Whether your business already operates in multiple territories or has plans to expand abroad, it’s important to choose the best international website setup for your needs. Doing so will not only save your business a potential admin headache down the line, but also a financial one.
But why does your website require an international setup in the first place?
International SEO
To understand why your business needs an international website setup, it’s important to first understand how search engines like Google crawl, index and present websites to different audiences.
The goal of a search engine is to present the most relevant, useful and authoritative content to its users. The content that a user deems to be relevant, useful and authoritative changes, however, depending on their language and country that they’re searching from.
For example, someone searching for a shoe retailer in France will be presented with a very different set of results to someone searching in the UK. This is because Google understands that someone searching in France will want to browse websites written in their native language, offering products or services that are available to them at competitive prices. Presenting websites written in another language, or websites offering products unavailable in their market, would result in a bad search experience for the user.
Therefore businesses looking to trade in another market will need to ensure their website is optimised for each respective audience. Doing so will require making sure their site is multi-regional (one that targets users in different countries who speak the same language, such as the UK and the USA) or multilingual (one that offers content in more than one language).
Much like a website requiring SEO in their country to rank organically for their target keywords, a multi-regional or multilingual site will need an international SEO strategy to perform strongly.
The first step, and the topic of this blog post, is choosing the optimal international website setup.
What international website setups exist?
There are three main options for building a website that can perform well organically overseas:
- Subfolders
- Separate Domains
- International subdomains
Subfolder
The first option available to businesses looking to expand abroad is the ‘Subfolder’ route. This option involves having the company domain sit on a .com generic top level domain (gTLD), as this is the industry standard for international sites.
The website would then require separate subfolders on the domain to target different markets, such as:
These country-specific subfolders serve as a signal to Google that they are aimed at different markets. However, this is not enough.
Each subfolder also requires the appropriate hreflang tag attributes to be implemented to avoid being seen by Google as duplicated, even if it is translated into different languages. Hreflang tag attributes explicitly tell Google which language you are using on a specific page, so the search engine can serve that result to users searching in that language. For example, the following hreflang tag attributes tell Google that the page is aimed at a US audience (hence ‘en-us’).
<link rel=”alternate” href=”https://ift.tt/1tgeQSF; hreflang=”en-us” />
While search engines like Google are incredibly adept at understanding the content on a page, they still require information about localised versions of your pages to be able to differentiate them.
A great example of a website utilising this approach is Nike.com. The global sportswear giant has chosen to offer content for each of its markets on the .com gTLD, with the content for each territory being available on a country-specific subfolder with the correct hreflang tag attributes implemented.
An image showing the international site options available on Nike.com.
Subfolder Advantages
- There may be less technical management and overhead costs in the long-term e.g. hosting.
- Each country-specific subfolder will inherit authority from other subfolders on the same gTLD, meaning any backlinks earned for one market will benefit another, albeit less so. Each country-specific subfolder would still need country and language specific backlinks.
Subfolder Disadvantages
- While the subfolder option works for certain businesses, it’s important to remember that a brand name, especially those with exact match domains (EMDs), do not always translate well into other languages. Website names that hold little meaning in a foreign market will likely struggle to achieve strong organic rankings, let alone receive a positive click-through rate (CTR).
- Having a multi-site approach means that all sites can be edited from the same CMS, which can be confusing and result in mistakes being made. Moreover, a singular data breach could affect the business’ service offering in every territory.
Separate Domain
The second option available for websites expanding into new markets is to create an entirely separate domain for that market.
For example, a standard UK business may have their current website like the following:
The ‘co.uk’ is known as a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), meaning its purpose is to indicate the market in which a country is supposed to be ranking. While this helps the website rank well in that particular market, it also makes it near impossible for it to be seen in other countries.
For this reason, a business looking to expand overseas will need to either migrate to a ‘.com’ gTLD, or purchase a new ccTLD, such as:
A good example of a business using the ccTLD route is Flixbus. Similarly to the subfolder option, the website would need to implement hreflang tags between the two sites to ensure that Google and other search engines view the content on each site as intended for different audiences.
An image showing the hreflang tag set up for Flixbus
It’s important to bear in mind, however, that subfolders targeting different territories cannot be built on a ccTLD.
Separate Domain Advantages
- Content can be prioritised and the site can be launched with only key content as opposed to risking having a half translated subfolder.
- Having separate domains offers the option of different content management systems to avoid confusion. It is also possible to manage several key pages, such as the homepage, across both websites
- Hosting the international site on its local ccTLD will boost its local ranking signals and increase its potential for ranking well in the target market
- The overseas audience may be particularly favourable to ccTLD’ websites, as they see it as a trustworthy signal. Germany is one such example.
- If your brand name means little to the foreign market, having a separate domain with a country-specific brand name will likely give you a higher chance of market entry success.
Separate Domain Disadvantages
- More costly in the short-term to build and host a new domain.
- There are key customer service and market entry considerations that would need to be reviewed; address, customer service team, telephone number etc.
- The domain will need to build authority from scratch.
- Links will need to be built for each site separately, meaning that building authority in a new market will take longer.
Subdomain
Subdomains are parts of the larger domain that can be treated separately, much like having different subfolders for different markets. The typically site in front of the main domain, such as uk.companyname.com.
Some CMS tools or proxies default to this behaviour, so it’s been a popular technique for many international websites.
A business can decide to use subdomains to target its content to different markets, as long as it uses the correct href lang tag attributes to help search engines serve the content to the correct markets.
A good example of a business using the subdomain route is Gymshark.
An image showing the homepage for Gymshark’s German site – de.gymshark.com
One caveat – you cannot create subdomains targeting other countries on a ccTLD.
Subdomain Advantages
- The default for some CMS tools
- Has some connection to the current SEO authority of the main website, which can aid performance when launching in a new country
Subdomain Disadvantages
- Subdomains are considered as a separate entity to the parent domain for links
- No automatic association with the target country, unlike ccTLDs.
- Not a common use of language targeting, which might confuse users.
A summary of each option can be found in the table below:
A table showing the pros and cons of each website setup option
Conclusion
Deciding on which solution is best for your business depends on a wide range of criteria. If your existing site sits on a UK ccTLD, it might be best to purchase the equivalent ccTLD in your target market to avoid a costly website migration to a .com gTLD.
However, if you plan on expanding to multiple territories and would like to share any authority built across each country, it may be best to choose the subfolder route. Moreover, the subdirectory route can also be less costly than purchasing and hosting numerous ccTLDs.
The subdomain route offers similar benefits to the subdirectory route, yet Google and other search engines appear to not pass on authority to subdomains. It also doesn’t benefit from the advantages of the separate domain route, making it perhaps the least attractive of the three options.
In any case, choosing the best website setup for international is the first step to optimising for International SEO. If you’re interested in learning more about the opportunities available for your business, contact our team of international SEO specialists today.
The post How to choose a website setup for International SEO appeared first on Impression.
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