How can I get a better international ranking in one or more countries?

Today’s Ask an SEO column is a 2-to-1 special treatment related to ranking issues in multiple countries/regions.

Paz from Ahmedabad asked:

“A client of mine wants to use the .uk domain name for ranking in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South America. Should I advise them to continue using the .uk domain or launch a new website? They are looking for better opportunities from the United Kingdom The state recruits teachers”

Dezsoe of Frankfurt, Germany also raised a similar question:

“My website will not be ranked in the United States, only in Germany. What should I do to rank globally?”

Although these questions are not exactly the same, they are related because they deal with the same factors and answers.Let’s dive in and talk International search engine optimization.

How do search engines view international rankings?

When determining which country/region is the right audience for a website, search engines consider a number of signals, including:

• language.
• Domain extension and/or URL structure.
• Hreflang tags.
• Other tags (HTML language, etc.).
• The location where the URL is hosted.
• Country targeting in Google Search Console.
• Website link.
• The actual content on the website.

When checking why a certain website does not appear in a certain country, we need to look at the combination of all the above factors.

We also need to look at the website from the user’s point of view.

Many American searchers will not buy from another country unless this is the only place they can buy. Consider from the user’s point of view.

Why don’t you go for faster shipping? Why don’t you support “Made in [your country here]”?

Some business models may not be able to rank in all countries, no matter how bad you want to rank.

The first question to ask is: “As a user, is this the result I want?”

Usually, the answer is no.

However, for this article, we assume that this is the result the user wants.

Once we know that this is a useful result for users in that country, we are responsible for ensuring that our website conveys that information.

This usually means creating specific content for that user’s language/country combination. This is where the hreflang tag comes in.

Let us answer each of the above questions in detail.

Ranking in multiple countries

Parth, your website can run normally using only the .uk domain name.

If I set this up, I will Specific language/country/region page For teachers in these areas.Each will be full of resources specific to visa and immigration issues, cost of living differences, and the pros and cons of teaching in your home country versus teaching in the UK

I will carefully optimize these parts according to my situation Keyword Research And key terms, and make sure I set all the correct hreflang tags in the right places.

See Dan Taylor’s Implement hreflang on multilingual websites learn more.

Ranking in a specific international destination

Dezsoe, thank you for including your website. I took a look, and the good news is that I did see that you rank some of your key terms in US searches.

I noticed that you have made some changes and started optimizing your website. These changes seem to be working.

you have HTML lang attribute Set up, this is a good first step.

Next, if you want to rank here, please try to add some content about international shipping, and you can even add some US-based pricing for your products.

Given that it is a specific single product site, if you create a U.S. site with a non-country/region specific (or U.S. specific) domain extension, it might even be better (for customers, not just SEO ).

This way, you can update all contact information, pricing, shipping, etc. to be U.S. specific. If you do this, you can set the hreflang tag.

Looking at your German information, pricing, etc. will make me a little hesitant to buy from the United States

If you really want to sell (and rank) in different markets, you need Create content Facing that market.

Key points

Technically, any URL extension can be ranked in any country.

However, sometimes it makes sense to have a separate site based on the country/region and your specific customer base.

When it comes to countries like China and Russia, there are still a lot of strange legal issues worth studying, but that is another article.

No matter which URL solution you decide to use, make sure your Language positioning with hreflang tag It’s all set up correctly, and you have content that is useful to the people of that country, including pricing, contact information, and anything useful to their region/language.

Do this in a clear way, and Google should solve all problems well.

More resources:

Featured image: Shutterstock / svetlichniy_igor