWN MULTILINGUAL
AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS CAPACITY

Yes No
Yes No
IS LOCATION A FACTOR THAT INFLUENCES YOUR WEB OPERATIONS?
COUNTRY TARGETING LANGUAGE TARGETING
IS THERE ENOUGH TRAFFIC &
CONVERSIONS TO TARGET EACH COUNTRY?
IDENTIFY IF YOU SHOULD WHETHER LANGUAGE
OR COUNTRY TARGET FIRST

COUNTRY TARGET LANGUAGE TARGET
REMEMBER THAT THIS SHOULD BE ABOUT YOUR OWN
ORGANIZATION RESOURCES AND PRIORITIES TOO

VERIFY IF THERE’S
ENOUGH ORGANIC
SEARCH TRAFFIC TO
COMPENSATE YOUR
WEB ACTIVITY
HTTPS://WWW.ALEYDASOLIS.COM/ENGLISH/INTERNATIONAL-SEO-TOOLS/ROI-CALCULATOR/

>
Yes No
Might be too early
BUY & SECURE
YOUR CCTLDS
FOR FUTURE
ACTIVITY
CREATE
CUSTOM
ALERTS
CREATE A PILOT
PROJECT
PRIORITIZING
MAIN PAGES
NOW YOU CAN DECIDE WHICH INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH MARKETS TO TARGET
YOUR INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC POTENTIAL VISITS & CONVERSIONS FOR A BREAK-EVEN
CONTINUE WITH THE
INTERNATIONAL WEB &
SEO PROJECT

NOT BEING ABLE TO RANK WELL W/
THE INTERNATIONAL WEB STRUCTURE
2

IT’S WHY IT’S VITAL TO ASSESS &
SELECT THE BEST WEB STRUCTURE…
2

AVOID USING SCRIPTS OR COOKIES TO SHOW
INTERNATIONAL VERSIONS W/ THE SAME URLS

DON’T USE
PARAMETERS FOR
YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE,
SPECIALLY FOR
COUNTRIES

www.yourbrand.es
www.yourbrand.es/categoria-a/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/
www.yourbrand.com/es-es/categoria-a/
es-es.yourbrand.com/
es-es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/
IF YOU’RE COUNTRY TARGETING, SELECT BETWEEN
CCTLDS, SUBDIRECTORIES & SUBDOMAINS
CCTLDS
SUB-DIRECTORIES W/ GTLDS
SUB-DOMAINS W/ GTLDS

* Need less technical resources
* Need less efforts to grow popularity 
* More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad
* Need more efforts to geolocate
* Need more technical resources
* Need more efforts to grow popularity
* Better than sub-directories to organize larger & more complex sites 
* Need more efforts to geolocate
*Ideal alternative to geolocate if competition is not too high
*Need more technical resources
*Need more efforts to grow popularity with a new domain
EACH HAVE PROS & CONS TO COUNTRY TARGET
CCTLDS

YOU CAN’T USE SUBDIRECTORIES OR SUBDOMAINS
TO GEOLOCATE CCTLDS TO OTHER COUNTRIES

TAKE ALSO INTO
CONSIDERATION
THAT GOOGLE
DOESN’T SUPPORT
“REGIONS” THAT
ARE NOT
COUNTRIES TO
GEOTARGET
HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/182192?HL=EN&REF_TOPIC=2370587

ALTHOUGH YOU
MIGHT FIND THAT
THEY ALSO HAVE
SOME REGIONAL
CONTENT
THEMSELVES…

www.yourbrand.com/es/
www.yourbrand.com/es/categoria-a/
es.yourbrand.com/
es.yourbrand.com/categoria-a/
IF YOU’RE LANGUAGE TARGETING, SELECT
BETWEEN USING SUBDIRECTORIES OR SUBDOMAINS

* Need less technical resources
*Need less efforts to grow popularity
*Generates a deeper url structure
*More chances to get all versions penalized if something goes bad
* Need more technical resources
* Need more efforts to grow popularity
* Generates shorter URL structure which can be better for larger sites
WHICH ALSO HAVE PROS & CONS TO LANGUAGE TARGET

VERIFY THE DOMAIN TYPES AND AUTHORITY OF THE
TOP SITES RANKING IN YOUR DESIRED MARKET
SERPCHECKER

Yes
Country Language
Are your top
competitors
using ccTLDs?
Yes
Yes
USE
CCTLDS
No
No
USE GEOLOCALIZED
SUBDIRECTORIES
YesNo
USE
SUBDIRECTORIES
USE SUB-
DOMAINS
No
CHOOSE YOUR INTERNATIONAL WEB STRUCTURE
ACCORDINGLY
WHAT’S YOUR INTERNATIONAL TARGET?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Is the domain
authority of your
competition
higher?
Do you need a
ﬂatter &
differentiated
structure?

IT’S CRITICAL TO BE
CONSISTENT IN THE
TARGETING TO
AVOID CONFUSION
(THAT COULD GET
LATER REFLECTED
IN FURTHER
CONFIGURATION)
AND ALIENATING
YOUR USERS

RANKING IN INTERNATIONAL SEARCH
RESULTS WITH THE WRONG PAGES
3

IT’S WHY IT’S CRITICAL TO LOCALIZE
AND GEOLOCATE EACH VERSION…
3

MISALIGNED PAGES WILL HAVE WORSE RANKINGS,
CTR, USER EXPERIENCE AND CONVERSIONS
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

CHECK IF YOU’RE SUFFERING FROM SEARCH RESULTS
MISALIGNMENT PROBLEMS ALREADY
GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE, SEMRUSH, SISTRIX, AHREFS

USE VPNS OR THE
CHROME DEVTOOLS
"SENSORS"
GEOLOCATION OPTION
TO EMULATE ANY
LOCATION AND VERIFY
IF YOU’RE DOING IT
HTTPS://DEVELOPERS.GOOGLE.COM/WEB/TOOLS/CHROME-DEVTOOLS/DEVICE-MODE/DEVICE-INPUT-AND-SENSORS

VERIFY WHICH
DOMAIN EXTENSIONS
ARE TREATED  
AS GENERIC BY
GOOGLE TO
GEOLOCATE IF NEEDED

REGISTER & GEOLOCATE IN SEARCH CONSOLE EACH  
SUB-DIRECTORY/DOMAIN TO COUNTRY TARGET

IT’S BETTER TO AVOID AUTOMATIC REDIRECTS  
BASED ON THE IP LOCATION
LINK REDIRECT TRACE

REDIRECTS CAN
GIVE A BAD USER
EXPERIENCE AND
END-UP
DAMAGING YOUR
WEB VERSIONS
CRAWLABILITY

SUGGEST THE
RELEVANT
INTERNATIONAL  
WEB VERSION
INSTEAD

LOCALIZE EVERY ASPECT OF YOUR WEB  
CONTENT: URLS, TITLE, META DESCRIPTION, NAVIGATION

AVOID LEAVING
CRITICAL AREAS OF
YOUR CONTENT
WITHOUT
TRANSLATING/
LOCALIZING

GET NATIVE SUPPORT, EVEN IF YOUR DIFFERENT
INTERNATIONAL WEBSITES ARE IN THE SAME LANGUAGE

TO FACILITATE THE PAGES LOCALIZATION PROCESS CREATE
A MATRIX SPECIFYING THEIR ALTERNATE VERSIONS

<Characteristic> <Main Keyword> in <Location>:
+<No. Of Items> by <Brand>
<Palabra Clave> <Característica> en <Ubicación>:
+<No. de Products> por <Marca>
English Title
THEN CREATE ANOTHER W/ PATTERNS TO GENERATE  
THE MAIN CONTENT ELEMENTS FOR EACH PAGE VERSION
Spanish Title

INDICATE EACH PAGE INTERNATIONAL TARGETING WITH
THEIR META & HTML LANG TAG
HTTP://BIT.LY/BINGLANG

AS WELL AS YOUR PAGES LANGUAGE AND COUNTRY
TARGET AND THEIR ALTERNATES WITH HREFLANG
HTTPS://SUPPORT.GOOGLE.COM/WEBMASTERS/ANSWER/189077?HL=EN

English for the US
Default
Spanish for the US
English for the UK
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“es-us" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang=“en-gb" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />
brand.com/dogs/
brand.co.uk/dogs/
brand.com/es/perros/
English for the US
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />
EVERY PAGE SHOULD INCLUDE ITS LANGUAGE & COUNTRY
TARGETING, AND POINT TO ITS OTHER VERSIONS

WHILE KEEPING THEIR CANONICAL TAGS SELF-POINTING
TO EACH PAGE AS ITS OWN ORIGINAL VERSION
English for the US
Default
Spanish for the US
English for the UK
<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.brand.com/dogs/“ />
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.com/es/perros/“ />
brand.com/dogs/
brand.co.uk/dogs/
brand.com/es/perros/
English for the US
<link rel="canonical" href=“http://www.brand.co.uk/dogs/“ />

USE ISO 639-1
VALUES FOR
LANGUAGES  
AND ISO 3166-1
FOR COUNTRIES

YOU CAN ALSO
OPTIONALLY USE
USE THE X-
DEFAULT VALUE
FOR UNMATCHED
INTERNATIONAL
VERSIONS

Use XML
Sitemaps in
non-ﬂexible
sites with a
high number of
versions
Include them in
HTML in sites
with lower
number of
versions &
coding
ﬂexibility
YOU CAN ADD HREFLANG IN THE HTML HEAD OR
IN XML SITEMAPS, AS WELL AS HTTP HEADERS

UNFORTUNATELY,
IT’S COMMON TO
GENERATE THEM
WITH ERRORS
HTTPS://SEARCHENGINELAND.COM/AUDITING-HREFLANG-ANNOTATIONS-COMMON-ISSUES-AVOID-219483

FOR REAL

REALLY

AVOID HREFLANG ISSUES BY FOLLOWING THIS
IMPLEMENTATION AND VALIDATION PROCESS
ASSESS THE
LANGUAGES AND
COUNTRIES HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
SCOPE
CHOOSE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
METHOD
SPECIFY THE
HREFLANG CODE
PATTERN
MONITOR AND
TROUBLESHOOT THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
AFTER LAUNCH
VALIDATE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION IN A
TEST ENVIRONMENT
ESTABLISH HREFLANG
BEST PRACTICES
GUIDELINES TO BE
FOLLOWED WHEN A
NEW PAGE IS
PUBLISHED
HTTP://BIT.LY/HREFLANGPROCESS

PRIORITIZE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATIO
N IN THE PAGES
SUFFERING OF
RANKINGS
MISALIGNMENT
DESPITE HAVING
BEEN LOCALIZED
ALREADY

USE THE CORRECT
ANNOTATIONS
AND VALUES BY
GENERATING
HREFLANG
PATTERNS WITH
THIS FREE
GENERATOR TOOL
HTTPS://WWW.ALEYDASOLIS.COM/ENGLISH/INTERNATIONAL-SEO-TOOLS/HREFLANG-TAGS-GENERATOR/

YOU CAN ALSO
USE THE
HREFBUILDER  
FOR COMPLEX
ENTERPRISE
ENVIRONMENTS
HREFBUILDER.COM

VALIDATE THE HREFLANG IMPLEMENTATION  
USING SEO CRAWLERS BEFORE IT IS LAUNCHED
DEEPCRAWLDEEPCRAWL, SITEBULB, SCREAMING FROG, RYTE, BOTIFY

CHECK IF ALL THE URLS HAVE BEEN TAGGED
CORRECTLY AND ARE INDEXABLE
DEEPCRAWL, SITEBULB, SCREAMING FROG, RYTE, BOTIFY

AFTER LAUNCH, MONITOR ANY REMAINING ISSUES WITH
THE SEARCH CONSOLE INTERNATIONAL REPORT

#INTERNATIONALSEO BY @ALEYDA FROM #ORAINTI AT @PUBCONHTTPS://HREFLANGCHECKER.COM/, HTTPS://TECHNICALSEO.COM/SEO-TOOLS/HREFLANG/
AS WELL AS
HREFLANG
CHECKERS WHEN
SPECIFIC
VALIDATION IS
NEEDED

DOCUMENT THE PROCESS AND ESTABLISH HREFLANG
BEST PRACTICES TO BE FOLLOWED W/ NEW PAGES
WHICH
INTERNATIONAL
VERSIONS WERE
INCLUDED/EXCLUDED
AND WHY?
WHICH PAGES OF
THOSE INTERNATIONAL
VERSIONS WERE
INCLUDED/EXCLUDED
AND WHY?
WHICH
IMPLEMENTATION
METHOD WAS CHOSEN
AND WHY?
WHICH TOOLS WERE
SELECTED TO
GENERATE, TEST AND
MONITOR HREFLANG?
WHEN AND WHERE THE
HREFLANG
IMPLEMENTATION
SHOULD BE TESTED
BEFORE ANY RELEASE?
HOW OFTEN THE
HREFLANG
ANNOTATIONS SHOULD
BE CHECKED AND WHO
WILL DO IT?
HTTP://BIT.LY/HREFLANGPROCESS

WITH THESE STEPS YOU’LL BE ABLE TO TARGET, LOCALIZE
AND GROW YOUR INTERNATIONAL WEB VISIBILITY

IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETS THAT ARE ALSO PROFITABLE

IT’S ABOUT AVOIDING THESE 3 COMMON INTERNATIONAL
SEO CHALLENGES…
1 2 3
LACK OF
RESOURCES
MAINTAIN YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
WEB PRESENCE
NOT BEING ABLE
TO RANK WELL WITH
THE CHOSEN
INTERNATIONAL
WEB STRUCTURE
RANKING IN
INTERNATIONAL
SEARCH RESULTS
WITH THE WRONG
PAGES

…BY FOLLOWING THESE 3 INTERNATIONAL SEO PHASES
1 2 3
PRIORITIZE YOUR
INTERNATIONAL
MARKETS
ASSESS & SELECT
THE BEST WEB
STRUCTURE
LOCALIZE AND
GEOLOCATE EACH
VERSION

THANKS

3 Ways to get lost in International SEO and how to Find Success

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3 Ways to get lost in International SEO and how to Find Success