international seo | john caldwell | creatorseo

SEO and Growth Hackingto grow your

International Business

Enterprise Ireland eMarketing Event

Using the Internet to Compete in International Markets

John Caldwell

john@creatorseo.com061 513267086 2410295

• Introduction

• The Search Landscape

• How Search Engines Work

• Keywords

• Growth hacking

• International SEO

• Duplicate Content

• Tips

Areas covered:

• Physicist

• Headed up Global Marketing and

Intelligence Teams

• Founded CreatorSEO, Intelligence

Market and Research and Experts

• Specialise in helping businesses grow

internationally

Some of our customers ........

Search Engine Optimisation - Introduction

It All Starts With Strategy

• Which market?

• Which country or countries?

• Focussing on a region?

• Emphasising particular products?

Reach Act Convert Engage

Digital strategy:

Customer analysis

Competitor benchmarking

On-line partner analysis

SWOT

Marker-place analysis:

Vision and mission

Goal setting AnalyticsManaging digital

marketing

Goals and KPI’s:

Segmentation and targeting

Brand position and value proposition

Engagement and content strategy

Integrated communication

strategy

Strategy:

If your not on page 1

of search results

you don’t exist!

Ranking Positions – Averages on Google

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Unknown brand

Known Brand

search engines and social media

are the gatekeepers of your

Content visibility

Search engines – How they work?

What a Search Engine Sees

Be found on the internet

• Ranking – its just a formula….= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-

b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

• … but Google has more than 250 items in its algorithm

• … and growing

1 Search terms in the HTML title tag2 Search terms in the HTML body copy3 Search terms in bold typeface4 Search terms in header tags5 Search term in anchor text in links to a page6 PageRank of a page (the actual PageRank, not the toolbar PageRank)7 The PageRank of the entire domain8 Quality of link partners9 Type of backlinks that bring anchor text juice for search terms10 The speed of the web site11. Search terms in the URL - main URL and page URLs 12. Search term density through body copy (About 3 - 5%?) 13. Fresh content 14. Good internal linking structure 15. Age of the domain 16. Links from good directories 17. Image names 18. Image ALTs 19. Reputable hosting company 20. Diversity of link partners too21. Geo located search results22. Rate of new inbound links to your site 23. Relevance of inbound links24. 301s, 404s, 414s etc 25. Duplicate title/meta tags 26. Participation in link schemes27. Quantity of backlinks 28. Quantity of linking root domains 29. Quality of linking root domains 30. Link distance from higher authority sites 31. Outgoing followed links from back linked pages

Hummingbird and Carousel

Artificial Intelligence – Machine Learning

RankBrain

Is Google’s name for a machine-learning artificial intelligence system used to help ranking

Paid adverts (PPC)

Paid adverts (PPC)

Natural or Organic Search (SEO)

News

Google Search results

The Golden triangle

Which? - search engines!

… but it is usually enough to focus on the main Search Engines

• Ranking

= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

… and let’s not forget

Strategy

Target audience: Language? Culture?

what

why

whowhere

when

Search Pyramid

Social

Link Building

Keyword Research & Targeting

Accessible Quality Content

Bring all this together with intelligence

The search demand curve

Source: SEOMoz

1 2 3-4 4+

What is Google looking for?

Google now also looking at:Keyword relationships and

usage – close bonds between keywords on each page

Date can be important –most recent content

– if applicable

Predict what you are looking for!

Phrases are unique

The intent of your search – information open queries

Unique content

Google likes unique content

Does your content on a PAGE meet all the searcher’s

needs?

Are you better at giving the searcher the information they

need?

Data

• Data is a strategic asset

• Can be a key differentiator for sustained growth, efficiency and compliance

• Most data models tend to are siloed, outdated and too narrow

Knowledge

Information / Understanding

Data / Facts

Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools

Mysiteperformance and Google keyword checker

• Test your site on - www.mysiteperformance.com

Google Alerts & Google News & Google Publisher

Growth Hacking

Marketing incl. SEO

CustomerNeeds

Data

Growth Hacking

Normally a MARKETER works

side by side with a

CODER2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

• Growth hacking is about doing whatever it is to get digital/user results

- using the right tactics and practices

MARKETER and

CODER

Try things till it

works!

• What really happens:

20112012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Marketing incl. SEO

CustomerNeeds

Data

Growth Hacking Analytics

Baseline

Create a dashboard

Perform AB Testing

Create interventions

Make changes

One Metric That Matters?

Talk to customers

Make more changes

An

alys

eb

efo

re a

nd

aft

er c

han

ges

Internationalisation

Google.ie, Google.co.uk, Google.de, Google.fr……

Trading internationally

• Common situations:

• one country, several languages

• one language, several countries

Trading internationally

• What can be done?

• domains by country?

• main domain and subdirectories per language?

• sub domains?

• Geo targeting on Google

Trading internationally

• Best option domains by country

• creatorseo.com

• creatorseo.fr

• creatorseo.de

• but

• complicated to manage and coordinate

• one CMS for all or one per domain?

Trading internationally

• Sub-domains or Domain name alias

• us.creatorseo.com

• fr.creatorseo.com

• de.creatorseo.com

• Directories by country/language

• creatorseo.com/us/

• creatorseo.com/fr/

• creatorseo.com/de/

• One language, several countries

• creatorseo.com/es/

• mycompany.com/es-pu/ (Peru)

• mycompany.com/es-mx/ (Mexico)

Trading internationally

• Subdomains by country

• Search Engines consider subdomains almost a completely different entity than their domain

• they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy

• Example of a sub domain

• http://spanish.creatorseo.com

• … but are a more integrated approach than having a number of unrelated domain names

X

Trading internationally

A new domain starts with

ZERO domain authority

Trading internationally

• Directories by country/language

• Cheaper

• Less technical resources required

• Easier to manage and coordinate

• Directories contribute to increase the general relevancy of a domain

• Domain authority is consolidsted

Trading internationally

• You don’t need multiple websites to rank internationally

Before internationalising your site

• Market research

• Site performance

• SEO implementation

• Speed of site

• Number of pages on your site – CPU and Memory

• Language or Country targeting

• Localisation costs

Competition

Competition

• On-line competition may not be your traditional competition

• Different competitors in different regions

SEO is about beating your competition in the targeted geographies

Audience and be local

Audience

• Know your audience

• Cultural

• In Mediterranean counties - Internet use is driven more by social factors rather than anything else,

• where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more pragmatic, functional purposes.

• Language

• What are they searching for?

Keyword

Avg. Monthly Searches World

wide(exact match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches US (exact

match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches UK (exact

match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches Canada

(exact match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches Germany (exact match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches France

(exact match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches China

(exact match only)

Avg. Monthly Searches India

(exact match only)

hotels in dublin 49,500 1,900 18,100 390 590 110 10 90

dublin hotels 33,100 3,600 18,100 880 480 140 10 70

hotels dublin 18,100 590 6,600 170 1,000 390 10 10

hotel dublin 14,800 260 2,400 110 2,400 3,600 10 10

And that’s just English!

Local content

• Use local addresses and contact information

• Add local case studies/ testimonials

• with names and images

• Customise content for each country or market

• More relevant, increases local link building opportunities, and decreases duplicate content

• Currency

Design and usability

Basic requirements for any website

A web site is a bit like an advert!

• Clear purpose

• Easy to use / intuitive

• High impact- you have only 4 seconds to impress!

• Optimised for visitors

• Target audience

• Easily found by the target audience

• Content must be dynamic and interesting

Design and usability

• Different countries prefer different design aesthetics

• Recreating your website in a different language may not be enough

• Get feedback on your site from locals in your target country

Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content and Languages

• Google and Bing have clearly said to keep one language on one URL. - Proxied content- Content served by a cookie - Side-by-side translations

Can be very problematic for search engines to index a page in one language.

You want

1 URL = 1 language

Duplicate Content and Language Flags

• Hreflang tags are intended to ensure the correct localised page is seen by Google

• You can have multi-country targeted content in the same language. - You need to combine hreflang tags + some localisation!

Ways to avoid Duplicate Content

• Use Hreflang tags

• Localised keyword optimisation

• Have local content … maybe testimonials

• Name Address, Phone, Currencies, Google Business profile

• Localised HTML sitemaps

• Localised navigation and home page features that cater to specific audiences

• Localised images that resonate with the audience

• Obtain links from local links

Some Final Tips

• Create useful page titles

• Use informative URLs

• Provide relevant page descriptions

• Add your business to Google Places

• Manage your site links

• Get a local mailing address

• Use a translator!

• Value proposition

• Call to action

• Speed

• User experience

• Relevant and unique content

Google shows search results based on

what's best for the user

International Success

The key to international success

is localising

while still maintaining a

globally unified brand.

Enjoy the rest of the day

John Caldwell

john@creatorseo.com061 513267/ 01 5313061

086 2410295