What's the Best Strategy for Multiregional Targeting for Single Language?

[ccox1]

I have a service based client who is based in the US but wants to expand to audiences in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Currently, all the content is in American English with international targeting in Google Search Console set to the US. I know that is going to have to change, but I'm unsure of the best strategy. Right now there are a few basic strategies in my head.

1. Remove International Targeting in GSC and let her rip
2. Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and add canonicals pointing back to original
3. Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and risk duplicate content
4. Have independent writers overcharge for English translations into different dialects and add hreflang tags

It's hard to come up with a perfect solution for content differentiation by region in order to implement hreflang tags with a region (en-au, en-ca, en-gb).

Remove International Targeting in GSC and let her rip

This one is pretty simple. However, I am completely unsure of its effectiveness.

Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and add canonicals pointing back to original

The point of adding canonicals is to avoid the duplicate content, but then my new subfolders do not get indexed. I'm unsure of what type of exposure these URLs would receive or how they would be valuable.

Remove International Targeting in GSC, install copies of the site on subfolders /au/, /ca/, and /uk/, add hreflang tags, and risk duplicate content

High risk of a penalty with duplicate content, but my targeting will be the most efficient.

Have independent writers overcharge for English translations into different dialects and add hreflang tags

This is probably the safest bet, takes the longest, and costs the most money. However, how different will the content actually be if I change truck to lorry, trunk to boot, and optimization to optimisation?

Maybe I'm missing something, but this conundrum seems extremely difficult. Weighing the cost, time, and possible result is challenging. Hit me with your best answer and thanks for taking a look at someone else's problem.

[gfiorelli1]

The correct answer is

1. Quit geo-targeting in GSC
2. Implement hreflang annotations. Their same implementation will avoid the risk of Google considering the "duplicate" versions as duplicate
3. DON'T CANONICALIZE ALL THE VERSION TO ONE YOU CONSIDER CANONICAL. Doing that will screw all the hreflang implementation and the other countries will always see the canonical Url (for instance the US one in the UK).
4. Instead, work on canonicalization but version by version as if they were (and actually they are) different websites. This means self-canonicalization and/or canonicalization toward another url in case, you know, of parameters et al
5. Try the most you can to localize the different versions of English you're using. This will improve the localization signals for Google (and will  be appreciated by your users). However, if you cannot afford to do that, you're still safe because of the hreflang.
6. Remember that the href of the hreflang annotations must always present a canonical Url. So, if you implement the hreflang in a canonicalized Url, its href will need to present the canonical url of the canonicalized page the hreflang is being implemented. If you don't do this, you will see "no-return" error in Search Console, and Google won't consider your hreflang implementation and, yes, it will start considering your versions duplicated content.

[regal_kyle]

Hey Charles,

We're working on the same question, though the website for us already has separate TLDs for various countries (.com for US, .ca for Canada, etc.)

Most of our work re: SEO has been focused on US - nationally, regionally and locally - so international is a bit new for us, but something that I've found a lot of consistent information on.

On to your questions (from my point of view, as you wish to take it)...

#2 and #3 options are what I would recommend doing from a technical/setup perspective, with option #4 being the recommended approach from a linguistics perspective.

There are references to use of canonicals for internationalization in GSC help docs, that would lead you to potentially want to do #2 vs #3; however, I've read a lot of input on this topic over the past few weeks, and non of the recommendations I've seen thus far say that canonicals are required.

At the end of the day, I'd lean to implementing option #3 first (remove int. targeting in GSC, do your subfolders per country, add hreflang tags and do not do canonical referencing to US version).

Depending on the outcomes from that, I'd potentially look into adding the canonicals to further over the specificity needle (I'd test this on a few pages first to see what the impact of this change would look like).

In addition to #3, I'd also go for manual translations of content by translators, allowing room for creating more "uniqueness" in terms of localization of how the content is interpreted, as well as the fact that it's native to the country for that version of the page (if I had the means and control to do so). This obviously can be a huge thing, as you mentioned re: cost, but would ultimately provide the best UX, IMO.

One possible cost-effective route for doing the translation would be to tap into local university students (junior/senior level?) via professors, and have them do for credit and/or less pay than you would a professional translator. If time isn't a huge issue for this portion, I think you could have the best of all worlds from this.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Kyle