Taking your SEO strategy global can a be step forward from targeting national and local markets for the services and products that you have to offer. Here are some important steps that you need to take when you look to target global markets:
Keyword Research:
As our SEO specialists know keyword research is one of the most important parts when it comes to developing SEO strategy. Using the right keywords with a good search volume and reasonable difficulty to rank is always for the countries you want to target for is something you need to consider.Â
Make sure that when you do keyword research that you have a clear outline of what countries you want to market too. Ensure that there is demand for your product or service in those countries you are targeting. Industries are different from country to country so make sure that you have an idea what phrases natives from that country would use to find your product or service.
Always make sure that when you do keyword research to change over the location from county to country. For example if your based in the UK but are wanting to target America or Canada, the search volumes and difficulty would all be different. This could throw your strategy off as the data you have found is incorrect and could lead to poor results.
Using tools such as Semrush, AHRefs and Google Keyword planner are all great for carrying out global keyword research and helping you to develop a strategy in specific countries and regions around the world.
Search Result Page Research:
Once you’ve done your keyword research use the keywords you’ve found to look at what businesses are currently doing to rank in the top 10 results of Google. Doing this will help determine the keyword density (number of keywords you need to use in the content), how many backlinks you may need to buy in order get onto the first page of Google.Â
This can also help determine who the industry leaders are in other markets around the globe. From an SEO perspective this is your chance to look at strategies that competitors have used and determine where you can do something better than them. This also gives you an opportunity look at keywords you may have missed if they provide the same or similar services.
Website Optimisation:
It is important to ensure that you have a variety of versions of your website if you’re targeting multiple markets around the globe. Featuring the abbreviation of the country in your domain is great way of differentiating your website and allowing it to rank in different countries.
For example if you’re looking to market your website to multiple countries in Europe you may decide to go for websitename.eu or if you want to attract American users websitename.us.
Another thing to consider is a multi language site. This allows your content and SEO efforts to be tailored to users using their own language rather than them searching for a product or service in English.Â
Using a hreflang tag:
Setting up hreflang tags are a an important part of technical SEO on a global level. If you have a multilingual website it is important to set up hreflang tags on your website to specify the language and geographical targeting of a webpage.Â
Using this tag will also help you when analysing data in Google Search Console. In the search results tab of Search Console you will be able to find out what uses come from which countries to your website most. Using this feature will also allow you to see what keywords users are searching for most when they land on your website from around the globe.Â
Linkbuilding:Â
Identifying local partners for link-building opportunities will also play a big part in global SEO efforts. Using regional online publications and directories are also a must as these will help with providing links to your website.
The links these publications and directories use within the content will also be written in the language of the region you are working with. Using PR campaigns with high quality regional outlets will also benefit you and your business when developing a global SEO strategy.
Localised Analytics and Performance Monitoring:
Using tools such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will help track your performance across the world and the regions you are specifically targeting. Using the location tool within GA4 will help you measure success with your SEO strategy.
GA4 will help you define key successes for each market whether you are looking to sell more products, generate enquiries or improve website traffic using analytical tools will help you determine how successful your SEO efforts were.
Conclusion:
The key things to remember when you’re developing a global SEO strategy are keyword research, market demand and website optimisation. Make sure that these three things are the core focuses of your strategy, as they will determine the success of your global SEO campaign.Â
