If search engine optimisation is first and foremost on your mind, as it should be and you are offering an international service or product then it is imperative to give search engines something to work with. This means creating a website websites that are multilingual.

What this entails is creating a website or websites in different languages. What is involved is first of all taking cognisance of factors such as site structure, language and geographic targeting as well as how you organise your content.

Site structure

You first need to consider whether it is beneficial to source country specific top-level domains for each country you plan to target. This means that besides the extension being country specific, for example (love.za) your domain name should be language specific too for example (liefde.za). Keep in mind that someone who speaks another language other than English will be searching in their native language and probably won’t be using English.

This option is what is called geo targeting. Geo targeting is a method known for its benefit of reaching a wider audience and also in terms of SEO. Registering domains that are specific to a particular country will also communicate to searchers that your site is local and in doing so can help build trust.

Yet this is an expensive exercise plus it becomes a nightmare to maintain multiple domains. If you are working with limited resources or budget you might want to explore the option of buying one non-country specific domain which can host all versions of your website. Having on URL can also work in your favour from an advertising point of view by allowing your visitors a chance to see how many countries you operate in. This can create an impression that your service or products are successful and far reaching.

You will then place language specific content into different sub domains. While this works fine for SEO and readers there is a simpler way. This is to place language specific content into different sub directories. Sub directories are even easier to maintain.

Sub domain = (uk.domain.com)
Sub directory = (domain.com/uk).

Geographic targeting vs. language targeting

Geographic targeting entails content that targets specific regions worldwide. Using various tools you can set geographic targets for different sub directories and sub domains. For example (/uk/) indicates United Kingdom while (/za/) indicated South Africa.

However if you want to reach all speakers of a particular language living in different countries you won’t want to tie yourself into a specific geographic location. this is known as language targeting.

Content organisation

The identical content written in different languages is not considered duplicate content by search engines. Yet you still need to be organised. If you have followed the site structuring then this should be fairly easy. Try to avoid mixing languages on your WebPages. This may confuse the spiders not to mention readers. Keep your navigation the same as your content too.

If you need to check how many of your pages are written in a specific language you can do a language specific site search.

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