William K. Halpin
There is no dispute that SEO is essential to any online marketing strategy. However, many business owners may not realise the importance of optimising their website for a worldwide audience in global markets. This article will discuss why worldwide SEO is vital for businesses looking to expand their reach.
What is SEO, and why is it vital for businesses to have a global website optimisation strategy?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of a website on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). The higher a website appears on SERPs, the more visible it is, and the more likely it is to be clicked on by users. In other words, SEO helps businesses reach more potential customers online.
Many factors go into SEO, but keywords are the most important. Keywords are the words and phrases that Internet users type into search engines when looking for something. For example, if you sell shoes online, some relevant keywords might be ‘red high heels’ or ‘rain boots for children’.
For your website to rank high for these keywords, you need to include them in your website’s content a number of times in a way that sounds natural and not forced. You also must ensure that your website is well-designed and easy to navigate.
Why is having a global SEO strategy so crucial for businesses?
A good global SEO strategy should include the countries you want to target, the competitive landscape in each regional market, an international keyword research (in different languages for specialised regions), localised branding, and technical site optimisations such as hreflang implementations, site structures, and more.
These days, businesses should have a global SEO strategyandoptimise their websites for the below reasons:
- Internet users worldwide have been increasing steadily over the years. In 2000, there were just over 400 million internet users worldwide. By 2017, this number had increased to almost 3.5 billion1. This tendency is only predicted to continue in the coming years. As more and more people gain access to the internet, the number of potential customers for businesses will increase exponentially.
- People increasingly use search engines to find information about products and services before purchasing. A recent study found that 78% of people research a product online before they buy it2. If your website doesn’t appear on the first page of SERPs, you’re likely to lose out on a lot of potential business.
How can you optimise your website for different countries and regions worldwide, and what are the benefits of doing so?
You can take a few steps to ensure your website appears in search results for different countries and regions.
First, you must ensure that your website is hosted on a server in the country or region you want to target. Otherwise, your website could not appear in that area’s search results. This means using country-coded top-level domains (ccTLD) such as .fr for France, .uk for the United Kingdom, and .ca for Canada.
Second, you must ensure that your website’s content is relevant to your target country or region. It means including local slang, using the correct currency, and providing shipping options to that location if you are a business.
Finally, you need to ensure that all website copy is in the local language, and this cannot be done hastily with any translator. You should always invest in a native speaker to optimise your page to avoid grammar mistakes which can make your site look suspicious and low-quality to both users and search engines. If you operate in bilingual countries, make sure you offer both language options to your users, such as the case of French and English in Canada.
How can you measure the success of your global SEO campaign, and what steps should you take to improve it if necessary?
There are a few ways you can measure the success of your global SEO campaign. One way is to track your website’s ranking on SERPs for different keywords in different countries. Another way is to track the number of visitors to your website from different countries.
You can also use Google Analytics to track where your website traffic is coming from. If you see a significant drop in traffic from a particular country or region, that could be an indication that your SEO campaign is not performing as well as it should in that area.
If you want to improve your global SEO campaign, you can take a few steps. One is to ensure your website is relevant to the countries and regions you’re targeting. Another is to submit your website to local directories and search engines. Lastly, you can use Google Analytics to track your website traffic and make changes to your campaign accordingly.
By following these steps, you can ensure that your business is visible to potential customers worldwide.
Conclusion
SEO is vital for businesses that want to succeed in the global market. By optimizing their website for different countries and regions, businesses can ensure that they appear in SERPs for their target keywords. Additionally, by ensuring their website is relevant to their target audience and submitting it to local directories and search engines, businesses can improve their chances of getting found by potential customers.
