Local search is really taking off worldwide, with Google expected to deliver around 500 million local search results every day by the end of 2017.

That’s great for the corner store and the local dentist, but I can’t help but ask, ‘Why settle for that when you can go for a bigger share of the 3.5 billion searches Google handles every day?’

This is especially true if you are trading in items that can ship anywhere in the world, as in the case of affiliate marketers.

Let’s face it global SEO is the way to go if you want to capture an international audience for your affiliate marketing business.

Take a look at what global SEO is all about and how you can use it to increase your online visibility and, ultimately, sales.

What’s the Difference?

There are a few obvious differences when it comes to applying global SEO to your existing site.

However, each of these has its own complexities that you need to consider.

Language

I see you rolling your eyes. While a different language may seem obvious, it’s not just a matter of translation.

Let’s say that you decide to keep things simple and target only English-speaking countries.

Even these have different intricacies when it comes to spelling and language.

US English differs considerably from UK English in that regard.

Currency is another aspect that differs from country to country.

Users don’t want to look up the exchange rate when considering whether to purchase your products or not.

Besides, English isn’t as global as you think, with 7/8ths of the world communicating in a different language.

Don’t even think about using Google Translate or getting your cousin, who has taken an online course in Spanish, to do it. It won’t work.

Every language has its own intricacies, and you need a professional translator to help you go global.

Fortunately, there are plenty of them around, but get references before you enlist their services.

Do I have to tell you to check your spelling multiple times before going live?

Culture

Words do not have the same meanings and connotations in every language either.

If you’ve ever seen one of those images featuring humorous direct translations from Chinese to English, you’ll know what I mean.

Humor itself is defined differently across the globe.

What Americans find funny, other nations may regard as extremely offensive or simply not understand.

Domain Name

To get the best results out of global SEO, it pays to have different domain names for each country you want to target.

The first prize is to use a Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) for each site.

If you are using one of the generic domains, such as .com or .net, you can set up subdomains such as uk.yourwebsite.com or subdirectories e.g., yourwebsite.com/uk.

Hosting

When it comes to customer satisfaction, online speed is key.

Find a web hosting company with a data center in your targeted country or at least next door to make sure your site loads quickly.

It’s Not All About Google

Google remains the dominant search engine worldwide by a massive margin.

You will be surprised to learn that it isn’t the first choice all over the world though.

Chinese and Japanese-speaking internet users prefer Yahoo.

Baidu is the favorite in mainland China where Google is blocked, Russians use Yandex, and Naver is the leader in South Korea.

Social Media in Foreign Lands

While social media integration does not affect organic search, it does present opportunities to advertise your business both directly and by means of sharing.

Other search engines may react differently, interpreting social signals before determining your position on their SERP. Baidu is one of these.

Also, while Google + Facebook and the like are suited to US audiences, in China, the top social media site is Sina Weibo.

Getting Started with Global SEO

All SEO is made up of four components regardless of the country it is targeted at.

These are:

Technical aspects
Useful content
High-quality inbound links
Results analysis

Let’s take a brief look at all of these, step by step.

Research Remains the Basis of All SEO

The first step towards global SEO is finding out if your site is already receiving international traffic.

You can do this with Google Analytics‘ Geo reports in the audience section. You can also filter by location in Google Webmaster Tools’ Search Queries.

This will give you an idea of which countries to target first and which ones will need more work.

Picking Keywords

Next, take a look at the potential of each country with some keyword research.

Check out which keywords brought these international visitors to your site and put them into Google keyword planner to find out the following:

Organic search volume per keyword per country
How much competition is there for these keywords per country?
Your rankings for these keywords in your target markets

Remember to switch to the keyword tool used by the top search engine for that country if appropriate.

Choosing Your Target

SuggestMrX and SEMRush are useful tools for researching keywords, with the ability to select several different countries and languages.

From there, you should be able to target countries with enough organic searches for reasonably competitive keywords to make your global SEO efforts worthwhile.

If it is proving too difficult to benefit from targeting a specific country, you could aim for a particular language instead.

This will give you greater reach as long as it does not impact any other factors of your business, such as shipping.

Once you have decided on your keywords and target market, you can seek out a local translator, set up your domains and subdomains, and have a look at your competition.

SimilarWeb can help you to identify competing sites in different countries.

It’s time to set up your global SEO strategy.

Localizing Your Page Elements for Global SEO

The following elements of your page should be optimized for your new keywords in the relevant language:

URLs
Titles and meta descriptions
Navigation and menu items
Headings
Main information in the body of the pages
Customer reviews
Prices
Contact details if possible

Remember it is important to optimize your images and ALT descriptions for global SEO too.

Related reading: Image SEO in 10 easy steps

Don’t forget your help desk needs to be understood by your new audience too.

Customer support can be a tricky area unless you are prepared to hire someone who talks the local lingo to answer the phone.

Online support systems like Zendesk offer machine translations, while Gengo’s API can be configured accordingly.

You are going to need the help of a local language translator to make sure that all this makes sense.

Be sure to pick one that is well-versed in SEO principles so that they can help you with the next stage too.

Building Links

If your existing links are making use of internationally recognized sites, you don’t have to do too much except make sure that the anchor texts are optimized correctly.

Adding new credible links is where you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Your translator can help with this by finding credible sites with similar information to the ones you used on your original site.

Barring the technical details, that’s pretty much it, except you get to go through it all again every time you add a new product, blog, or page.

Just like with your original site, great fresh content will attract the attention of search engines all over the world.

The key to global SEO, as with garden-variety SEO, is to have patience.

Give your tactics time to work before you go changing things around.

That brings us to the final and one of the most important principles of Global SEO.

Measure It

You won’t know if your SEO strategy is working unless you take steps to find out.

Keep checking your metric reports regularly to gauge what is working and where you can improve.

Any SEO is an ongoing process, and the search engines move the goalposts almost every day.

That’s what makes it so rewarding when you get it right.

Consistent, careful, and intelligent work will reap rewards.

Benefits of Global SEO

Some of the benefits of global SEO you can look forward to include:

It can be easier to rank for some keywords
Less local competition
Favorable exchange rates in some cases
Increased web traffic
Greater exposure for your e-commerce business
A much bigger target audience

Stick to it, and while your business may not become the next big international trader, you are bound to see some positive results over time.

One Last Thing

Before you go about duplicating your website in other languages, make sure it is working properly.

You don’t want to go copying errors across and have to change them on multiple sites later.

The aim of global SEO is to reach a large market cost-effectively.

Getting it right from the outset will ensure you don’t run into extra costs after your initial outlay.

Have you tried going global with your affiliate marketing website, and if so, what techniques worked for you?

Join the conversation in the comments section below.

The Basics Of Global SEO