What are the top 10 Pitfalls of International SEO?

In case you have an international site or own a global extension on your website then there are certain issues related to international SEO that will try to keep down your website by causing a pitfall. As this is such a common problem and is faced by anyone running a SEO websit for optimizatoin, we have tried to highlight 10 of those pitfalls and mentioned their possible solutions to help you in creating an excellent website that runs well for you. 

Common pitfalls of International SEO

The most common search engine optimization issues that you could be making on your international SEO for your website include the following:

• International SEO | The TLD

The most common problem in international SEO is with the domain of the site. There are certain people who don’t think about their present domain TLD when creating an international website for themselves. As it is a common fact that a domain like; UK, USA, AU, etc are limited for a specific country. They denote the countries from where these websites belong.

So now if you want to do international SEO for your website and not specific to a certain country, then it is best that you first change the TLD or domain of your website to general or international TLD like .com. Doing so the search engine will start considering it for the international audience and not keep it region limited. 

• International SEO | The Language

Many people make the mistake when doing international SEO of not giving an option to select the local language from English. Not everyone in the world can understand English. In such cases, they prefer to have the content in their local language. If you don’t give the option to change language to a local language then it will negatively affect the search optimization of your website. 

• International links

Another common mistake that most of internet marketers to while doing international SEO is when you don’t get international links for your website. Links are signals to search engines so it is always recommended that you get international links of all the targeted countries for your site to improve your international SEO.

• Multilingual keywords

We all know how important keywords are when it comes to writing good quality content. One of the pitfalls of writing for a website with international SEO is translating the keyword. For instance you write an article on your site and you add a catchy phrase so that it appears in google searches. Then you optimize those keywords. But once someone translates it into their local language, the keyword might lose its charm and may not have the same value on Google, the search engine.

In order to solve this issue, you need to hire a language expert in your target language. S/he needs to know about the keywords and marketing needs of an article. Ask her/him to translate the keyword in the desired language that is still catchy and good for the optimization of your article. 

• No good research

There are only a few marketers who actually have time to do proper research about their target country. However, most people ignore it and don’t know how important it is to know about a country and the interest of its general public. Doing so the international SEO will improve your visibility. 

• Not hiring a professional

Thinking a common person who knows a foreign language can help them with an international SEO, he is making a big mistake. Always hire a local to do all the language-related work for your international website. 

• Not having enough staff

There are people who let the same person deal with their websites for two different countries. Be aware that a person who is French will not be able to handle the English domain of your website. It is best that you always hire a local to get the best results. 

• Choosing a new country

Although you can choose a new target country for your website on the basis of analysis provided to you by your site. But keep in mind that you make your content friendly to their local language. For example, if you have an official website and you are selling something on it, then introducing your website to a new target company might not be great in case the new country doesn’t need much of your products.it won’t increase your sales and benefit your business, so before making a new target country for your website do a proper research about which countries will help your business to prosper. 

• Not taking care of cultural differences

Be sure that it is very important to take care of the cultural difference when you are expanding your website internationally. There are many times when a website shows some content that is not considered good in some cultures. When this happens, people get offended and end up reporting your site. This not only decreases the optimization process but also you end up being in loss because your website stops showing any progress once it happens. 

• Running your site with dot com

There are a lot of people who make a mistake of keeping dot com at the end of their websites instead of choosing a local domain. The fact that these people don’t understand is that using a local domain is best for SEO as they give the most relevant information about the geography to the search engines which results in more people looking at your site from that area and more insights for your website.