By Harry Mackin

Global search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a website for search performance all over the world. As you might expect, this can be quite involved.

Paying attention to the global performance of keywords you’re trying to rank for is just the start. You’ll need to create different pages for different regions, account for the different languages you’ll need to communicate in and figure out which keywords to target per region and language… as a start. 

Complex as getting started can be, however, any international company that doesn’t invest in global SEO now faces an opportunity loss too significant to ignore.

Digital transformation, the proliferation of accessible e-commerce, and huge globalized shipping companies like Amazon have shattered traditional geographic barriers to business. Today, nearly every market imaginable has globalized in one capacity or another. The organizations that treat it like the major opportunity it is will be the ones to seize new sources of business as they continue to join the global digital community.

Any organization with interest in serving or selling to users outside of their home region should invest in global SEO to maximize growth. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

“Any organization with interest in serving or selling to users outside of their home region should invest in global SEO to maximize growth.” — Nick Nelson @NickNelsonMN
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Structuring for region and language

The most important aspect of global SEO is making sure you structure your international websites to serve users optimally wherever they are and whichever language they speak. This can be handled in two steps:

Here’s a closer look at geotargeting.

Different approaches to geotargeting

“Geotargeting” is the process of creating pages SEO-optimized for specific regions. It is the cornerstone of effective global SEO, because pages that are geotargeted for specific regions tend to perform far better in those regions.

There are several different approaches you can take to structuring a site you want to SEO optimize for geotargeting, and each has advantages and disadvantages

1. Country code top-level domains (example.us.com)

Country code top-level domains, or “ccTLDs” are the letters in a URL that go just after the final period in a domain name in international websites (http://exampleurl.us.com).

In most cases, ccTLDs follow ISO 3166-1 designation standards, though there are some exceptions. Countries that use non-Latin scripts may have their own internationalized country code top-level domains (IDN ccTLDs).

Pros of ccTLDs

ccTLDs are the strongest way to indicate that a page’s content is specifically relevant to a geographic area and should appear in that region’s SERPs.

Cons of ccTLDs

Sites with different ccTLDs are considered completely different sites by search engines. If you are the owner of example.us.com and example.uk.com, you’ll have to grow authority on both sites separately. You’ll also have to purchase each ccTLD domain separately, which …read more

Source:: Top Rank Blog

Author: Aaron