International SEO: Multilingual and Multiregional Deep Dive Part 1

International SEO which is also known as multinational or global SEO is a part of an advanced SEO tactics. If you got an opportunity to run a multinational SEO campaign, you must be one of the few lucky SEOs. If not, then there is still an opportunity to come. What exactly a multinational SEO is? Let's explore in today's article.

What is International/Multinational SEO?
International aka multinational SEO has two parts. Multilingual and Multiregional. Both are not only different, but also overlap each other. When a website expands the territories and start targeting people of specific region or language, at that time SEO professionals use these international SEO strategies. It is one of the most complex SEO practices. The reason is, you have to handle all the different SEO campaigns and related activities without messing it.

What is Multilingual and Multiregional SEO?
You might get an idea from the name itself. Multilingual SEO is when you customize your website in different languages to serve people speaking those specific languages. Multiregional SEO is a customized SEO strategy used to serve a different geographical area with region specific SEO strategies.

Key Benefits of International/Multinational SEO:

• Expand the horizons of your business
• You can reach a potential audience which are not a native English speaker
• Go beyond your competitor
• Diversified visitors & Improved conversion rates
• Create a global Brand [My personal favourite :)]

Challenges in International/Multinational SEO
International SEO has various challenges including:

• Local SEO tactics changes frequently. As you are targeting different regions, you have to be updated with such updates and change your strategies accordingly.
• Targeting only Google won't work. When you are doing region/language based SEO, you have to target local search engines along with Google. For example, in Russia, you have to target Yandex. You have to customize your SEO tactics based on target region's popular search engine.
• You have to understand the traits of market, culture and buying behaviour of the local people of each location you want to target.
• You might need a local marketing person. In some geographical regions, still people believes in one to one meeting rather than placing online orders. For such cases, you must have a resource to satisfy this requirement.

A Few Important Tips to make your International/Multinational SEO Campaign successful

• Perform thorough linguistic research and understand the region, culture, local competition and other factors.
• Understand the localized market and its specific terms. In SEO language, get a list of region specific "keywords".
• Write a region specific page with usage of the selected keywords. Don't just translate the pages into regional languages. It won't give as much benefit as expected. It's strongly recommended to write specific pages in the targeted languages using the localized voice and standards.
• Optimize SEO attributes specifically for the localized market. 
• Understand the local popular search engines and optimize the site according to that search engines. You can also amalgamate standard SEO practices for major and local search engines, but be very careful.

I hope this article has given you a brief idea of multinational aka international SEO. In the next Blog, I will share some technical details to show how one can implement a multinational SEO campaign in a website.

Ash Vyas is working in Internet Marketing field for 6+ years. Have experience in handling projects of SEO, SMO, SEM, Content Marketing, Branding etc.
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Posted in: Global SEO tips,International SEO,Multinational SEO