International SEO is the process of optimizing a website or blog so that search engines can identify which countries you want to reach or which languages are used in your business. We could define that international SEO is the geolocation of SEO, in which, instead of optimizing your website to attract traffic from your city , state or country, you are optimizing for different countries and languages.
What is an international SEO strategy for?
International SEO is not only to indicate your languages and regions to search engines. But also to configure your website in such a way that it adequately sends the indications to the engines and manages to reach the countries that you find interesting for your business.
International SEO is essential for financial markets. It is a way to expand and reach a much larger number of users. For this we will have to adapt the content to other languages with the aim that the user can find us. No matter the language or country where they search for us from.
Web architecture for International SEO
Defining the technical aspect of your international SEO strategy is essential. Choosing the correct structure for your site based on the location of the server, language, country and the correct implementation of Hreflang.
If you want to focus your efforts on a group of countries that share the same language, opt for an approach based on language selection; If, on the other hand, you want the content to be directed to a specific audience or country. It is better to choose country segmentation.
Once your focus is clear you must choose the structure that most benefits your objective:
- ccTLD country code top level domain: It is basically about obtaining a domain with the extension of the country you want to reach. You connect and geolocate your site by default. If you have a “.com.es”, it is already automatically geolocated in Spain. But keep in mind that if you want to reach more than one country, you will have to work on each domain as a separate project and each new domain starts with zero authority. www.example.com.es
- gTLD generic top level domain: They do not specify a country and if they do, they need to have geolocation in GSC or other tools
- Subdomains: This is the most viable option if you don’t want to create a second level domain. Google interprets these domains as independent entities, just like ccTLDs. Subdomains must also be manually geolocated. www.es.example.com
- Subdirectories: Here the content is geolocated in a specific subdirectory of a root domain, making it easier to inherit its authority without the need to start from scratch. The targeting, its geographical destination. Can be configured through Google Webmaster Tools. www.example.com/es
- Parameter: A url modifier that marks the users path to the content and changes the content on the page based on the url parameters. Many times used to indicate the language of the page.
- Hreflang: The hreflang tag is used to help Google identify which URL to display to the visitor based on their language and geographic location. This example would tell the search engine that the site has an alternate version of the content in English and that it should be displayed in US territory. <link rel = “alternate” href = “https://example.com/en” hreflang = “en-us” />
How to do international SEO?
There are two international SEO best practices: the content marketing strategy and the technical or programming part of the site or blog.
First we need to define our SEO strategy and then start working on content marketing. Then the next step would be to draw a map of the countries that we want to reach in internationalization and note down the main competitors in the new markets.
If you have already done it, the next step is to evaluate the SEO opportunities in the countries you found interesting. How can we do that? It is very simple; just do a research on the SERPs to see what they have and decide which fundamental SEO points will make your digital presence stronger. Here the main goal is to know what KW are interesting for our financial business.
Do you need an international SEO agency?
FinancialMarkets.media is an agency that offers digital marketing solutions to financial and crypto businesses. We are specialists in both international and local SEO projects. If your business needs help with a solid international SEO strategy we will be happy to help you.
