International eCommerce SEO Best Practices: 7 Strategies to Use

If you privation to contiguous your eCommerce tract to planetary markets oregon customers who talk antithetic languages wrong the aforesaid country, you request planetary SEO.

When you person an inaccessible tract — whether due to the fact that of connection differences oregon an inability to find the products your planetary assemblage is looking for — idiosyncratic acquisition suffers. As a result, your tract loses retired connected cardinal gross opportunities. 

A fewer elemental strategy tweaks and immoderate technical SEO updates tin assistance hunt engines connection up your applicable contented to a larger assemblage from Brazil to France oregon Germany to Japan. 

And, today, we’ll amusement you however to bash it.

In this blog, we’ll assistance you debar communal international SEO mistakes by covering the basics of:

• What planetary SEO is
• Why it’s important for eCommerce businesses
• Which champion practices you request to travel to get your tract successful beforehand of a larger audience

What is International SEO?

To enactment it simply, planetary SEO means optimizing your tract for customers successful antithetic countries and/or languages. 

This benignant of SEO strategy helps Google and different hunt engines (like Baidu successful China oregon Yandex successful Russia) amended recognize which mentation of your tract they should amusement to users successful antithetic people countries. 

When your eCommerce tract is decently optimized, these hunt engines tin place due pages and champion service them to people audiences successful antithetic countries (or those utilizing antithetic languages wrong the aforesaid country). Your website volition person antithetic versions of the aforesaid (or precise akin content) successful antithetic languages to scope a wider audience. 

Don’t worry: Since the pages are successful antithetic languages, your tract shouldn’t beryllium penalized arsenic duplicate content. 

If you privation to maximize your scope to imaginable customers successful antithetic nations, planetary SEO is simply a cardinal portion of your occurrence — nary substance which hunt motor your assemblage uses.

Signs Your Business Needs an International SEO Strategy

Your eCommerce concern should make an planetary SEO strategy if:

• Your concern serves planetary customers.
• Your customers talk much than 1 language.

Not each businesses request a dedicated strategy for planetary SEO. If astir of your customers are successful your location state and they mostly talk the aforesaid language, you astir apt don’t request to put the clip and vigor into this optimization.

But, adjacent if you don’t merchantability products oregon services internationally, if your state has citizens who talk 2 oregon much languages, an planetary eCommerce SEO strategy is worthy the investment.

7 Best Practices for eCommerce International SEO

Before we get immoderate further, retrieve this: Every tract is different, which means your strategy whitethorn disagree based connected your needs and audiences. If you privation specific suggestions based connected your lawsuit demographic, reach retired to our SEO experts today.

For integer marketers wondering however to bash planetary eCommerce SEO connected a DIY level, present are 7 tips that we urge to our clients serving planetary audiences.

1.  Choose a default language.

When optimizing a website for planetary SEO, we urge choosing a default language. This default connection should beryllium based connected the people marketplace astir apt to usage the site.

If your people marketplace speaks English, past the default connection should beryllium English. If your people marketplace speaks French, past the default connection should beryllium French (and truthful on).

Whichever connection is chosen arsenic the default language, there’s nary request to make a subfolder for that language. Those pages should unrecorded disconnected the main website root. 

For example, if English is your site’s default language, past there’s nary request for an English subfolder /en/. Instead, that connection should beryllium utilized connected URLs disconnected the root.

It tin beryllium incredibly hard to enforce a subfolder ranking successful lieu of an existent homepage. Should you take to person subfolders for your default language, enactment that it volition beryllium an ongoing conflict to halt / from being indexed, and to get /en/ indexed instead.

In our experience, hunt engines person the easiest clip indexing erstwhile the default connection (whatever it is) lives astatine the root. 

2.  Translate arsenic overmuch of your tract arsenic possible.

We urge that each planetary contented beryllium translated into the connection you are targeting. This includes: 

• URL paths, wherever possible
• Metadata (the transcript specified successful leafage titles and meta descriptions)
• Navigation headers, footers, and each links
• Text successful images
• Alt tags connected images
• Image record names
• Header tags
• Page copy
• Anchor substance for links

This doesn’t mean all URLs connected your tract indispensable beryllium translated; instead, each pages that are translated should beryllium afloat translated for all fields connected those pages. 

We urge translating arsenic overmuch of your tract arsenic you tin spend to — and by utilizing quality translation, not instrumentality translation. Not translating strategical contented (or UX pieces similar lawsuit work answers) tin make challenges for SEO and your users. 

You should besides implicit language-specific keyword research for each domain. Certain presumption and phrases tin beryllium much communal successful immoderate languages than others. For this reason, translating a azygous connection is often not enough. Slang and terminology alteration betwixt regions, and attraction to item tin acceptable you isolated from different brands. 

3. Specify contented language.

There are 2 ways to specify contented language. 

Choose the implementation method that makes the astir consciousness for your team:

Http-equiv Method (Content Language Meta Tag)

Specify the correct ISO connection code successful the <head> conception via the pursuing enactment of code. 

Example syntax variations: 

• <meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en”>
  • On English pages
• <meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”es”>
  • On Spanish pages, etc.
• <meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”fr”>

HTTP Header Method

The Content-Language practice header is utilized to picture the language(s) intended for the audience, truthful users tin differentiate it according to their ain preferred section language.

Specify the close ISO connection codification via the HTTP header response. 

Example syntax variations: 

• Content-Language: de
  • (on German pages)
• Content-Language: en
  • (on English pages)

Don’t hide to specify the HTML <lang> attribute, too. Include the close ISO connection codification successful the <head> conception via the pursuing enactment of code: 

Example syntax variations:

• <html lang=”en”>
• <html lang=”es”>

Note: You lone request to specify the connection utilized connected the leafage successful question.

4.  Create properties successful Google Search Console.

For Google Search Console, we urge creating a domain property for the main domain, arsenic good arsenic mounting up properties per connection subfolder arsenic well. 

This volition let you to show each connection for performance, taxable the circumstantial XML sitemap to Google, and show immoderate indexation issues that whitethorn originate successful each subfolder.

5. Implement hreflang tags.

An hreflang property indicates to Google, Baidu, Yandex, and different hunt engines which connection targeting you are utilizing connected a circumstantial page. This helps the hunt motor service the applicable effect to users searching successful that language.

Hreflang tin beryllium implemented via tags successful the HTML (most common), HTTP headers, oregon via your XML sitemap. Any of these hreflang implementations work; however, the much countries/languages that you target, the much your eCommerce concern should see a non-HTML solution to debar codification bloat and complexity.

Here are our do’s and don’ts for implementing hreflang tags:

Do:

• Specify connection only, oregon connection and country, targeting (such arsenic “en”, “es-es”, etc.).
• Specify the correct, indexable, full-path URL (e.g. the canonical URL, including the protocol, domain name, etc.).
• Specify each variations of each connection you are targeting and each circumstantial country. 
• Ensure each leafage with hreflang refers to the different variations. They, successful return, should notation to the starting tag (e.g. guarantee close cross-references and debar instrumentality tag errors).
• Include an x-default URL. The “default” URL is precise apt the archetypal URL variation, anterior to you adding internationalization.

Don’t: 

• Implement hreflang via the HTML and the sitemap. It’s redundant, and Google recommends against it. 
• Add hreflang to pages that are not indexed, oregon which canonicalize to different pages. Only valid, archetypal pages should beryllium indexed and optimized for internationalization.

6. Update your XML sitemap.

Search engines usage your eCommerce XML sitemap to rapidly and easy navigate a database of each the URLs connected your site, truthful they tin service up the champion results successful the SERPs. 

When mounting up an XML sitemap for planetary subfolders, our SEO experts urge pursuing these steps:

• Create a dynamic XML sitemap record that lives successful this folder of your site. 
• Create a unsocial sitemap for each connection that includes each URLs circumstantial to that connection successful the sitemap. For example:
  • /sitemap.xml (English)
  • /fr/sitemap.xml (French)
  • /es/sitemap.xml (Spanish)

Ensure you travel XML sitemap champion practices, including having it referenced successful the robots.txt record oregon listed successful your sitemap scale file. 

If you’ve chosen a ccTLD (country codification top-level domain) oregon subdomain structure, make a normal XML sitemap for each indexable pages for that domain. Once you’ve claimed the GSC relationship for each folder, taxable the XML sitemap to that property.

Note: You tin specify hreflang straight successful your XML sitemap. 

7. Interlink betwixt connection saltation pages.

Don’t silo planetary pages successful their ain bubble, expecting hreflang to notify hunt engines astir each your caller leafage variations. Instead, guarantee you explicitly backlink the “international homepages” from your superior homepage.

We urge including self-referencing canonicals (including language-specific URL structure) connected each pages to bespeak to hunt engines that each connection folder way should beryllium considered a stand-alone URL and to debar Google consolidating immoderate URLs. Much similar you bash with your superior homepage and navigation links to subdirectories, physique crawl paths from the planetary homepage to planetary subpages.

In addition, don’t beryllium connected “links” from a connection dropdown that requires idiosyncratic enactment (Googlebot and different hunt motor crawlers can’t mimic this action). Let the idiosyncratic take the connection by having clickable links oregon a popup punctual wherever connection selectors look successful the navigation oregon footer. 

We urge against utilizing IP-driven redirects arsenic they are often incorrect, particularly erstwhile they are adjacent to borderlines, and tin pb to a mediocre experience.  

Remember: Googlebot is US-based and IP redirects tin unit Googlebot to lone crawl the English content, which would beryllium a large occupation for the different languages.

Personalize Your International SEO Strategy Today

All integer marketers cognize the value of a coagulated SEO strategy. But, if your eCommerce tract wants to merchantability to caller markets successful antithetic countries oregon customers who talk antithetic languages, your strategy needs to see planetary eCommerce SEO. 

Without due sitemaps, tags, translations, and properties, you whitethorn beryllium missing retired connected customers — oregon worse, being penalized by hunt engines for duplicate content. 

An optimized planetary SEO strategy, connected the different hand, volition let hunt engines to amusement your assemblage your astir applicable contented — which, successful turn, volition springiness your customers a amended buying experience.

Each brand’s planetary SEO needs are different, truthful your concern volition request an attack that works with your goals and your unsocial audiences. If you request assistance crafting an planetary SEO strategy (or privation a personalized planetary eCommerce SEO investigation for your current strategy), we tin help.

Let our squad of SEO experts make a personalized planetary SEO program for your online business. Contact america today for a escaped tract audit and proposal.