Local SEO In A Different Language
-
I am pretty new to web design and SEO, so I am sure I have completely done this wrong. I work for a U.S. based equipment dealer and before I started working here my company incorporated in Canada under "(our main product) of Canada". Even before we had any SEO work done on our website, we ranked in the top 3 across Canada for our main product.
The one exception to this was Quebec where we rarely got any traffic due to the language barrier. We started working to fix this last summer using the Montreal Consulate, our SEO company at the time and a translator. They each gave me the same French translation of our Company name and I had them translate the 8 most visited pages on our existing site. I then created a replica of our existing site, hosted it on the French translation of our name and started running inbound links to this site from our U.S. and Canada sites.
The first thing I am wondering is if there's any issue with this practice? We have had good results so far and traffic from Quebec is way up across our three sites.
The second issue I have is we just hired our first employee in Quebec and found a partner there. They are both adamant that the translation we are using is incorrect. I own the domain for the correct translation they are suggesting but I have no idea how to go about it. Any suggestions?
-
I will recommend that you take a look at the Moz Guide on this topic: http://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo
Google will differentiate content if it is served on a different domain in a different content. So a 1:1 relationship should in theory not create DC as long as it is not in the same language. However, I would take the time to make sure that the content is written properly in the right tongue and take into account local cultural aspects.
Which method are you using?
or
-
Hi Richard
One thing I would look into is hreflang if the content is the same. These attributes help Google and other search engines serve the correct translated content and URLs in the correct regions. Also, you should look into citations and listings in the different regions you are serving. This will help associate your brand with those products/services in that region. Try Whitespark.ca.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do Nation wide business win Local?
For example, this site https://www.kvetinyhned.cz for selling flowers is ahead of the sales of local stores that have a site but aimed only at sales in a certain area of the store
Local Website Optimization | | Martin11Martin0 -
International SEO - How do I show correct SERP results in the UK and US?
Hi, Moz community. I hope you’re all OK and keeping busy during this difficult period. I have a few questions about international SEO, specifically when it comes to ranking pages in the UK and the US simultaneously. We currently have 2 websites set-up which are aimed towards their respective countries. We have a ‘.com’ and a ‘.com/us’. If anybody could help with the issues below, I would be very grateful. Thank you all. Issues When looking in US Google search with a VPN, the title tag for our UK page appears in the SERP e.g. I will see: UK [Product Name] | [Brand] When checking the Google cache, the UK page version also appears This can cause a problem especially when I am creating title tags and meta descriptions that are unique from the UK versions However, when clicking through from the SERP link to the actual page, the US page appears as it should do. I find this very bizarre that it seems to show you the US page when you click through, but you see the UK version in the SERP when looking in the overall search results. Current Set-Up Our UK and US page content is often very similar across our “.com” and “.com/us” websites and our US pages are canonicalised to their UK page versions to remove potential penalisation We have also added herflang to our UK and US pages Query How do I show our US SERP as opposed to the UK version in US Google search? My Theories/ Answers US page versions have to be completely unique with content related to US search intent and be indexed separately - therefore no longer canonicalised to UK version Ensure hreflang is enabled to point Google to correct local page versions Ensure local backlinks point to localised pages If anyone can help, it will be much appreciated. Many thanks all.
Local Website Optimization | | Katarina-Borovska0 -
International subdirectory without localized content - best practice / need advice
Hi there, Our site uses a subdirectory for regional and multilingual sites as show below for 200+ countries.
Local Website Optimization | | erinfalwell
EX: /en_US/ All sites have ~the same content & are in English. We have hreflang tags but still have crawl issues. Is there another URL structure you would recommend? Are there any other ways to avoid the duplicate page & crawl budget issues outside of the hreflang tag? Appreciate it!0 -
Is there a way to "protect" yourself from non-local traffic?
I'll start with the story, but the main question is at the bottom. Feel free to scroll down :-). I've got good news and bad news regarding a client of mine. It's a service area business that only serves one metropolitan area. We've got a great blog with really valuable content that truly helps people while firmly establishing my client's industry expertise. As a result, local traffic has spiked and the company generates more leads. So that's the good news. The bad (bad-ish?) news is that the client also gets tons of traffic from outside the service area. Not only that, people are calling them all the time who either live in a different state and don't realize that the company isn't local to them or are located out of state but are calling for free advice. On one hand, the client gets a kick out of it and thinks it's funny. On the other hand, it's annoying and they're having to train all their intake people to ask for callers' locations before they chat with them. Some things we're doing to combat this problem: 1. The title tag on our home page specifies the metro area where we're active. 2. Our blog articles frequently include lines like, "Here in [name of our city], we usually take this approach." 3. There are references to our location all over the site. 4. We've got an actual location page with our address; for that matter, the address is listed in the footer on every page. 5. The listed phone number does not begin with 800; rather, it uses the local area code. 6. All of our local business listings, including our Google My Business listing, is up to date. 7. We recently published a "Cities We Serve" area of the site with highly customized/individualized local landing pages for 12 actual municipalities in our metro region. This will take some time to cook, but hopefully that will help. "Cities We Serve" is not a primary navigation item, but the local landing pages are situated as such: "About Us > Cities We Serve > [individual city page]" **Anyway, here's my main question: **In light of all this, is there any other way to somehow shield my client from all this irrelevant traffic and protect them from time-wasting phone calls?
Local Website Optimization | | Greenery0 -
Repairing SEO issues on Different Platforms
I work for a car dealership in Southern California and have been tasked with a seemingly impossible task. They would like for me to remove Title Tags, Duplicate Content, Descriptions, and get all other SEO issues in order. The concerns I have rank in this order: 1. Remove Duplicate Metadata: When the platform spits out new pages they use template Title/Description/Keywords and we are not always informed of their addition. There are also somewhere near 1K vehicles in the inventory that are being accused of duplicate content/Metadata. The fix that I have been spit balling is adding canonical - No Follow to these pages. I am not sure that this is the best way forward, but would appreciate the feedback 2. Duplicate Content: Most of the information is supplied from the manufacturer so we have been sourcing the information back to the manufacturers site. They are showing up on random "SEO Tools" pulls as harmful to the site. Although we use the Dealers name and local area, the only way I can assume to get the heat off and possibly fix any negative ramifications is to once again use a Canonical Tag - No Follow to these pages. 3. Clean up Issues: Most of the other issues I am finding is when the website platform dumps new pages to the site without notice and creates more then 1k pages that are coming with duplicate everything. Please provide with any assistance you can.
Local Website Optimization | | BBsmyth0 -
Local SEO case with two physical locations
I hope someone can help me make some decisions. I did read a lot about Local SEO lately but I’m not sure what way to go with this client. Client: Service provider with two physical locations (service is provided on the physical location). In the coming 12 month there will open 1-2 new physical locations in other cities. Has only one phone number. I will try to advise them to get a local phone number for both locations. But they prefer one (mobile) number to keep things simple. Clients are willing to travel for the service, since it’s a one day course they take. Current clients do come from a lot of different locations. The competition for around 5-6 big cities is pretty low since there aren’t a lot of service providers who deliver these courses. Questions: Should I put both addresses in the footer? It’s a best practice with only one location. I think it’s handy for users with two locations as well but I’m worried about how Google sees this. Also this will get confusing when the client passes 3-4 locations. If the client sticks with one mobile phone number, should I make a Google + local page for both physical locations? The Google guidelines clearly state they prefer a local number as much as possible. If I add “Our service areas “ to the top navigation and make a unique place page for every city (to rank organic aswell) is it wise to link those local Google + pages to the unique page about this service? Normaly I would go for yes, but I want to add places with and without a physical location under the same navigation. With just one location I would just focus on that city and add unique pages for the other pages. I’m getting a bit stuck between best practices since the client got opportunities with multiple strategies. I hope you guys (and girls 😉 ) can help!
Local Website Optimization | | Bob_van_Biezen1 -
Does building multiple websites hurt you seo wise? Good or bad strategy?
HI,rategy. So I spoke to a local Colorado seo company and they suggested to find whatever keywords is the most searched under my GWT's and put .com behind it and build other sites for other keywords. I was curious about this type of strategy. Does this work? This seo guy said I could just get a DBA bank account and such for each domain name etc. I am not wanting to mislead anyone, but I am curious if for the sake of promoting other services, if creating other websites with partial and EMD's are worthwhile? Another issue I worry about is if I put my companies phone number, then next thing you know there is 3 or 4 sites that use that same phone number. To me this does not build trust with Google. But being I am learning, maybe this is a common strategy, or doomed from the start. Just curious what you think. Would you build other sites to try and rank for other services? Or keep one sites and maximize it? Thank you for your thoughts. I just do not want to pay $3000 per site if it will hurt not help.
Local Website Optimization | | Berner0 -
If I mention a client in a blogpost about SEO, do I have to use a rel= no follow link?
I do SEO and webstuff (obviously, that's why I'm here). I want to write a blog post congratulating my client for getting to #1 in the local listings for a search for "plumber". When I include my link to my client's site, should it be rel=no follow? Could they be penalized if I don't? Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | aj613
Adam0