International SEO – New developments
I was curious to know how my Hotelclub russian site was performing on Yandex.ru (largest local competitor to Google)
I translated “Hotels in Sydney” using Google translate and put the result on both Yandex and Google.ru. I was really surprised to see our English domain City page ranking.
What does this means for SEO activity?
It seems that Google is getting smarter and smarter in translating content and recognising the most valuable source of info for users.
With the rise of such trend the Alternative Tag become increasingly more important.
Suggestions for international SEO
- Make sure your international SEO strategy is planned within your overall marketing strategy
- Involve actual human translation rather than just Google translate
- Get locals to write localised version of the text (UK for GB & Australia)
- Localise your site
- Different cultures and countries react to different colours and shapes
- Do local competitor’s analysis to create benchmark.
- Get local webdesign to create your local CSS.
- If the market you are going to has a strong local competitor to Google or Bing, check their ranking factors
