They say one can’t comprehend a particular situation unless they’ve experienced it themselves.

So, imagine you’ve built a thriving online business in the US. Now, you’re ready to expand globally, say to Singapore and Germany. But you soon realize your website isn’t ranking on search engines there.

Why?

Because international audiences need content tailored to their language, culture, and preferences. Search engines need the right signals to show your website in their local results.

How do you do it? By implementing international SEO optimization.

International SEO is a broad concept, and it brings great value to your business. Targeting audiences outside your country and attracting a larger crowd has been the motive of every marketer.
 
In this blog, we’ll talk about the basics and the intricate details of international SEO, its importance, and various factors that influence it. Additionally, we’ve compiled a checklist that will help you get started with a global SEO strategy in the correct direction. So, before you step into the global market, gather all the valuable insights from this blog and do it right.

What is International SEO?

International SEO is about making your website easy to find and understand for people in different countries and speaking different languages. With the right international SEO strategy, your website will show up on search engines for your audience in different regions of the world.

How can you make your website globally local? By making sure your website uses the right language, targets the right country, matches cultural preferences, and ensuring it’s fast and mobile-friendly. We’ll talk more about the “how” later in this article, so read on!

Why International SEO matters

A robust global SEO strategy is significant for successfully expanding your online presence across the globe. Here are the latest trends that make having an effective international SEO strategy more crucial for your business:

  • AI Integration: As you already know, AI is on the verge of revolutionizing everything by automating tasks in most spheres. In terms of SEO, it has accelerated the processes of keyword research, content creation, and trend prediction to improve efficiency and search performance.
  • Focus on User Experience: It is always wise and demanding of recent trends to have a website adaptable to various devices and languages. It boosts engagement, conversions, and rankings. It’s highly recommended to prioritize user-centric approaches to foster brand loyalty and trust.
  • Demand for Voice & Visual Search: With more and more voice and visual search in place, it has become essential to optimize your website for natural language and image-based queries. This calls for the need for structured data and image optimization.
  • Localization: Customizing your content for local audiences, preferences, and cultural nuances ensures its relevance in each market. This also requires adjusting for local currencies, time zones, and regulations.
  • Mobile Optimization: As mobile use increases globally, ensuring a mobile-friendly website with fast load times and mobile-specific features is vital for international SEO success.

Benefits of optimizing your website for international audiences

The sole benefit of optimizing your website for international audiences is achieving greater visibility with higher coverage of the target audience in every market. Let’s understand how that occurs through fulfilling different factors as listed below:

  • Wider Market Reach: Having your website rank well globally allows access to new markets and attracts customers from all over the world, thus, boosting opportunities for growth and revenue diversification.
  • Improved Search Visibility: With multilingual content, you can increase the visibility of your content in language-specific search results. This makes your website more discoverable globally.
  • Cultural Relevance: A global website attracts diverse audiences by localizing its content and design to foster emotional connections and retain long-term customer relationships.
  • Competitive Edge: An internationally optimized website distinguishes your brand from the competition by committing to customer satisfaction. This gives you a competitive edge and helps rank your business in the international markets.
  • Increased Credibility: Establishing a strong global presence builds trust. It makes your brand more reliable, improving customer conversions and loyalty.

Local VS International SEO and the right target market

Before we move on to learning about international SEO in depth, it is highly crucial to understand that international SEO differs from local SEO. International SEO focuses on a global audience, while local SEO focuses on a particular geographic location. While the former uses keywords relevant to a wider audience, the latter uses keywords relevant to a particular area.

While there’s a difference between the two, they are closely related to each other. You cannot implement one and forget about the other. While local SEO helps attract a local audience, international SEO attracts an international audience across the globe. It’s important to rank your website both locally and globally for maximum reach.

This is where the need to identify the right target market for your business comes into action. Your marketing efforts, budgets, and resources need to be channeled in the direction that brings in the most impact. This takes into consideration eliminating the type of audience that is less likely to convert, hence, maximizing the effectivity of your marketing campaigns.

How search engines handle global and multilingual websites

Search engines have different ways of indexing and ranking global and multilingual websites. The most important focus areas are language, region, and content structure. Here are the basic but most crucial practices that search engines use to manage global and multilingual websites:

  • Hreflang Tags: They let search engines recognize the correct language or regional version of your website or page to ensure your users see relevant content.
  • Localized Content and Keywords: Search engines detect content adapted to local languages, cultures, and keywords as it improves the relevance and rankings in specific regions.
  • Country-Specific Domains/Subdirectories: Using country-specific domains (e.g., .co.uk) or subdirectories (e.g., /fr/) helps target regional audiences.
  • Technical SEO: Saying “SEO” covers a wide area of focus regions but targeting technical SEO includes optimizing your site structure, load speed, and mobile experience for betting crawling and ranking opportunities by search engines.
  • Avoiding Duplicate Content: Proper use of canonical tags and hreflang annotations is crucial to avoid penalties for duplicate content across language versions.

Such strategies improve the global SEO performance and user experience of your website. To ensure things are going smoothly for your business, it’s best to implement the services of an expert international SEO agency to target all these factors effectively.

How to do keyword research for International SEO

Being on a hunt for keywords for your website is basically identifying keywords to optimize your website for multilingual SEO. In other words, you may need to translate your content for audiences across the world to relate to it and convert them to regular customers.

However, a comprehensive international keyword research strategy involves more than just hunting keywords and translating them. As we previously mentioned, local and international SEO sure differ but are equally important for your business. Here’s where you need to localize your content, along with the relevant keywords, so that you can hit the local market.

Therefore, it can be daunting to look for relevant keywords that help your business rank both locally and internationally. So, here is a process you can follow to ease your way into it:

Identifying the keywords

When conducting keyword research for international or local SEO, the first step is identifying keywords worth creating content for. Consider the following factors to analyze the potential of your keywords:

  • Search Volume: Keywords with higher search volumes can drive more traffic, but even low-volume keywords may be valuable if they target users ready to convert.
  • Keyword Difficulty: Low-difficulty keywords are easier to rank for, but high-difficulty ones can still be worth pursuing if they align with your business goals.
  • Search Intent: Understand the purpose behind the keyword. Prioritize transactional keywords to boost sales or informational ones to educate your audience, depending on your objectives.

Don’t assume which language will perform best. For instance, AS Marketing discovered that Norwegian keywords, despite lower search volumes, offered less competition and higher conversions than English keywords, helping build trust with local users.

Leverage tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush to analyze these aspects and refine your international keyword strategy. Employ international SEO services to elevate your SEO and marketing strategy.

Translating the keywords 

Simply translating keywords into the target language is just one aspect of international SEO—it’s not the entire strategy. After identifying your target keywords, they need to be translated into each language you plan to create content for. While manual translation might work for a small set of keywords, it becomes impractical for hundreds or thousands. Additionally, without fluency in the target language, translations may lack accuracy. This is where you can rely on automatic translation tools to help translate greater chunks of content faster and more efficiently.

Localizing the translated keywords 

Translating keywords doesn’t guarantee they’ll suit the cultural and societal context of your target country. Here’s why:

  1. Dialects vary: Words used for the same concept can differ between dialects. For instance, in American English, people say “grocery store,” while in British English, they say “supermarket.” Both refer to the same type of store but are contextually distinct.
  2. Language-specific usage: Some terms aren’t universally used in all languages. In Germany, for example, a projector is commonly called a “beamer,” while the term “projektor” is rarely used.

When direct translations fall short, keyword localization is crucial. This process adapts keywords to align with the local context, ensuring they resonate with the audience. Localization not only improves your content’s relevance but also enhances search engine rankings in your target market.

Check the authenticity of the localized keywords 

After translating and localizing your keywords, they might look quite different from your initial list. It’s crucial to re-evaluate their suitability for your target audience before creating content.

Use your preferred international keyword research tool to assess their search volume, keyword difficulty, and other essential SEO metrics. Also, verify the search intent to ensure it aligns with your content goals.

For instance, if a localized keyword has a low search volume, consider targeting an alternative. Similarly, if the search intent shifts to a different topic, decide whether to stick with the original focus or adapt to the new one.

Once you’ve finalized your localized keywords and strategy, integrate them into your website content while following SEO best practices, like optimizing header tags and crafting compelling meta descriptions.

Best tools for international keyword research

Here are four top-rated tools for conducting international keyword research:

  • Semrush: A widely used tool with an extensive keyword database, Semrush makes keyword research in multiple languages straightforward. It has a cloud-based platform with over 25.7 billion keywords. It supports location-specific searches. Its easy-to-navigate interface allows you to switch between countries.
  • Ahrefs Keyword Explorer: Ahrefs offers in-depth insights with just a single seed keyword, perfect for multi-region SEO. You can run a competitor analysis with country-specific data. It generates keyword data for 10 search engines, including Yandex and Baidu. It allows a coverage of 217 locations and 13 interface languages. You also get detailed backlink data to improve rankings.
  • Moz: Known for its comprehensive SEO solutions, Moz caters to larger teams and enterprises. It provides an accurate keyword database and competitor analysis. Moz is also great for link building and site crawling.
  • Google Keyword Planner: Ideal for businesses targeting Google’s search engine, this tool is both reliable and free. You can access it for free via your existing Google Ads account. It provides historical data spanning up to 12 months. It allows seamless integration with Google Ads campaigns.

Each tool has unique strengths, so combining free and premium options can enhance your international keyword research strategy.

Is search intent important for SEO?

Search intent plays a crucial role in SEO, going beyond just selecting the right keywords. Google’s primary focus is to provide users with relevant content, and its evaluator guidelines emphasize the importance of understanding user intent. Here's why it matters:

  • Improved Rankings: Content aligned with search intent is more likely to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERP).
  • Targeted Audience Engagement: By addressing users' needs, you can attract the right audience, convert leads into customers, and enhance your marketing strategies.
  • Enhanced User Experience: Meeting users' expectations positions your brand as an authority, fostering trust and repeat visits.

Understanding and implementing search intent in your strategy not only boosts visibility but also strengthens audience connections and business growth.

Exploring the right domain structure

Choosing the right domain structure for your business also plays a crucial role in marking your place in terms of international SEO. Here are the options of domain structures you can choose for your business:

  1. ccTLDs (Country-Code Top-Level Domains)
    Use two-letter domain codes like yoursite.de or yoursite.es to target specific countries. This approach is ideal for geotargeting but requires more setup and is better suited for country-specific rather than language-specific targeting.
  2. gTLDs (Generic Top-Level Domains) with Subdomains
    Subdomains like de.yoursite.com or es.yoursite.com draw a distinction between languages or regions within a single domain. This method simplifies site separation but still centralizes management.
  3. gTLDs with Subfolders (Subdirectories)
    Popular for its simplicity, this structure uses subfolders under the same domain, e.g., yoursite.com/de or yoursite.com/es. It supports both language and country targeting, e.g., yoursite.com/es-mx (Spanish in Mexico) or yoursite.com/fr-ca (French in Canada).

A Pro Tip:

  • Google’s Guide: Refer to Google’s multilingual website management tips to choose the best structure.
  • Avoid Domain Migration: Keep your current structure intact to minimize ranking disruptions. For instance, if you already use a .co.uk domain, maintain it and expand with subfolders on a .com domain instead of migrating everything.

What are hreflang tags

Hreflang tags are vital for international SEO, guiding search engines on the language and regional targeting of web pages. They ensure users see the right version of a page based on their location and language, enhancing search rankings and user experience. For businesses operating in multiple U.S. regions, these tags help direct users to the most relevant content, avoiding duplicate content issues. Proper implementation, including accurate language and country codes like “en-US” for English users in the U.S., is essential for success.

Why do you need hreflang tags?

  • Better user experience: Users are directed to the most relevant version of your site.
  • Increased traffic: Clear language targeting improves search rankings.
  • Avoids duplicate content issues: Helps search engines differentiate between language-specific pages.

Hreflang implementation

The hreflang attribute helps search engines identify the most suitable language version of your website for users based on their location and preferences. This boosts SEO and enhances user experience.

How to implement hreflang

  1. Add the hreflang tag: Insert the rel="alternate" hreflang="x" tag in the <head> section of your HTML code.
  2. Specify language and region: Use language codes (e.g., "en") and optional region codes (e.g., "us").
  3. Include all versions: Ensure hreflang tags reference all language variations of your website.
  4. Use a sitemap: Submit a sitemap with hreflang tags to search engines for proper indexing.

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Localization vs. Translation

Both SEO translation and SEO localization aim to optimize your website for search engines in a specific region. However, their goals differ:

  • SEO Translation focuses solely on enhancing searchability by translating content.
  • SEO Localization goes further, improving both searchability and cultural relevance by adapting content to resonate with the target audience.

Unlike direct translation, localized content for SEO involves adjusting phrases, idioms, and cultural references to align with local preferences. It also involves identifying region-specific keywords that may differ from the original language but achieve the same intent.

How Culture, Language, and Trends impact user engagement

Cultural differences play a significant role in user engagement on multinational websites, especially when it comes to search behavior and content preferences. The way people search online varies based on their cultural context, influencing both keyword selection and the type of content they seek.

Broadly, we can categorize societies into individualistic and collectivist groups, each with distinct preferences:

  • Individualistic societies: Users in these cultures prioritize uniqueness and price over quality. They are more likely to follow trends, show lower brand loyalty, and make purchasing decisions based on price and trends. To engage these users, focus on price-related and trending keywords.
  • Collectivist societies: Users here tend to research products thoroughly, relying heavily on user reviews and opinions. They value detailed content and social proof, making long-tail keywords and customer testimonials essential for engagement.

Cultural variations in search behavior also occur even among users speaking the same language. For example, the search volume for “SEO services” is higher in the UK when combined with “UK,” while in the US, such location-specific searches are less common. These differences extend to other search patterns, such as singular vs. plural keywords, infinitive vs. present tense, and brand vs. non-brand searches.

Overall, understanding these cultural nuances is essential for optimizing SEO strategies and improving user engagement on global websites.

Examples of international SEO and localized content

International SEO optimizes websites to rank well in search results across various countries and languages. This often involves creating country-specific websites or landing pages with localized content and meta tags. Here are some examples:

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor has dedicated pages for destinations, hotels, restaurants, and attractions globally. By targeting long-tail keywords for each location, they boost their rankings and drive significant organic traffic.

Uber

Uber’s platform features detailed city and destination pages, offering fare estimates, trip duration, and safety details. By targeting location-based keywords, they dominate search rankings, driving more traffic and bookings.

  • URL: Uber
  • Pages: 1M+
  • Monthly Traffic: 18M+

Amazon

Amazon runs country-specific websites with localized product listings, pricing, and customer support. By using hreflang tags, they ensure the right language version is shown to users, enhancing regional relevance.

  • URL: Amazon
  • Pages: 83M+
  • Monthly Traffic: 786M+

Optimizing mobile content: Technical SEO for international success

Mobile optimization is essential for international SEO, ensuring a seamless user experience across various devices and screen sizes. With the majority of users browsing on mobile devices, search engines like Google favor mobile-friendly websites in their rankings. Here’s what you bring to the table by optimizing your content on mobile devices for higher international rankings:

  • Growing Mobile Usage: Mobile devices are the primary means of internet access, especially in regions with higher mobile penetration than desktop usage.
  • Enhanced User Experience: A responsive design, quick loading times, and intuitive navigation improve usability, boosting engagement and conversions.
  • Higher Search Rankings: Mobile-friendly websites are prioritized by search engines, increasing visibility in SERPs.
  • Improved Conversions: Optimized sites encourage users to complete actions like purchases, driving higher conversion rates.

Avoiding duplicate content issues with proper canonicalization

When managing different country versions of a website that share the same language (such as Spanish for Spain, Mexico, or Colombia, or English for the UK, Canada, and the US), the content may appear similar but should not be treated as duplicate content if each version is properly geolocated.

Why This Can Be Problematic

Some websites mistakenly use canonical tags to point all language versions of the same content to a single URL, even if the pages are meant for different regions or countries. This practice tells search engines to consider the content on the linked page as the primary version. As a result, search engines may struggle to rank the content appropriately in different countries, assuming the content is identical across regions.

How to Resolve It

To prevent this issue, it's important not to use canonical tags that point to a single URL for multiple country-specific versions of your website. Instead, you should use hreflang tags and properly localize the content for each target audience. This approach ensures that search engines deliver the correct content based on the user’s location and language preferences.

While Google suggests that canonical tags can be used for similar or duplicate content on different URLs in the same language (e.g., content in German on example.de/ and example.com/de/), the key is ensuring that the content is truly intended for multiple regions. Tools like Sitebulb can help audit your canonical tags for any issues.

Geo-targeting SEO with Google search console

Geo-targeting plays a crucial role in international SEO by helping businesses connect with their audience more precisely. Key benefits include:

  • Boosting Brand Visibility: Geo-targeted landing pages enhance brand recognition in specific regions.
  • Competitive Advantage: Targeting less competitive keywords improves market positioning.
  • Content Customization: Localizing content ensures it aligns with regional languages and preferences.
  • Avoiding Duplicate Content: Prevents confusion for search engines and maintains rankings.
  • Effective Localization: Adapts content to cultural and linguistic nuances for better engagement.
  • Leveraging Hreflang Tags: Guides search engines on language and regional targeting.
  • Global Reach: Expands business presence to a worldwide audience.
  • Strengthening Brand Reputation: Ensures cultural sensitivity, avoiding missteps in communication.

Setting Geographic Targets:

  1. Access Google Search Console.
  2. Select the desired property.
  3. Navigate to Search Traffic > International Targeting.
  4. Choose the Country tab.
  5. Pick your target region or choose “unlisted” for global reach.
  6. Click Save to confirm. 

Avoid leaving the geographic targeting option unchecked if you're using a generic top-level domain (gTLD). Without proper configuration, Google may interpret your target audience incorrectly. Selecting "Unlisted" ensures Google knows your focus is global or multi-regional. 

Alternatives to Geographic Targeting

Since the geographic targeting feature has been deprecated, consider these alternatives:

  1. Country-Specific TLDs: Domains like .uk or .ca indicate the targeted country.
  2. Hreflang Tags: Define the language and regional targeting for specific pages.
  3. Server Location: Hosting in the target country can signal relevance, though its impact is minor.
  4. Localized Content: Tailor content for local language, culture, and preferences.
  5. Local Backlinks: Secure backlinks from websites based in your target region to boost relevance.

Server locations and hosting: Does it impact SEO?

Server location does influence international SEO. For websites with audiences across multiple countries, using a content delivery network (CDN) ensures optimized server proximity for all users, enhancing site speed and delivering a better global user experience.

Server location can influence international SEO by affecting:

  • Site Speed: Proximity to users reduces latency, enhancing load times and user experience.
  • Local SEO Relevance: Search engines may associate server location with the target audience, especially for local businesses.

Key Metrics:

  • Time to First Byte (TTFB): This metric takes into account the time it takes for the server to send the first byte of data. A closer server reduces TTFB.
  • Round-Trip Time (RTT): This accounts for the total time taken for a data packet to travel from user to server and back. Proximity minimizes RTT, improving page load speed.

While server location matters, other factors like website optimization, CDNs, and internet speed also influence performance.

Selecting the best hosting for optimal website performance

The hosting solution you choose plays a crucial role in determining your website's server location and overall speed. Here’s a list of the common hosting options:

  • Shared Hosting: A cost-effective choice where multiple websites share the same server. However, this can result in slower performance due to shared resources.
  • Virtual Private Server (VPS) Hosting: Offers a designated portion of a server, providing more control and improved performance compared to shared hosting.
  • Dedicated Hosting: Grants exclusive access to an entire server, ensuring maximum resources and top performance, though it comes with a higher price tag.
  • Cloud Hosting: Leverages a network of servers to distribute data, making it scalable and potentially enhancing speed and reliability.

By understanding these hosting options and their impact on server location, you can select the best fit for your website's requirements and budget.

Optimizing metadata and titles for regional SEO

Meta titles and descriptions serve as the first impression for users viewing your website in search results. To grab attention, they should be clear, concise, and engaging, while incorporating at least one priority keyword or phrase.

Though less visible to users, alt text (displayed when an image fails to load) is essential for an effective SEO strategy. Since search engines also index visual content, leaving alt text fields blank or failing to localize them can mean missed opportunities for improving visibility—and might even harm your search rankings.

When adapting metadata for different regions, it’s important to factor in character limits and communicate these constraints to your translation team. Translating meta titles, descriptions, tags, and alt text may require creativity to ensure they remain compelling while staying within these limitations. For example, translations from English to Spanish often result in longer text, so translators may need to modify phrasing to ensure it fits and retains its impact.

If you use similar phrasing across your site, consider differentiating metadata to avoid duplication. While character limits matter more for metadata, regular on-site text doesn’t have the same restrictions. Tailoring translations based on where the text appears on your site can further enhance SEO performance and user engagement.

Why backlinks remain crucial for International SEO

Backlinks are a fundamental component of SEO, as they demonstrate your website’s credibility and relevance. Maintaining existing links and acquiring new ones are equally vital for sustained SEO success.

Two Key Reasons to Build International Backlinks

1. Expanding Your Website’s Backlink Profile

Broadening your backlink strategy to target international markets diversifies your backlink profile, enhancing your site’s authority.

For instance, if your fashion website has already gained recognition in UK-based publications like British Vogue and Cosmopolitan UK, expanding to acquire backlinks from fashion outlets in markets such as the US, Australia, or others can be highly advantageous. This increases the number of relevant referring domains in the fashion industry, signaling greater authority to search engines and improving your SERP rankings globally.

2. Establishing Your Brand as a Global Authority

Securing backlinks from trusted international publications elevates your reputation as a global expert in your niche. Even if your business doesn’t operate in those regions, recognition from reputable international sources strengthens your EEAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) metrics, enhancing your site’s credibility in Google's algorithm.

Building local backlinks for market relevance

To gain traction in specific local markets, focus on earning backlinks from trusted regional sources. Partnering with local organizations such as chambers of commerce, industry directories, and news outlets can provide authentic endorsements that search engines value.

These relationships should go beyond one-time collaborations; fostering long-term partnerships with local entities ensures consistent and meaningful backlink opportunities, embedding your brand more deeply within the local ecosystem.

Utilizing digital PR for regional backlink strategies

Some clients question the value of building backlinks in regions where they don’t serve a customer base, assuming it won’t target their intended audience. However, the primary purpose of digital PR is to secure high-quality backlinks, which serve as endorsements for your website. These links signal to Google that your site is a credible authority within its niche, boosting your search engine rankings.

An added advantage is the potential for referral traffic. Readers who click on these backlinks may visit your site and convert, especially if the backlinks are placed in regions where your business operates.

Common causes of lost backlinks

Lost or removed links can impact your international SEO rankings adversely. This is a type of incident you don’t want to occur. Therefore, look for the following types of scenarios that result in lost links to avoid lost SEO rankings.

Link Removal

A link may be removed when the website owner decides to delete it from their content. This can happen for several reasons, such as:

  • Replacing the link with a more updated or relevant resource.
  • Updating their content and omitting your link.
  • Competitors successfully pitch their own links.
  • Issues with your linked page, such as outdated or irrelevant content.
  • Policy changes that enforce stricter guidelines for external links.

404 Errors

A 404 error occurs when a link points to a URL that no longer exists, resulting in a "Page Not Found" message.

  • These errors often happen when a website restructures its pages or updates URLs without setting up proper redirects.
  • Backlinks to the old URL become broken, affecting user experience and SEO.

301 Redirect Misconfigurations

A 301 redirect is used to permanently forward a URL to a new address. For example, moving a page from www.example.com/blog to www.example.com/articles requires a 301 redirect to maintain continuity.

  • Problems arise when redirects are not properly configured, causing users to encounter errors or outdated content.
  • Search engines may also fail to transfer the link equity to the new page, negatively impacting its ranking.

"Noindex" Tags on the Linking Page

When a page linking to your site is tagged with "noindex," it instructs search engines not to include that page in their index.

  • Although the link remains, it provides no SEO value because the page is essentially invisible to search engines.

Why link reclamation matters

Monitoring and maintaining the links pointing to your website is crucial for enhancing user experience and optimizing search engines. Here's why functional links are vital:

  1. User Experience: When users click a link and it leads to an unexpected or broken page, they may quickly leave your site. This can lead to higher bounce rates and lower engagement, which negatively impacts the overall user experience.
  2. SEO and Search Rankings: External links are a significant factor in determining your website's search engine ranking. Broken links on your site represent missed opportunities to transfer link equity, which can harm your site's ability to rank higher in search results.
  3. Referral Traffic: External links bring traffic from other sites to yours. When backlinks are lost, this flow of visitors is disrupted, resulting in missed chances to attract users interested in your content, products, or services.
  4. Credibility: Links from other sites act as endorsements, boosting your site's credibility. Losing these links reduces the perceived trustworthiness of your site in the eyes of search engines. 

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The importance of internal links

Now that you understand the causes of broken links, let’s dive deeper into their importance. Broken links usually refer to links that formerly led to pages on your site but are no longer working. Having broken links on your site can adversely affect the visibility and credibility of your website. Here’s why you need to fix broken links on your site:

Site Structure and SEO

Search engines work on an algorithm that takes into account internal links for website crawling purposes. These links allow search engines to understand your site structure and recognize the relationship between your web pages. 

If these links are found broken, it becomes challenging for search engines to identify your site and therefore, hinders proper indexing leading to a negative effect on your search rankings.

Distribution of Page Authority

Internal links are important for distributing link equity across your site. Broken links lead to a broken flow of the value your site offers and therefore, there’s an obstruction of site authority that affects the rankings of your website.

What is link equity?

Link juice (or link equity) refers to the authority that is passed from one page to another through hyperlinks. When an external site links to yours, it shares some of its authority with your page. The same concept applies to internal links — they help distribute link equity across your site. When internal links are broken, this flow of authority is disrupted, reducing the overall link equity throughout your site. Reclaiming lost internal links is important to ensure that your site continues to benefit from the full potential of link equity.

How to repair broken internal links

The first thing to do while reclaiming your links is to locate and fix broken internal links on your website.
Several tools can assist you in finding these broken links, including:

  • Google Search Console: A free tool from Google that allows you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s performance.
  • Screaming Frog SEO Spider: A free desktop application that crawls a website’s links, images, CSS, scripts, and apps to assess its SEO health.
  • Dragon Metrics: A comprehensive SEO toolset that includes a feature for scanning broken or lost links, available for $99 per month with the starter package.

Securing high-quality international backlinks

In digital PR, we focus on creating content that feels organic and not overly promotional, avoiding the risk of journalists requesting payment for sponsored content. Sponsored backlinks, marked with the "rel=sponsored" attribute by Google, do not contribute positively to SEO efforts.

To prevent this, we take a strategic approach by providing journalists with exclusive content they cannot easily access or create themselves, motivating them to include it in their articles and credit the original source. This content can include:

  • Expert Insights: Offering commentary on trending topics.
  • Proprietary Data: Sharing unique, company-specific data.
  • Well-Researched Data: Providing valuable information that journalists may lack the time or resources to gather themselves.

This type of content, which is not overtly promotional, can be shared in international markets where the brand may not have a direct presence, helping establish the brand as an expert in the field without directly pushing for sales.

While building high-quality backlinks in your primary market remains the key focus of Digital PR efforts, expanding this strategy internationally offers notable SEO advantages. This approach enables you to take advantage of opportunities across a wider range of relevant websites, reinforcing your position as a global authority. As a result, this strengthens your backlink profile, signals expertise to Google, and boosts your position in search rankings, ultimately leading to higher conversions through improved organic search performance.

Social media's impact on International SEO

Social media provides a unique opportunity to engage with diverse regional audiences. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow businesses to create tailored content that aligns with local interests and cultural differences. To leverage these platforms effectively, it’s essential to craft messages that resonate with your target audience, ensuring that content remains relevant and impactful.

Social media SEO strategy for Regional Engagement:

  • Localized Content: Create posts that highlight local trends, current events, and news.
  • Engagement-Driven Posts: Stimulate conversation by posing questions and conducting polls.
  • Regional Tone: Adjust the tone of your content to match the local language and conversational style.

By focusing on localized strategies, you can enhance your social media presence and improve your international SEO efforts.

Tracking and analyzing International SEO performance

Evaluating the success of your international SEO efforts is essential for optimizing your strategy. To gauge performance effectively, focus on the following key metrics:

  • Organic Traffic: Track the number of visitors arriving through organic search results. This helps measure the impact of your SEO efforts in attracting users from search engines.
  • Search Engine Rankings: Keep an eye on your website’s position for relevant keywords across various countries and languages, giving you a clear picture of how your site performs globally.
  • Conversion Rates: Measure how many desired actions, such as purchases or sign-ups, are completed on your site. This indicates how well your SEO strategy is performing - whether it is converting visitors into customers or leads.
  • Return on Investment (ROI): Assess the financial return from your international SEO activities to determine the overall profitability of your efforts.
  • User Experience: Analyze metrics like bounce rate, session duration, and pages per visit to gain insights into how users engage with your site, helping identify areas for optimization. 

Top tools for starting with International SEO

Establishing a stronghold of an effective international SEO plan for your business need not be as challenging as it may seem. Thanks to professional tools in place that you can use for gathering international search volume data. Three such widely popular tools are enlisted below that can help you get started with your international SEO strategy at full phase:

  • Google Keyword Planner: As Google’s own keyword research tool, Keyword Planner offers the most reliable and precise search volume data. Since it pulls data directly from Google’s search database, you can trust that the figures reflect actual search behaviors on the platform. This tool is especially useful for targeting specific regions, providing insights that help tailor your SEO strategies to different global markets.
  • Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that supports keyword research across 10 search engines and 242 countries. It provides users with search volume data, keyword rankings, and detailed competition analysis. With its vast global coverage, Ahrefs is ideal for discovering international search trends and understanding how your keywords perform in different regions.
  • SEMrush: SEMrush is a robust digital marketing tool known for its expansive keyword database, covering 120 countries. It offers a wide range of features, including keyword research, site auditing, competitive analysis, and content optimization tools. With SEMrush, you can gain valuable insights into international search patterns and optimize your strategy for diverse markets around the world. 

Using Google aAnalytics for regional data insights

Google Analytics offers valuable regional insights through its Geo reports, which show the geographical locations of website visitors. This data can be used to develop targeted marketing campaigns tailored to specific regions.

To segment users by region in Google Analytics, follow these steps:

  1. Click + Add Segment.
  2. Select + New Segment.
  3. Name your segment.
  4. Under the Demographics tab, scroll down to Location.
  5. Change the first drop-down from Continent to Country.
  6. Set the next dropdown to exact matches instead of contains.
  7. Enter or select the desired region to segment.
  8. Click Save.

Google Analytics determines a user's location by their IP address, which provides information such as country, city, and geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude). These IP addresses are discarded before any data is logged or stored in Google’s servers. 

How to implement International SEO

To excel in international SEO, it’s crucial to customize a plan to address the unique needs of global markets. Below are some tips to enhance your SEO strategy in a direction that attracts higher global rankings: 

Create an SEO Checklist

Start by developing a detailed checklist that outlines all the key tasks for optimizing your site for international users. This should cover areas like keyword research, content optimization, and technical SEO.

Use Hreflang Tags

Hreflang tags are essential for signaling the language and regional targeting of your web pages. Proper implementation ensures that search engines serve the right version of your content to users in different countries, boosting visibility and relevance.

Perform In-Depth Keyword Research

Dedicate time to conducting thorough international keyword research for each target market. Identify relevant terms and phrases specific to your global audience, ensuring your content aligns with their search behaviors and intent.

Optimize Website Structure for Global Audiences

Ensure your website is structured for international use. This includes using subdirectories or subdomains for different languages, adding a language switcher, and optimizing navigation for a smooth user experience across regions.

Develop High-Quality Multilingual Content

Create engaging, culturally relevant content that speaks to the preferences of your international audience. Work with professional translators or localization experts to ensure the content is both accurate and authentic.

Build Local Backlinks

Gain backlinks from reputable local websites in your target countries to enhance credibility and visibility. Focus on establishing relationships with local influencers, bloggers, and industry figures to organically acquire high-quality links. 

Avoiding common mistakes in International SEO

To ensure the success of your international SEO strategy, it's essential to avoid common pitfalls. Here are the most common mistakes to watch out for:

  • Neglecting Market Research: Not fully understanding local markets and consumer behaviors can lead to ineffective SEO tactics. Conduct in-depth research to customize your strategy to each region.
  • Skipping Hreflang Tags: Without properly implementing hreflang tags to specify language and regional targeting, search engines may display the wrong version of your site to users.
  • Overlooking Mobile Optimization: Failing to make your website mobile-responsive can negatively affect both user experience and your rankings on search engines.
  • Ignoring Canonical Tags: Not addressing duplicate content issues through canonical tags can confuse search engines, potentially harming your rankings.
  • Forgetting to Track Performance: Failing to regularly monitor and assess your international SEO results means you might miss important insights on what’s effective and what requires adjustment. Track performance consistently to fine-tune your strategy.

By steering clear of these common errors and adopting best practices, you can build a strong international SEO foundation that drives success across global markets.

How AI is shaping the global SEO landscape

AI is transforming SEO by personalizing search results and enhancing content creation. By analyzing past searches and predicting future needs, AI delivers tailored results, helping businesses understand customer behavior and optimize strategies for better engagement and rankings. AI tools also assist in generating ideas, drafting content, and scaling production, making it easier to connect with large audiences while still maintaining relevance. 

Additionally, AI improves how search engines interpret user intent by analyzing vast amounts of search data to detect patterns and provide more precise results. This shift allows SEO professionals to optimize content for both the "what" and the "why" behind searches, staying ahead as search engines evolve.

Final thoughts

For an effective implementation of a strong international SEO strategy, start by understanding your target markets and their unique preferences. Utilize tools like hreflang tags, country-specific domains, and localized content to ensure your website is easily discoverable and relevant across different regions. 

Don’t forget the importance of site speed, mobile optimization, and acquiring local backlinks to improve visibility. By taking these actionable steps, you’ll be well on your way to improving your global reach and achieving success in international search rankings. 

Need help getting started? Our Drupal SEO services are designed to optimize your site for global audiences, ensuring you rank higher and stay ahead in international markets. Let’s work together!

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