Tips for expanding your website into international markets, focusing on translations, SEO, and local payment solutions to increase your global reach.
Thomas Haurum
Are you considering taking your website or webshop international? Brilliant! Then this blog post is packed with gold nuggets you won’t want to miss – especially if you want the process to run as smoothly as possible, ensuring you don’t overlook important opportunities.
In this blog post, I will go in-depth on how to successfully expand your website internationally from an SEO perspective. There is plenty that can go wrong if you rush and do not have a clear, methodical plan and strategy in place.
There are also many factors to manage, and it’s impossible for me to cover them all in this blog post. Otherwise, I would likely lose your attention along the way, and you would miss the most crucial areas to focus on when internationalising your website.
First, you will gain insights into what is important within the 3 main SEO disciplines (Onpage, Offpage, and Technical), followed by some of my thoughts on what to include in your international strategy.
Ready to get an overview of the essential SEO elements you need to master before going live in a new country? Then read on below.
The technical aspects of SEO are especially important to get right before launching your website abroad. This is the backbone and foundation of your site, playing a significant role in your online success.
Imagine building a brand new, beautiful house. You have invested time and money to make it just as you want. You move in and all seems well for a few months. Suddenly, you discover the foundation isn’t strong enough, and you now need to invest even more time and money to get your house working optimally. Some damage may be irreparable, while other issues can be fixed with enough time and resources.
This is a good analogy for what can happen if your website’s technical foundation is not strong enough before you go live. If things don’t go to plan at the start, you will have to invest additional hours and money to fix issues later.
There is never a guarantee that all damage caused by technical shortcomings can be fully repaired. This can affect your organic Google rankings, the traffic your website receives, and consequently your leads.
I won’t cover every technical detail here, but I will highlight the most important ones to consider when internationalising your website.
If you would like an in-depth technical analysis of your site, or advice on developing or redesigning your current site, you can reach us on 70 44 42 91 or fill out our contact form here.
Another essential decision when going international is your website’s structure. There are several options, but in this blog post, I will focus on the three most commonly used solutions, explaining the basics and their pros and cons.
A ccTLD is a top-level domain that indicates a specific country or geographic location. This appears at the end of the URL, giving users a quick idea of where the website is based.
Here are examples of Danish, Swedish and English website versions:
Advantages:
Easy and natural targeting of language and country
Disadvantages/challenges:
May require separate websites/systems for each domain
Domain authority from links must be built for each domain individually
A gTLD (also called a top-level domain) is not linked to any country, unlike ccTLD. The most common endings are .com, .org, and .net, for example www.my-webshop.com
To indicate geographic location or country with a gTLD, you add it after the extension:
Advantages
Usually only one website/system needs to be maintained for the entire domain
Link authority is built to the main domain, benefitting all countries
Disadvantages/challenges
Does not naturally target languages and countries
With subdomains, the geographic location/country is placed at the start of the URL. For example:
Disadvantages/challenges:
Does not naturally target languages and countries (although this can be configured)
May require separate websites/systems for each subdomain
Authority, in principle, needs to be built for each subdomain
Hreflang is our way of telling search engines (typically Google) that our site contains multiple versions targeting different languages. This allows Google to show the correct language version to the right users – so, for example, people in England who speak English are not shown the Danish version.
If you want to target English speakers in both England and the USA, you can use hreflang tags to show users the most relevant site version for them.
You may think this is unnecessary since both countries speak English – so why not just show the same version? However, there are both small and significant linguistic differences depending on the country, even when the language is technically the same.
One example, which might seem trivial, is the difference in spelling color and colour. In England, it is ‘colour’, while in the USA, it is ‘color’. By writing in the language your users use every day, you increase your chances of conversion – your website will appear as familiar as the sites they visit regularly.
When you set up your hreflang tags, indicate the language using its ISO 639-1 code. To specify a region, use an ISO 31-66-1 alpha-2 code. For example, for England and the USA:
hreflang=”en-us” /> – USA
hreflang=”en-gb” /> – Great Britain
One of the most important things to remember when creating hreflang tags is that they must be included on all pages. Each version of your site (language) must reference all other versions, including itself.
If you have 15 different language versions of your website, each version must include 15 hreflang tags. Yes, even the language version must reference itself.
Hreflang tags are usually inserted directly into the source code. If you have many language versions, I recommend adding these to an XML sitemap. This prevents your website from slowing down due to a large volume of code in the source.
CDN stands for Content Delivery Network.
With a CDN, your users will not experience long loading times when visiting your website, regardless of where they are located. A CDN distributes your website across multiple servers worldwide, rather than relying on a single local server.
If you have or plan to launch websites in several countries, it is worth considering a CDN – with some exceptions.
If you are in Denmark and wish to launch a site in France, it does not make sense to set up a CDN, as the server distance is not significant and response times will not be affected.
However, if you are in Denmark and want to launch in the USA, it does make sense to consider a CDN, especially since you are moving further from Denmark to another continent, where response times would otherwise be negatively impacted.
Onpage SEO is everything that is directly on your site and under your control. This usually covers everything from optimising title tags and meta descriptions to the use and naming of internal links. You can read more about onpage SEO in the linked blog post.
For international SEO, I want to focus on your content, payment solutions and choice of currency.
When launching a new version of your website, it is important that all your current written content is migrated. If you wish to enter a new country or region, it goes without saying that your content must be translated.
I won’t go into lengthy detail here, but it is crucial that your content is translated accurately. Avoid Google Translate and instead team up with someone who speaks the language natively (or at a high level) to translate your texts.
This ensures your content is written in a language users can relate to, which leads me to the next point about language and dialect.
When translating your texts and generally writing for a new country or region, it is important to consider variations in language and dialect. The more users feel they are on a site they ‘know’ and can relate to linguistically, the more likely they are to convert.
You can achieve this by exploring the language’s variations and possible dialects. You might think English is “the same” whether you are in the USA or England, but in reality, it is different.
Take the earlier example of “color” vs “colour”. In England, it is “colour”, while in the USA, it is “color”. Does this really make a difference? Yes! People generally prefer what they are used to.
There are also differences in how French is spoken and written in France compared to Belgium, and so on.
This further underlines why I recommend working with a native speaker – you will get the best result.
When entering new countries, you must also consider which payment solutions are typically used and which currency users expect to see when shopping online.
In Denmark, the most popular payment methods are cards (typically Visa Dankort or Mastercard), MobilePay, PayPal and Apple Pay. However, there are often significant differences in which payment methods are available and in consumers’ habits across borders.
Check whether similar mobile payment solutions exist (e.g., Sweden has Swish), and whether consumers prefer to pay by card, PayPal or something else entirely.
In recent years, instalment solutions such as ViaBill and Klarna have grown rapidly in Denmark according to an article from finans.dk. It is therefore important to investigate whether this trend is present in your target country, and which solutions are commonly used.
It should be as easy and familiar as possible for users to convert on your site compared to your competitors.
Another thing to consider (especially for e-commerce sites) is which currency to display. In most cases, I recommend using the country’s own currency to make it easy for users to understand the price. If they have to convert currencies themselves, the likelihood of them leaving your site increases substantially.
If you already have a website, you probably already have a Google My Business profile. I won’t go into detail about what Google My Business is – you can read about it in my colleague Anders’ blog post here.
Instead, I want to highlight why it is important to consider your Google My Business profile when going live in a new country. Firstly, it makes it easier for users searching for your company to find details directly in Google.
This is beneficial as it shortens the process and reduces the steps needed for a user to find your information.
It also allows you to rank for local searches relevant to your services or products.
If you need advice on setting up Google My Business correctly in a new country, or want to get started, you can contact our SEO team here.
Link building is one of the biggest aspects of offpage SEO, and this applies internationally as well. Be aware that the level of competition may vary.
Denmark is a relatively small country compared to the USA, for example, so there can be a big difference in what works here versus countries with larger populations and more competition in terms of the number of domains.
Nevertheless, in most cases, you should focus on links as part of your international SEO strategy. It is crucial to thoroughly research which local media would be interesting to acquire links from and what your options are for obtaining these links.
If you use ccTLDs or subdomains (as discussed above), this is particularly important as link authority must be built for each domain individually.
We have covered a lot! If you’ve reached this point, I’m delighted, and I hope you now have a solid understanding of the SEO aspects to consider when taking your website international.
To keep this post from getting too lengthy, here’s a quick overview of what to consider when creating your international strategy content.
We’ve reached the end. I have covered many aspects of how to expand your website internationally. As mentioned, it is impossible to cover everything, as it will always depend on your specific situation.
Here is a summary of this blog post to refresh what you have learned:
If you feel there is a lot to consider, and it seems overwhelming, you are not alone.
But do not worry! At WeMarket, we are ready to guide you before, during, and after you enter a new market, to ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible.
Call us on 70 44 42 91 or fill out our contact form here – we are here to help you move forward!
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