Basics
- Unique URLs per content version
- hreflang between pages
- Truly localized content per region
hreflang
- One of the most complex aspects of SEO
- You can stop ranking for your keywords (even brand terms) if you mess it up
- Sets language and optional geographic restrictions
- What: implements country and language targeting or language only
- How: Reciprocal links, self-referencing canonical (not to another language), hreflang to themselves
- Where: http headers, in
<head>, or in sitemap (not reliable and difficult to implement)
- Not every site needs it unless you can differentiate content
- Use consistent and standard URL patterns
Examples
Correct
<meta hreflang="en-ca">
<meta hreflang="en">
Incorrect
<!-- can't be country only -->
<meta hreflang="ca">
Testing
- Screaming Frog
- Search Console- international targeting report
- Lighthouse
Common Mistakes
- No unique URLs for content- Google won’t index
- Googlebot comes from US 99.9% of the time. If you see it from another country, it’s probably fake.
- Using 4 letter language codes (except Chinese: zh-Hans and zh-Hant). Language codes should be 2 characters.
- Creating duplicate content issues by not differentiating content
- “compelling differentiation”- more than just spellings (e.g., color → colour)
- Inspect the URL inside search console. See if the Google-selected canonical page is different from the one specified. This indicates a problem.
Differentiation
- Add country name to title
- Add name, address, phone number, social networks for the region to the footer
- Use local vendors and reviews
- Helps improve conversions as well
Perfect International IA
URLs
Methods
- ccTLD (e.g., site.ca)
- Expensive to deploy and maintain
- No SEO juice from main site
- subfolder (e.g., /ca)- Jackie’s favored option
- Can’t fully localize URLs
- subdomain ()
- No SEO juice
- Easier to maintain but still a separate site
Tips
- Lead with country in slug
- Use hyphen, not underscore
- Two folders is fine. No need to stick with only one.
- For language only:
site.com/lang/en
- Makes it easier to find in analytics
- Use ISO codes in URLs
- Makes it harder for Google to mess up
- Use a CDN
- Build mobile first
- Optimize for slowest market
- Suggest a redirect based on IP, but don’t force it
- Add all localized paths to search console
Optional
- Look for unique trends in search engine results page to speak to local users
- Translate URLs
=GOOGLETRANSLATE(A2, "en", "es") in spreadsheets to automatically translate