How do you optimise a website for European traffic?

[JCN-SBWD]

I have a design portfolio website here https://www.nicholsoncreative.com/ which uses a .com but is currently configured through the Search Console to appear in results for Google.co.uk.

I am going to be restructuring the website and optimisation and I want to bring in more traffic/enquiries/business from around Europe.

As there's no Google.eu, and as Google also serves results based on the searchers geographic location it would seem difficult to structure and optimise content so that results can be found across all of Europe.

I assume simply switching to a .eu domain extension for my own website wouldn't solve the problem?

I also assume that creating content in different languages would be a logical (if time consuming) option?

Are there any other tried and trusted techniques that can be used to target traffic throughout Europe?

I'd appreciate any advice.

[JCN-SBWD]

Many thanks for this, it's really helpful.

[paints-n-design]

So no there is no google.eu and we here don't use .eu domains.  OK we are european union but we speak different languages, it doesn't make any sense to take one tld for us all. so you can use .com with folders for languages or get a bunch of new country based domains. Both have pros and cons.

of course you need content in the language of the country you target, so to reach me on google.de you have to speak german.  And you need international seo with hreflang tags aso (https://moz.com/learn/seo/international-seo). By the way, dont simply translate content, mother tongue will win the race.

Before creating content in our european languages you need to know how and if we search that, who your cempetitors are, how strong and if there is a chance for you to exist.

You can ignore other search engines than google in most european countries, in germany we use bing only by mistake or to search for google. We use google >96% - in czech republic its different, they have their own search engine. For the rest - we google or search with youtube.