Building a successful multilingual SEO strategy in 12 key steps

Managing the SEO of a multilingual site is a complex project to carry out.

Mistakes can be made quickly and weaken your acquisition strategy across your various markets.

Yet with a bit of method, these missteps are easy to avoid!

In this article, we’ve listed 12 key points to validate in order to ensure the success of your multilingual SEO strategy and your international expansion.

From preparation to monitoring, with the operational work in between… Everything is covered to help you:

• Build an SEO strategy tailored to your different audiences;
• Grow your business across all your markets.

This advice was shared by our two SEO experts, Charley Bouzerau and Jérémie Conde, during our latest edition of the SEO Square. A webinar you can watch on replay at this link.

👉 If you’d like to go further on the subject and benefit from our expertise, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Every step to properly prepare your multilingual strategy

1 – Hosting

Before starting any action, you need to think about how your sites are hosted.

The goal? Making sure the resources served on the site are as close as possible to your target audience.

This often means hosting in the target country to obtain a local IP address. This is the solution to adopt if you’re targeting specific markets with specific offers.

You can also use a CDN (= Content Delivery Network) if you manage your site as a subdomain (blog.domainname.com) or subdirectory (domainname.com/blog/). It’s a system that lets your site be hosted on several servers simultaneously in order to serve your resources as close as possible to the user.

The advantages:

• Resources are as close as possible to the user,
• The server’s response time is shorter: your site is fast and therefore more likely to achieve good SEO performance.

For this, you have 3 main options:

💡 The Semji tip

We therefore recommend using a subdirectory system together with a CDN if you have a single offer shared across all your markets, since this remains the simplest method to implement and lets you roll out several languages quickly.

2 – Targeting by country or by language (+ URL structures)

You can target by country (country targeting) or by language (language targeting).

Country targeting lets you target different countries and offer products tailored to each market.

In this case, the site will use domain name extensions specific to each country. E.g. example .fr, example .uk, example .de, etc.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Better ranking for local users	You need a separate site and strategy for each country
The origin of the website is easily identifiable, which strengthens user trust (this is one of the E-E-A-T criteria that have a very positive impact on SEO)	Hosting and maintaining the sites can be costly
If one of the domain names is penalized, the others are not affected	When targeting a new country, the domain authority will be zero

Targeting by language, or language targeting, is relevant if you offer the same products or services across all your international markets.

➜ You can set up a subdomain:

• The language is then defined in the subdomain: fr.example.com;
• Subdomains do not benefit from the full authority of the domain.

➜ You can set up a subdirectory:

• Each language is integrated as follows: example/fr, example/us, example/es, etc. In this case, you use ISO 3166 country codes;
• Simpler and cheaper maintenance;
• Directories benefit from the authority of the entire domain;
• You can use the geographic targeting in Search Console;
• A single server and therefore a single location.

💡 The Semji tip

Or rather, here’s what you should avoid:

Automatically redirecting visitors based on language. Google, as well as visitors, cannot see all of the site’s pages.

The splash page, a page that sits before the homepage to let users choose their language, is not recommended unless you’re a major SEO player. Why?

To be truly effective, a splash page needs to be very well designed from a UX standpoint so as not to lose the user. It acts as a homepage and often has no content, which is a negative point for SEO. Finally, it doesn’t benefit from internal link equity because it’s poorly linked, if at all, to the rest of the site’s pages.

In summary

3 – Keyword research

When it comes to keyword research, it’s better to favor adaptation over translation.

Indeed, there are many subtleties from one country to another, and therefore from one SERP to another.

So what are the best practices for carrying out this research?

Analyzing local SERPs

Whatever your business, you should at least know the topics or generic keywords you want to rank for. You can also start from a list of keywords that work in your home market.

The point of this analysis is to identify the right queries for the market you’re targeting.

By this we mean the queries used on local SERPs that have strong traffic potential and for which you have enough material to produce content relevant to your audience. Your content strategy can flow from the choice of these keywords.

Let’s take the example of the query “kakemono”.

In the French market, the term “kakemono” is used. But what about England or Canada, for example?

Here are the results:

In England, the term “roller banners” is used, while in Canada the terms “kakemono” and “roll-up” are the most searched.

Another benefit of analyzing local SERPs: collecting as many insights as possible about the target query.

This is where identifying search intents comes into play. Depending on the target market, the results pages won’t be 100% identical: the needs and the types of content that users consume can differ, the competing sites won’t be the same, etc.

If you don’t carry out this analysis, you risk producing off-topic content with a flat zero when it comes to traffic.

One tip would be to type in the query and study the elements provided by the local SERP. Is Google showing editorial articles? Product pages? Images? A PAA block? Etc. To simulate a SERP for a country or a city, you can use this first tool provided by Merkle.

The other best practice would be to analyze the top-ranking content on the page: the angle of the article, the outline structure, the topics covered…

Since this step is very time-consuming, you can rely on tools to automate the whole process!

For example, Semji gives you a dedicated workspace for each market and therefore data that is analyzed, filtered and surfaced based on the SERP of the targeted country or region of the world.

Let’s take a concrete case: you want to create content around the query “roller banners” for the British market.

To make sure your content ranks, Semji tells you in a few seconds, for the target query:

• the search intents, what your audience expects from you;
• the outline of competing content;
• the keywords and related topics covered by the top content displayed in the SERP.

The same goes for the French market with the query “kakemono”.

👉 Semji is available in 26 languages and lets you steer your SEO content strategy in more than 170 countries. To find out more, don’t hesitate to request a demo of the platform.

Analyzing and comparing the variations you collect

This aspect is essential because, for a query in the same language (e.g. UK versus USA), there can be differences in terms of:

• Search intents and user needs;
• The types of content displayed in the top SERP results (editorial content, transactional pages, videos, etc.).

A perfect example would be the query “Health Insurance”.

Here we’ll use Semji to collect its variations and determine what content to produce, which needs to address, the associated keywords and related topics to cover…

• 

  UK market

  US market Recommended content length: 800 words Recommended content length: 500 words Main competitors on the query Main competitors on the query Search intents Search intents Users’ questions Users’ questions As we can see in the example above, some expectations and search intents for the query “health insurance” are slightly different between Great Britain and the United States. Indeed, in Great Britain, users who type the query “health insurance” are looking to compare private insurance solutions against the public NHS service. In the US, the audience primarily wants to find the cheapest insurance as well as information about the Affordable Care Act. Another way to see the nuances: analyzing the top content displayed in the SERP. This competing content is a gold mine for gleaning information about the audience’s needs, the structures to use, or the content formats to create (informational, transactional, etc.).

Semji’s Competitors tab: outlines of the top content on the query

“Health Insurance”, UK SERP

To identify the nuances between different countries, it can also be worthwhile to analyze the associated keywords.

Thanks to the Content Ideas module, Semji detects these keywords associated with the main query and lets you surface certain differences.

Results from the Content Ideas module for the UK market on the query “health insurance”:

For the UK market, the secondary queries mainly concern the healthcare system and searches for private health insurance, particularly in the context of travel.

Results from the Content Ideas module for the US market on the query “health insurance”

For the US market, the secondary queries rely more heavily on the price of health insurance.

4 – Content translation and choosing your modules

Whatever your CMS (WordPress, Shopify, Drupal, Prestashop, Magento 2), we recommend favoring “multilingual” modules over automatic translation modules for better content quality.

Here are our favorites:

Be careful, though. By default, most multilingual plugins automatically redirect to a given version based on the visitor’s IP address. Remember to disable this feature when setting up your site.

Also don’t forget to translate the navigation elements, which are often overlooked when adapting a website.

💡 The Semji tip

You can detect these elements by typing the “site:” command in your browser’s search bar followed by the terms you might have forgotten: prev, next, leave, buy, by, ago, etc.

Implementation: all the actions to put in place to deploy your SEO strategy

5 – Hreflang tags

This is an essential tag for SEO. Present in the code, it indicates the language and geographic area of a page within a site that offers content in several languages. It’s located in the <head> of the page.

💡 The Semji tip

If there’s no page equivalent for a country, you can set a default language with “hreflang x-default”.

E.g. for German-speaking users, if you don’t have a site in German, you can still offer your site in English.

6 – The sitemap for a multilingual site

The XML site also lets you manage the multilingual versions of a site. To do this, simply create one sitemap per language and/or per country.

7 – The HTTP header

Another method, an alternative to the XML sitemap: the HTTP header. Rarely used, it’s nonetheless effective for sites that have resources other than HTML: PDF, Word, etc. You can thus offer equivalent files in other languages.

8 – Search Console

Very useful for international targeting, Search Console lets you declare all versions of the multilingual site. But this option can only be used if you have a subdomain or a subdirectory.

Key takeaways

• Choose only one of these methods.
• Use Hreflang markup on all the pages of your site.
• Check that you’ve used the right language codes. Don’t hesitate to use The Hreflang Tags Generator Tool so you don’t make a mistake.
• Don’t point hreflang tags to noindex pages. Google won’t go and look at them!
• Don’t duplicate your content.
• Don’t forget to add return links (if you send a link from page X to page Y, then Y must send a link to X).
• Don’t use URL parameters!

9 – Content optimization

For writing your content in a foreign language, we strongly recommend calling on the services of a native writer from the target market, ideally specialized in your industry or at least familiar with the vocabulary.

Once your team is in place, you need to monitor and manage the content production across your different writers. You’ll need to set up a specific schedule for each market based on each country’s seasonality.

Concretely, you’ll need to:

• Track your production effectively;
• Manage your writers’ work;
• Make sure the content produced is perfectly optimized for users and Google;
• Analyze the performance of your content in each of your markets.

Here, the help of a solution like Semji can make your daily work easier.

First, on the organization and planning side.

Semji lets you create a workspace for each language or country, in which you’ll find your editorial calendar and where you can assign writing tasks and track the progress of production.

Semji can also help you on the optimization side.

To meet your production goals, you’ll likely call on many writers.

Here, you’ll need to use SEO briefs to frame the optimization and boost the visibility of your content.

Here are some elements your SEO briefs should include:

• the main keyword;
• the target audiences;
• the format;
• the length of the article;
• the reader’s goal;
• the title tag;
• the angle;
• the areas to develop, the topics to develop;
• the CTAs;
• the links to include for internal linking, etc.

While free templates for SEO briefs exist, a solution like Semji can be a real asset to automate brief generation but also to guarantee the optimization quality of your content.

A Content Score is assigned to each of your pieces of content and tells you in real time their level of SEO optimization. Semji provides recommendations on length, search intents, topics to cover, and internal and external links. The more you incorporate them into your content, the higher your Content Score climbs.

The result: whatever the language or the target market, you can then be sure that your writers are producing articles that are 100% optimized for local SEO.

To produce high-performing content in less time across each of your markets (13 languages, more than a hundred different countries), contact us for a demo of the Semji platform.

💡 The Semji tip

As we noted in our SEO calendar (FR market), remember to plan your content around local seasonal events. Plan to publish them 3 to 6 weeks in advance to let them gradually gain momentum and give you a head start over your competitors.

To help you find topics on a recurring theme, it can also be worthwhile to rely on a solution like Semji.

The platform lets you know in advance which topics you’ll be expected to cover on the theme, both on the editorial side and for the creation of transactional pages.

E.g. You’re an e-commerce clothing site and you’re launching a special line for the 4th of July. Here’s what Semji can suggest to you:

Content ideas and new transactional pages to create on the query “4th july”.

Another example: you’re an online travel media outlet; here are the editorial suggestions Semji can offer on tourism in Washington D.C.

Content ideas and new keywords based on the “things to do in Washington D.C” study.

Monitoring: everything you need to know for your multilingual SEO to perform over time

10 – Google Analytics setup

To track your performance, you can rely on Google Analytics or any other tracking tool such as Analytics Suite Delta, Matomo, Abla, etc.

For sites sharing the same root domain, there is only a single tracking code.

Here’s our advice:

• Option 1: creating segments by language (fr, en, cn…) based on country recognition via the HTTP header. Less precise but simpler.
• Option 2 (recommended): creating a view dedicated to the targeted region, based on the URL structure;
• Keeping an “all traffic” view;
• Watch out for conversion goals, especially on cart pages.

Be careful: in Google Analytics, there’s a limit of 25 views per property.

11 – Netlinking

When you target a market, it’s essential to obtain links coming from it. It’s therefore necessary for local players to point to your site. This is how you’ll be able to develop your authority in local markets.

12 – The performance of your content

Also remember to closely track the performance of your content and, above all, to refresh and/or re-optimize it if needed.

This will save you time (no need to create new content) while helping you maintain or even strengthen your positions in the target market.

Want to track the evolution of local SERPs? Semji takes these changes into account to show you the pages of your site that need to be re-optimized. The platform ranks them by level of effort and potential gains. At a glance, you can see the content to rework as a priority.

Multilingual SEO: Q&A

In this section, you’ll find the most frequently asked questions about multilingual SEO.

Should you use a language selection module?

If you follow the best practices developed in this article, you shouldn’t need a language module because search engines will automatically redirect users to the right country or language. Nevertheless, you can install one as a precaution.

How do you optimize a multilingual site for search? The main points to remember?

If there were only 3 things to remember, they would be:

1. Choose the right hosting method. Depending on whether you choose to host your sites on the same domain name, in a subdomain or a subdirectory, the SEO techniques are slightly different.
2. Target your keywords. You need to take into account the specifics of your markets and carry out a study for each one in order to rank for the keywords that will help you convert.
3. Manage the Hreflang tag properly. It’s essential for telling search engines the language and geographic area of your pages. Don’t forget the Hreflang x-default tag so you don’t exclude any users.

What if I’m targeting a country with several languages?

If you have a multiregional site (a country with several languages such as Belgium, Switzerland or Canada), we recommend opting for a country-and-language directory.

Example:

• mysite.com/be/fr for French speakers
• mysite.com/be/nl for Dutch speakers

What are the biggest mistakes to avoid?

Multilingual sites are often the ones that accumulate the most mistakes, both technical and from an SEO standpoint. Among the mistakes to avoid:

Setting targeting via the URL. E.g. mysite.com?loc=fr. Segmenting the URL is very complicated and doesn’t make it easy to identify geographic targeting from the URL alone. It’s also impossible to use geographic targeting in Search Console with this system.

Forgetting the hreflang tag: This tag is essential for telling search engines the target language and country.

Not pointing your hreflang tags to noindex pages or pages blocked by robots.txt.: You absolutely must make sure that the page versions you direct Google to can be read and crawled by search engines.

Forgetting to add return links: Don’t forget to add links in both directions. If you send a link from page X to page Y, then Y must send a link to X.

Combining implementation methods: by opting for several implementation methods (hreflang, an XML sitemap for each country, and the HTTP header), you multiply the chances of making a mistake.

Getting the language codes wrong: be careful with your language codes. To help you, don’t hesitate to use a tool such as The Hreflang Tags Generator Tool.

In conclusion, multilingual SEO relies above all on a rigorous method, because it’s often the source of many missteps. By following these 12 steps, you’ll avoid the most common mistakes and be sure to generate traffic in each of your markets.

If you want to maximize the ROI of your content strategy and international SEO acquisition, don’t hesitate to request a demo of Semji.