Presentation on International SEO by Martin Macdonald and Annabel Hodges at International Search Summit London, Oct 2011.

1. Annabel Hodges
International SEO Director, OMD UK
Martin MacDonald
Head of SEO, OMD Group
INTERNATIONAL SEO

2. Any Questions?
Tweet: @searchpanda
@searchmartin
INTERNATIONAL SEO

3. WHO ARE OMD?

4. WHO ARE OMD?

5. OMD CLIENTS

6. OMD CLIENTS

7. OMD CLIENTS

8. OMD CLIENTS

9. INTERNATIONAL SEO – THE BASICS

10. ITS NOT ABOUT ONE ALGORITHM

11. ITS NOT ABOUT ONE ALGORITHM

12. This stuff is all US
or UK
specific, based on
an industry
questionnaire!
ITS NOT ABOUT ONE ALGORITHM

13. USE THE RIGHT TOOLS

14. DON’T TAKE SHORTCUTS

15. DON’T TAKE SHORTCUTS

16. TRANSLATIONS SHOULD BE MANUAL

17. THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

18. Which is best?
Country Specific TLD’s
Subfolders
Subdomains
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

19. At last! The Final Answer:
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

20. It depends… sorry!
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

21. Subfolders
Pros Cons
Easiest implementation on most Least likely to convert
CMS platforms
Loses any SERP Geo-Preference
All links will enhance the domain
authority metric Ugly, un-memorable URL
Hardest to build links to
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

22. Subdomains
Pros Cons
Backlinks can improve overall site Less likely to convert (eComm)
profile
Loses any SERP Geo-Preference
Easier to maintain server
requirements Ugly, un-memorable URL
Local IP address potential
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

23. ccTLD’s
Pros Cons
Increased Confidence Most expensive to maintain
More likely to attract links Increases required SEO work
Geo Preference in the Algorithm Multiple instances of CMS’ software
THE AGE OLD QUESTION…

24. Over to Annabel…
• Linguist & former translator
• Working in search and SEO for 5 years
Annabel Hodges
• SEO Associate Director here:
annabel.hodges@omd.com
• With this guy: @searchpanda
• Specialises in international clients
• Writes about SEO here:
• And here:

25. As Martin said, it’s still all about those age-old
issues
Subdomain vs Sub Folder
Localise, don’t translate
Understand local search engines
Understand local cultures
Localised link building

27. Sitelinks FTW
Before
After
20% saving on PPC
budget

28. What would Steve Jobs do?

29. Check the competition
Sometimes ccTLDs
might not be the
answer

30. My link building experience: understand your
market
• Blogs
• Personal touch
• Need to build relationships
over time
• Many poor quality directories
• More decent directories
• Advertorials
• More commercial
• Greater awareness of value
of links

31. Duplicate content & Hreflang
Google Advice:
1) If template (i.e. side navigation, footer) is machine-translated
into various languages
2) If main content remains unchanged, creating largely duplicate
pages.
<linkrel="alternate“ hreflang="en“ href="http://example.co.uk"/>
<linkrel="alternate“ hreflang="en“ href="http://example.com"/>

32. Are you tracking separate countries
correctly?

33. AND NOW FOR THE UGLY..

34. When redirects go bad
US visitor Googlebot
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Language: */*
.com .com
Temporarily gone here Temporarily gone here
.com/en/en-us/index.jsp .com/en/en-gb/index.jsp

35. How does this impact the US SERPs?
UK site page title
UK site description
Links directly into the UK site
GOOGLE TREATS UK SITE AS
AUTHORITATIVE

36. How about local markets?
as opposed to...

37. Thank You!
Any further questions: @searchpanda
@searchmartin
GET IN TOUCH. ITS EASY!