Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps website owners to ensure that people find their content through search engines like Google. It is a no-brainer that SEO is a vital aspect of the survival of any modern-day business. However, standard SEO may only go as far as to help you reach out to your diverse target audience.
Companies looking for a global or diverse presence need to take a step further to leverage SEO. You need to ensure that your customers who surf the internet using a different language other than your primary language can easily find your content online on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This is where multilingual SEO comes in.
This post takes you through all you need to know about multilingual SEO with tips to help you get started.
What is Multilingual SEO?
Multilingual SEO is the practice of optimizing your website for multiple languages to make them rank higher on the SERPs. This branch of SEO makes websites more visible and accessible to audiences that speak different languages.
Most people do confuse multilingual SEO and international SEO. Although the two sound similar, they have a few differences that make each distinct from the other.
If you live in a country, say Canada, and you are offering services to both English-speaking people and French-speaking audiences, then multilingual SEO would be ideal for you.
Your business may get numerous hits on the search engines, but if someone that doesn’t speak the website’s language gets to see your results, it may not come out as helpful to them — and you will lose out on potential customers.
On the other hand, if you target people from more than one country, whether they speak the same or different languages, that’s where international (multi-regional) SEO comes in.
In most cases, especially where one is targeting more than one country, both multilingual and multi-regional SEO can be used to boost the traffic and engagements on your website.
So, how is multilingual SEO done? Who needs it anyway, and how does one achieve all these? Read further as we dissect this topic to help you gain a better grasp and expertise on the matter.
Who Needs Multilingual SEO?
Businesses just starting to test the waters with a new market and leveraging top online marketing trends can significantly benefit from multilingual SEO.
According to Statista, English is the most popular language used by internet users, taking up 25.9% of the total 4.9 billion users. Chinese comes in second with 19.4% of the total, as Spanish and Arabic trail behind in the rankings.
In more diverse regions, such as North America, you will find a huge population of people whose native language is not English. Research has shown that while the majority of these people may use an English-based website, most of them would prefer and even convert much faster (and easier) when the website is done in their native language.
More and more people want to get information in their native language. With multilingual SEO, you can position yourself as the authority figure in more than one language and a specific region. For businesses that wish to target more than one language-speaking individual, this is the way to go. This has also been seen to be one of the latest B2B digital marketing trends that companies are leveraging.
However, while translating and localizing your website may be wise, you may not realize the desired results unless your activities are properly aligned with multilingual SEO strategies and best practices.
Why is Multilingual SEO Important?
Multilingual SEO is significantly beneficial for those that wish to acquire online visibility across different languages and (or) locations. Google and other search engines like Bing or Baidu use a number of algorithms to determine the results to display in their SERPs, including the language used.
Multilingual websites provide relevant information for the same queries in different languages. This means they have absolute topical authority on various search queries. Some of the other perks associated with multilingual SEO include:
It gives you an edge over the competition
The ability to attract clients and traffic to your website from different locations gives you an edge over the competition. Multilingual techniques employed on your website can get you more referrals and clicks, which translates into a higher return on investment.
It also becomes easier for your target audience to understand more about your offerings. Moreover, you are more likely to appeal to their emotions, making it easier for them to convert, increasing your overall sales and company growth.
Continued customer satisfaction
While most non-native speakers may find it ‘okay’ to access websites in your site’s primary language, they often feel more comfortable and satisfied in their native language.
For instance, a French person that understands or speaks English can browse the internet in English. However, they would be more comfortable doing so in their native language.
Professional multilingual SEO enables you to package your website content into a language (or way) that’s more appealing to your target audience. By doing so, you build yourself a loyal client base, enjoy a good reputation, and develop a solid brand online.
Save on cash
Multilingual SEO enables you to save on cash compared to other methods, such as the unilingual system. For starters, you don’t have to invest in multiple websites as you can get the same website optimized for different languages.
You can cut down on website design, development, and maintenance costs by having just a single website reaching out to different demographics.
Increased leads and conversions
Increased brand awareness and reach boost your leads and conversions. If executed correctly, multilingual SEO can do wonders for your web traffic and return on investment (ROI), eventually leading to the success of your business.
Build a global brand
A multilingual website is the first step for businesses planning to go global. Other methods, such as the famed B2B Google ads strategy, may only take you as far as building a brand is concerned.
You may only get a quick spike in your sales, but the overall brand reputation may eventually go down. Focusing on multilingual SEO may help keep your brand reputation and authority ahead of your competition.
How to Create Your Multilingual SEO Strategy
Getting started with multilingual SEO can be a daunting experience, as you have to take into account various factors, including:
- The culture of your target audience
- The search terms used by your target audience
- The ever-evolving search engine ranking factors and algorithms
- Your competition
Even though you may have a good knowledge of SEO, lacking those factors in your multilingual SEO strategy would be setting it up for failure. You can take a look at the TNT Supermarket website, that implements multilingual SEO strategy.
Analyzing a real-life case
Before delving into the nitty-gritty surrounding the best practices for multilingual SEO, let’s look at one example we found online: https://www.polycanhealthcentre.com/
From this website, we can see that although the layout and design may be appealing to the user, it may not get the best results from the SERPs, as it is not well-optimized for multilingual SEO.
For starters, the translation on the website appears very basic, and judging from the flow, the creators seem to have used an auto-translate service. This is one of the first mistakes those that wish to have a multilingual website make. Even though you have the website in one’s native language and the flow isn’t good enough, it may ‘chase’ away potential customers.
As we will highlight shortly in this article, Google doesn’t like bilingual websites. Having the same page (URL) having different languages is never a good idea and will harm your overall ranking on the SERPs. This website does not have different URLs for the different languages provided, something that you should avoid.
A closer look into the website shows that it lacks a hreflang attribute. We will discuss this shortly after in this post.
Nevertheless, you don’t necessarily have to undergo daunting experiences as long as you follow a few multilingual SEO best practices. Here are a few tips to get you started:
Optimize website architecture to suit different languages
You should organize your website in a way that makes it easy for search engines to determine and understand the language used. There are various ways to do this, including the use of subdirectories for each language, such as:
- www.xyz.com/en/
- www.xyz.com/es/
- www.xyz.com/fr/
You can check the Hotel Spa Excelsior website that uses subdirectories for each language.
Another popular way to get around this would be through the use of subdomains for each language, such as:
- en.xyz.com
- es.xyz.com
- fr.xyz.com
If targeting both international and multilingual SEO, some people may prefer using Country Code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs), such as:
- www.xyz.en
- www.xyz.es
- www.xyz.fr
It would be prudent to note that no method is inherently better than the rest in multilingual SEO, as they all come with unique benefits and drawbacks. If you are unsure about the best format to use for your website, it would be advisable to seek Search Engine Optimization services from a top multilingual SEO agency.
Translate everything
One thing that seasoned SEOs know is that Google does not like bilingual websites. Google recommends that you only follow one language per page and steer clear of any side-by-side translations. In this case, regardless of the website architecture that you finally settle on, ensure to stick to one language per page.
Use human translation: Avoid auto-translate services
Although this may sound obvious, a poorly translated website can drag down your original high-quality version. Ensure that everything is up to the right standards that depict nothing short of the quality of your original website. Otherwise, any other multilingual SEO technique you try out will be in vain.
One of the tips to follow on this would be to use human translation instead of relying on automated translations.
Consider your audience’s cultural affinity
For your content (or website) to succeed with SEO, you must ensure that it is friendly to the search engines and the target audience.
While working on your other languages, it is important to run down the entire SEO checklist from the beginning, as you did with the original version of your site. This means you have to undertake keyword research for each target market as well as know your audience’s search intent.
It is also important to have a good understanding of content marketing for customer retention tactics to follow.
Using Hreflang
Search engines use the hreflang tag to determine the language used on a particular web page. This helps search engines like Google to understand which version of your site is intended for which audience. Here is the example of the hreflang tag from the Zen Bus Lines website.
Particularly, hreflang tags are included in each page’s <head> section and should specify the language and the region being targeted. Hreflang uses a combination of a two-letter ISO 639 language code and a two-letter ISO 3166 country code.
Although most SEOs focus on creating Google-friendly websites, it would be prudent to understand the search engines used in each of your target markets. For instance, Baidu is more popular among Chinese-speaking natives, while Yandex has more popular in Russia. All these search engines have different algorithms, so you have to stay on top of the requirements of each.
Final Thoughts
The complex relationship between content, culture and search engine algorithms may make multilingual SEO a tricky process, especially if you’re just starting out. However, this is an essential part of any expansion strategy for a company that wishes to target a different demographic.
If done correctly, multilingual SEO helps you reach out to new markets, boost your brand recognition, and boost a loyal following from different walks of people. In the end, you will get to enjoy a huge return on investment.
As with any SEO strategy, there are many factors to consider when setting up your website for multilingual SEO. However, if you’re wondering how to do multilingual SEO without in-depth knowledge; optimizing your website architecture, translating everything well within the page, and considering your audience’s culture is quite crucial to the foundation of your strategy.
Stay ahead of the competition by incorporating multilingual SEO and attracting a market audience that could significantly boost your conversions. Get the best multilingual SEO services from the best by scheduling your consultation with a Noah Digital multilingual SEO expert.
References
- https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/English_list.php
- https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#search
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/08/helpful-content-update
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2010/03/working-with-multilingual-websites
- https://www.seroundtable.com/google-language-version-site-quality-impact-32686.html