hreflang tag: how to boost your international business

@ARNIEK

#DSP15

Presented byArt Enke

and Andre Willis

www.VerticalMeasures.com @verticalmeasure

What We’re Going to Cover

• Introduction to hreflang tags

• How your business will benefit

• Common international SEO issues

• How to analyze for opportunities

• How to implement & monitor success


Sources: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Bank Group, CIA World Factbook


Sources: International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Bank Group, CIA World Factbook

Chinese E-Commerce:

Grew 31%

in 2014


Source: U.S. Census http://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf


The Hreflang Tag • Introduced by Google in 2011

• International targeting / tracking added in

2014 to Webmaster Tools

Three ways to implement

• On-page markup

• HTTP header

• Sitemap (XML)


Is your business…

• Adding language translations?

• Customizing regional content?

You need to implement hreflang tags!

www.VerticalMeasures.com

Customized URLs are omitted from

search results

Website expands content internationally and it doesn’t get indexed

Search results display two

nearly identicalURLs from the

same site

@verticalmeasure

Common Issues with International SEO

1

2 3


TWO USE CASES

A: Geo specific variations of the same page, in the same language

http://www.example.com/ http://en-gb.example.com/


TWO USE CASES

B: Fully translated variations of the same page

http://www.example.com/ http://es.example.com/


Google.com


Google.de


Got ccTLDs? NO PROBLEM!.TV, .de, .is, .co.uk, .com.au, .br, .ca, .es

- Any domain

- Any subdomain

- Any subdirectory

But be consistent


Google.co.uk


WHAT HREFLANG LOOKS LIKE

(ON “PAPER”)

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ie" hreflang="en-ie" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-ca" hreflang="en-ca" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en-au" hreflang="en-au" />

<link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com/en" hreflang="en" />


WHAT HREFLANG LOOKS LIKE

(IN THE WILD)


TRACKING

IN GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS


ANALYTICS


TOOLS

SEMRUSH


ANY QUESTIONS?

@ArtEnke @AndreWillis @verticalmeasure

NEXT WEBINAR…

8 (Seinfeld) Secrets to Content

Marketing Success

May 14th11am PT

2pm ET

Dave Haar,

Director of Business

Development

Register: www.verticalmeasures.com/webinars