What the benefits are of optimizing multi-language & multi-region / country websites?
Google says “We are working hard to show users the best possible search results. Many times those are going to be pages that are localized, for the user’s location and/or in the user’s language.” This simply means, if you offer your product in Montreal and don’t have French content on your website; most likely your website will not have good ranks when users search in French!
Preparing for multi-language & multi-region optimization:
There are a lot of things to consider before you take the proper steps to expand your website to multiple regions and/or languages. My advice is to make sure that everything is working properly before you start considering this huge step because any problem you have with your current website will be multiplied when you expand to multiple regions and/or languages pages.
What are the major factors that determine if your website is Geo targeted to a certain region or country?
Benefits | What to consider? |
---|---|
Clear, strong geo targeting | Multiply the SEO efforts to optimize each separated websites |
Server location becomes irrelevant | Legal requirements (sometimes its a requirement to have local office or to be a resident of the country TLD) |
Easy, simple separation of sites and its products/content | It could be expensive to run multiple websites |
No need to setup Google webmaster Tool Geo Targeting | Requires more infrastructure |
Benefits | What to consider? |
---|---|
Easy to setup different sub-domains on your current web server | Users might not recognize geo targeting from the URL alone (is "fr" targeting the French speaking users or users located in France) |
Allows you to host each domain in different location / country | There will be some sort of loss of main domain authority and link juice when transferring to sub-domains |
Can use Google Webmaster Tools to Geo target different sub-domains | |
Easy separation of sites / products |
Benefits | What to consider? |
---|---|
Consolidating all your content on one domain is highly recommended from an SEO perspective | It could be very difficult if you have a complex / dynamic website |
Easy to setup (if you have fairly simple/static websites) | Separation of sites / products could be harder |
Can use Google Webmaster Tools to Geo target different sub-directories | Users might not recognize geo targeting from the URL alone (is "fr" targeting the French speaking users or users located in France) |
Less expensive (no need to purchase other hosting services) | Single hosting server location |
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