One question about the domain choice.

[Italianseolover]

Hi guys, I'm an Italian Web marketing and I'm studying SEO since some moths.

First, sorry for my bad english....

Second, the question:

My Italian blog is going really GREAT in terms of popularity and incomes and know I want to bring it in english language with the help of a professional translator.

The choice that I have to take is about the future domain of the english blog. My Italian blog has as url mynameandmysurname.net

I don't really like to make the english blog appears like myitalianblogurl.net/english because I think it's a little bit confusing and not professional.

I have also thought the idea to make a sub domain like blog.myitalianurl.net.

What about the WPML plugin? Do you think it's a great choice? I don't like it because it's confusing and it affect my italian blog.

Or maybe is it better to create a new branded blog with different domain? It can be an idea but I think that If I chose this way I will lose all my seo efforts of the last years

[gfiorelli1]

No. Do it from the English version form or email me at italiaseo at gmail dot com

[Italianseolover]

Hi Gianluca!

I have written you through the form of your italian seo blog. Did u get it?

[gfiorelli1]

Ciao Dario,

first of all everything said by Samuel is correct.

Said that, I would not care that much about the domain name being your own name. All the contrary! Use it for improving your personal brand: it doesn't exist a better way to make remember your name to other marketers than having it in the domain itself.

Related to what multi-language option, I consider that the subfolder one should be the best. With WPML combined with WordPress SEO by Yoast you can optimize all the SEO factors also for the /en/ subfolders.

Using the subfolder option will help the English version gaining some link equity from the Italian version, hence starting appearing for not too competitive queries.

Said that, you should start putting in action a good inbound strategy in order to outreach other sites and, especially, others mid to high influencing experts in your niche, so to create bonds and co-marketing opportunity.

Again, work on your personal brand... which means being very active on social. And, remember, social is not just Social Networks. It is also being proactive in communities (blogs and forums) and helpful (i.e.: answering questions in Quora).

[SamuelScott]

First, if you're Italian and have international SEO questions, there's no one better to ask than Gianluca Fiorelli.

But here are some helpful links. First, review this page of introductory guidelines and the related links. Some more detail from Google. A Webmaster Support question. For a checklist type of guide, I'd suggest this post by Moz Associate Aleyda Solís.

Basically, you want to 1.) put the English-language version on either a subdomain or a subdirectory; 2.) insert the appropriate language markup on both the Italian and English versions of pages; and 3.) if applicable, change any target settings for each domain/directory in Google Webmaster Tools.

Good luck!