Best Way to Create SEO Content for Multiple, International Websites
-
I have a client that has multiple websites for providing to other countries. For instance, they have a .com website for the US (abccompany.com), a .co.uk website for the UK (abccompany.co.uk), a .de website for Germany (abccompany.de), and so on. The have websites for the Netherlands, France, and even China. These all act as separate websites. They have their own addresses, their own content (some duplicated but translated), their own pricing, their own Domain Authority, backlinks, etc.
Right now, I write content for the US site. The goal is to write content for long and medium tail keywords. However, the UK site is interested in having myself write content for them as well.
The issue I'm having is how can I differentiate the content? And what is the best way to target content for each country?
Does it make sense to write separate content for each website to target results in that country? The .com site will still show up in UK web results still fairly high.
Does it make sense to just duplicate the content but in a different language or for the specific audience in that country?
I guess the biggest question I'm asking is, what is the best way of creating content for multiples countries' search results? I don't want the different websites to compete with each other in a sense nor do I want to spend extra time trying to rank content for multiple sites when I could just focus on trying to rank one for all countries.
Any help is appreciated!
-
I understand that some keywords or phrases may differ in each country. Like stated: centre vs. center. So if some of the keywords differ, then I would see how writing completely different content for each individual site would be necessary.
However, some phrases/keywords are still the same in each country. For instance, the company sells desks. Desks are referred to just that in both countries. If I write an in-depth article on desks for the US site, say maybe "100 Desk Ideas" or "The Complete Guide to Desk Ergonomics", should I then not use that same post on UK site (even if the keywords are the same)? If I post the article on both sites, would I pretty much just replicate the same article on the UK site (maybe changing a few words here and there to fit the correct UK vernacular)? Would Google see that as duplicate content? Or would it just be better for the US site to rank that post for that keyword?
I'm still just trying to figure out the best method for producing content that doesn't compete with each other, ranks appropriately in its corresponding country, and avoid having to create extra content if we don't need to.
The US site still ranks in UK results and gets about 5,000 UK visitors (from a total of 120,000 monthly visitors). While the UK site gets about 3,000 monthly total. The US site has a DA of 33 and the UK a DA of 15. So the US site will even sometimes outrank the UK site even in UK search results and you can see it even brings in more UK traffic. I'm trying to figure out the best way to utilize each site's content.
-
Hi there!
The best way to create content targeted to each of the countries audiences is to develop a keyword/queries and competition research for each one of them, to identify how the users search in each one of them. Note that even if there are many countries speaking the same language the terms might be different due to localization (centre vs. center, flat vs. apartment, trousers vs. pants, etc.), seasonality, audience preferences, etc.
Here are a few guides where I share how to start doing international SEO where I include tips and steps for the initial analysis:
- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-international-seo/
- http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/international-seo-strategy-guide/
The tools that you will use and the way you will do the keyword research is the same than the one you would do it for English in the US... as most of the keyword/competition research tools support other countries too, from Google Keyword Planner, to SEMrush, SearchMetrics, KWFinder, KeywordTool.io, etc. what is important is that you choose the right language/country combination when doing the research and if you're not a native speaker, that you hire one to support you, as it's important to have a real understanding on how you will target your international target audience.
If you have any other doubt, just let me know!
Aleyda
-
Regarding your thought about ranking the US website in both US and UK, and directing UK visitors to a UK version will work, however you won't be able to do that with redirects or a different version of the post. Doing that would change the URL, which would affect which page gets indexed. It's possible to change content of a page based on location without changing the URL, which is what you'd have to do in order to keep indexing in line.
I do still think that your best bet is to use the UK domain and treat it as its own entity just as you're doing with the other countries.
-
So are you recommending reproducing content that is written on the US site and simply rewriting it slightly for the UK site? It seems like in this case, I would mostly just change certain keywords and vernacular to suit the UK audience and search results. This method would be used instead of coming up with completely different and new content for each site?
I'm still not sure if this is the best method. I wonder if there is a way to focus on ranking the US website and content in both the US and UK search results. Then, if someone from the UK visits the site via a search engine it directs them to a UK version of that blog post. I'm not sure if such a method exists but maybe it does?
I'm still just trying to find the best for producing content for this company that will rank in both market's search results.
-
Hi,
Your content should be targeted to the geography, especially regarding keywords. One country might call your product one thing, and another country might have another phrase for it, even when translated, i.e. 'biscuits' in the US vs. UK. You might also need to speak more directly to the audience, there could be different ways to connect with each of the audiences for which you are writing. Do some research on each of the markets that will be reading this content and see if there's anything that you can learn to better target the message.
Your country code TLD approach is a great start, as you're already giving search engines information about the location which your sites target. As additional measures, you can set geography in Search Console, and use the hreflang tag. A combination of all of these things will help ensure your content gets indexed in the country-specific Google.
For more information on this topic, check out this international SEO guide.
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
-
Best Practices for SEO 2021
What are the best way to do on page and off page seo in 2021?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SaraClay0 -
Should I optimize the login page? Will it affect the website SEO ranking?
I'm trying to resolve the site crawl issues that we have on our website. One of the links that has different issue types together is our login page. Currently we have two login pages that have the same content but different sub domains. **However I'm wondering if optimizing SEO on our login pages affects our website SEO ranking and if it's something better to do or not. ** To point out the details of the issues, the issue types that the logins pages have are "duplicate title", "duplicate content", "missing H1", "missing description", "thin content", "missing canonical tag" I'd appreciate your help, thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kaylie0 -
International SEO and duplicate content: what should I do when hreflangs are not enough?
Hi, A follow up question from another one I had a couple of months ago: It has been almost 2 months now that my hreflangs are in place. Google recognises them well and GSC is cleaned (no hreflang errors). Though I've seen some positive changes, I'm quite far from sorting that duplicate content issue completely and some entire sub-folders remain hidden from the SERP.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GhillC
I believe it happens for two reasons: 1. Fully mirrored content - as per the link to my previous question above, some parts of the site I'm working on are 100% similar. Quite a "gravity issue" here as there is nothing I can do to fix the site architecture nor to get bespoke content in place. 2. Sub-folders "authority". I'm guessing that Google prefers sub-folders over others due to their legacy traffic/history. Meaning that even with hreflangs in place, the older sub-folder would rank over the right one because Google believes it provides better results to its users. Two questions from these reasons:
1. Is the latter correct? Am I guessing correctly re "sub-folders" authority (if such thing exists) or am I simply wrong? 2. Can I solve this using canonical tags?
Instead of trying to fix and "promote" hidden sub-folders, I'm thinking to actually reinforce the results I'm getting from stronger sub-folders.
I.e: if a user based in belgium is Googling something relating to my site, the site.com/fr/ subfolder shows up instead of the site.com/be/fr/ sub-sub-folder.
Or if someone is based in Belgium using Dutch, he would get site.com/nl/ results instead of the site.com/be/nl/ sub-sub-folder. Therefore, I could canonicalise /be/fr/ to /fr/ and do something similar for that second one. I'd prefer traffic coming to the right part of the site for tracking and analytic reasons. However, instead of trying to move mountain by changing Google's behaviour (if ever I could do this?), I'm thinking to encourage the current flow (also because it's not completely wrong as it brings traffic to pages featuring the correct language no matter what). That second question is the main reason why I'm looking out for MoZ's community advice: am I going to damage the site badly by using canonical tags that way? Thank you so much!
G0 -
Best Method for Press Releases from an SEO Perspective?
Is it best practice to post your news release on your website THEN submit to distribution services/news sources, or, wait until it gets out there then just put an announcement on your website with an excerpt, and then link to the PR on the most prominent news site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wizkids9641 -
Best SEO Strategist to hire for 4-5K
Hello, We want to get a top notch company to look at us for 4-5K. We don't need SEO, we've got plenty of motion through the press and word of mouth, but if an all around agency was to give good advice I could get him some time with our CEO. How do I get the best for only 4-5K, we may continue with services or it may just be a one time thing. Who should I contact? Bob
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
What is the best way to link between all my portals?
Hi I own 12 different portals within gambling, they do more or less work and feel like this one, Casinotopplisten, what is the best way for me to link between all of them? Since there is alot going on in Google these days I havent linked between the sites at all, but i feel that to be a somewhat waste. So here is my three ideas so far, in ranked order: Add a menu at the topp right of the site, or footer, that links to the 10 different sites with different languages. The text link should then only be "Norwegian, Swedish, English etc.." Basiclly the same as about, but in addition linking to the "same page" in the other languages. As all pages have the same article set for startes this can be done. Dont do any linking between the sites and only link to the sites separately from our company blog/site.. Dont link at all. I should add that all of these sites are on different IPs with different domains and all in different languages. Hope someone can add their 2c on this one.. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MortenBratli0 -
New Website.. From where to start with a SEO Plan ?
Hi.. We have got two SEO and link builders working here in the office, putting in efforts is not a problem. And we have been doing SEO for our websites since a long time and they all rank well. Since, I have signed up for SEOMOZ, which is the one stop with all the heavy duty SEO guys, so we would like to get some suggestions from the experts. Ok here is the question. We have launched a new website this week and we have got a new SEO client, whose website is 6 months old. 1. What should be a proper SEO plan for a new website ? Got any Plan PDF or Buleprint, which you can send me ? 2. For the client website , he is ranking on 4-7th pages for his 4 keywords. Whats should be the correct way or plan to start doing SEO for them and get them to the first page ? 3. I feel like, doing competitive analysis is lacking with us and we are not good at evaluating that step. Whats the bet way to do competitive analysis ? 4. We are looking to build more and more links to the website . Whats the best way to make links ? Got any SEOMoz Blog post link, which explain this better or any forum thread which has got the tricks for this ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qubesys0 -
Best website structure for product benefits and features.
I'm in disagreement with my partner over how best to represent our products' benefits and features on the homepage of our website. I'm interested in this from primarily a SEO perspective but it obviously has an impact on conversions as well. I believe that a homepage shouldn't contain too much information so as not to overwhelm the user, a brief sentence or two about each benefit with a link to another page with in depth info about the related feature. Each of these inner pages would be optimized and contain much more content that you could put on the homepage example below. Each Please see wireframe A He believes in more information on the homepage. There is more content to index which he believes is important for the homepage. Also, by using tabs most of the content is hidden from initial view so its doesn't clutter the page and the user doesn't have to leave the page to decide whether he is interested in the software. Please see wireframe B below. I'd really love to hear from other Moz'ers which they would choose and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Riona0