The concept of search engine optimization (SEO), when implemented in a single Language, is indeed intricate enough, but with its entrance into the foreign markets for doing global SEO comes with more challenges.

This post will act as a sheer reflection on how we can minimize the adversities of global SEO with the help of identifying common challenges that practitioners often encounter. Global SEO challenges deal with the following areas:

• CMS/site infrastructure
• Language/Culture
• Organizational
• Geo-targeting

Let’s have a look at the problems in details one by one.

1. CMS/site infrastructure or Technical Challenges

Multilingual Single URL Websites

There are innumerable single Url Websites that have more than two language translations for a particular page but it only uses a single URL for all of them. Now, this could be highly confusing for the search engines as well as the searchers.

Majority of the multilingual single URL websites characterize the following issues-

• Unable to use geo-targeting techniques
• Inbound links to the URL gets diluted
• the language shown is often up to which was visited last by the local indexer

Some of the common ways issues associated with the adversity of global SEO are-

• wasting the time of the crawler
• Confusing signals
• Mixed Hreflang signals

  2. Language Challenges

Clone & Go

The very initial step for creating a global website is to translate as well as localize the content of the website. While it sounds very easy but it does with some great challenges. The most common misconception for creating a global site is cloning the site for another market with the help of using an online translator.

Correct against Popular Translations

Often it happens that when people localize a site, they prefer using a keyword with high search volume – even though it is one of the worst translations to make use of for a fixed term. At times it seems logical but if talking about the cultural differences, some words mean multiple ways. Opting for the keyword rich in search volume is not at always is a good idea to select the right word for a particular content.

Translate Once, Copy 50

In the quest for creating a unique version of the site, it is important to maximize the investment, but it is important not to get tempted for creating a range of websites in different languages that aims for targeting each and every country. This is very common with the responsive website design company in India as well as in abroad also.

String Translation

In order to save the translation costs, majority of the websites implement a module to their CMS for pushing out international sites. Like the last examples, where the wordplay could be dangerous, people might consider the option as money saving but it will cause more problems on later stages.

3. Organizational Challenges

International Dysfunction

Having an international website is equivalent to managing numbers of websites and this possible with the effort of the business owner, by hiring an in-house team or through local agencies.

One of the best approaches to follow for minimizing the challenges is by creating standard guidelines for running the websites and then again implementing them to the local team of agencies.

One can easily make use of the templates in order to achieve consistency. It would be better to create one for the primary website and then implementing it across all other location of the websites.

4. Geo-Targeting Challenges

Tags for Language are Incorrect

Having content makes it important to target it to the market. In case the marketer has got only one specific version of any given language, be it English or Spanish, it gets global. As soon as the process of setting the content for other markets, majority of the people start looking for the ways to geo-target the same.

Novice people for international SEO often ask a question that, “Why can’t they use their own language tags?”

One basic reason why Google is unable to use language tags in the metadata simply because more than 90% of them are wrong.

Rank and Geo Reporting

Have you ever thought of the question what do you get the true picture of your ranks?

It is important that the ranks reports should not only deal with the number of pages that are on the ranking on the first page or in the top positions of the search engine but it also deals with the state to look whether the right pages are ranked properly in a specific market or not.

The Takeaways

• Always Be Attentive on the Details

Series of global SEO adversities are there that originates from dev/IT teams, webmasters forgetting or SEO pros to consider minimal details.

• Focus on the searcher

When any given company plans to go international, it is obvious that they are doing it for their own benefit. They attempt to maximize the sell because there is a scope of market possibility.

• Make Sure to be Collective as a Team

Many of us are not aware of the fact that things can go wrong with the deployments of global SEO when people fail to collaborate or are unable to talk with different stakeholders.