Trading internationally? Here’s how to get exposure in the foreign language Search Engines

January 27, 2009

It wont come as much surprise to read that ranking highly in the UK Search Engines will not automatically allow you to gain useful traffic from the Search Engines of the non-English speaking countries of our European Neighbours. You may have heard the phrase

It’s all Greek to me

Well, your website is all English to them. If you are trading or planning to trade internationally here is the secret to ranking highly within the international Search Engines.

  1. Set-up a website on an international server
  2. Provide content for your foreign clients
  3. Optimise your site as you would your UK venture
  4. Gain links from websites specific to the country you want to trade in

Search Engines want to serve up relevant content to their users. They are increasingly aware of localised content, knowing that user in Liverpool searching for carpenters (for example) is far more likely to use a local service than one based in London, or Swinton, or … Brooklyn. Setting up a site for your international visitors on a French or Spanish or German server helps to tell the Search Engines whom your target audience will be.

If you cannot set-up an international webhost or would prefer to stay with your current host, make full use of the Google Webmaster tools. Within the Google Webmaster console you can specify the target audience of your website, customising which country you will be targetting with your content.

To stand any chance of ranking highly, you need to speak to your customers in their language, this means translating your website’s content into a foreign-tongue. Start with your core service pages and then start to produce monthly news, guides and case studies in the language of your customer. There are many free translation services online but most of these will only give your readers and approximation of what you were trying to say. Use a service such a elance.com or guru.com to find fluent foreign writers who can help with your translation needs; They should be able to translate a small website for a few hundred dollars.

Finding a helpful foreign guide can also allow you to find the right keywords to target. The literal translation of an English keyword to French (for example) might not always be the right keyphrase to target. A foreign national will help you to pick the right words. Once you have these, follow out best practice SEO advice to integrate your foreign keywords into your site and optimise your pages accordingly.

Finally, help the international Search Engines find your new site content by submitting links to influential Spanish language web directories, French Forums or German discussion groups (for example) relevant to your target market.

English language search is still by far the most popular on the web, but by targeting foreign language searches you can help to increase the amount of relevant search traffic your business will receive.

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