Understanding National And International SEO
The majority of business owners with an online presence focus on local SEO. While this type of SEO has plenty of benefits, it also limits your audience significantly. Of course, it’s important to do a thorough evaluation of your business to determine whether your product or service caters to a larger audience outside of your local area. If it does, then it’s time to start thinking about national or even international SEO to take your brand and business to the next level. Here’s what you need to understand about the different types of SEO beyond local SEO.
Focal Points Of National SEO
National SEO is all about optimizing your website so it has a high ranking nationwide. You can put your business against some of the biggest competition across the country instead of only going against local companies. You’ll still benefit from keeping your local SEO strategy, but your national SEO strategy can put your company over the top. With national SEO, you want to focus on a couple of points in your campaign.
The first point to focus on is your brand. Before you start your national SEO campaign, think about your company name and branding as a keyword people might use. You might have already done this research if you have had a local SEO strategy, so you could get away with just making a few tweaks to make it more attractive to a national audience. Your competition will now be national brands instead of just local businesses, so you have to think above and beyond to compete with them.
The second point to focus on is keywords. With local SEO, you might have focused on geographical terms so your company shows up in local online searches. But when you go national, you have to focus more on broad keywords. The challenge with this is your competition will likely be using broad keywords as well, so you have to be strategic with the ones you choose to distinguish your company on a national level.
Why Your Company Needs National SEO
You need to take a close look at your company’s profits, website traffic, and other factors to determine whether a national SEO strategy is right for your company. When you’ve experienced success with your business in one area, the idea of expanding to other locations might be intriguing. At that point, it’s time to start looking closely at national SEO instead of focusing solely on local SEO.
Let’s say you have multiple locations across the country. Having a foundation of local SEO for each location is important before jumping into creating a national SEO strategy. In other words, if your local SEO strategy isn’t working for you, then chances are the national SEO strategy won’t either. But once you’ve set a solid foundation with local SEO, then it’s time to think on a national scale to fully maximize your business potential.
Types Of Keywords To Boost National SEO
Keywords for national SEO need to be broader so they can relate to a larger audience. Broad keywords are typically more difficult to obtain a high ranking with because most other national companies will be using them as well. Long-tail keywords you might use in a local SEO strategy include “best lawn care services near me.” You might be one of the top results locally, but that likely won’t be the case nationally when using broad keywords. Those keywords might be more general, like, “best lawn care services.” Now you’re not just competing with the lawn care service down the street. You’re competing with similar services across the country. You can boost your national SEO ranking by implementing detailed strategies and working with national SEO experts to boost your brand.
Things To Consider With International SEO
International SEO is much more than just a website translated into different languages. Once you begin gaining customers from other countries, you should tailor your content to them and give them the best experience possible so they will keep coming back. Website localization is something to strongly consider to maximize your international SEO. The key concepts of website localization are to display your website in the primary language the user speaks, as well as alter the currency, time region, and contact information specific to where the user is located. Not only will this make coming to your website more convenient to the user, but it will also give them more trust in your brand.
Implementing International SEO
Implementing international SEO can be the tricky part. Every international SEO strategy should focus heavily on content. You can choose to display your content based on geo-targeting, language, or a combination of the two. The difference is whether you simply want to translate your current website or if you want to create a separate storefront on your website for international customers. This is where having an SEO expert is valuable since they can make recommendations based on where your traffic is coming from.
A few other international SEO strategies to consider include setting up a URL structure that’s geared to international SEO, using hreflang tags, and localizing content in specific countries. These are all strategies you could consider on your own or simply leave them in the hands of an SEO expert since they might understand all of the technical aspects a little better.
Technical Aspects Of International SEO
Speaking of technical aspects of international SEO, a few of them you’ll need to think about include your website’s structure, the location of the server, and implementing hreflang correctly. Your website structure depends primarily on whether you want to target a specific country or a specific language regardless of the country. You will need to choose from using subfolders, subdomains, or top-level domains for your international website structure.
The location of the server plays an instrumental role in international SEO rankings. The farther away your server is, the slower the website speed will be, which will lead to a poor user experience. These are things that are taken into consideration for SEO rankings, so using a CDN is often the best approach to take.
Hreflang tags cross-reference different pages that have specific targeted audiences and have similar content. These have to do with displaying the correct website language based on the user and where they are visiting the website from. Not using the appropriate hreflang tags can hurt your international SEO significantly.
The Role Of Backlinks In National And International SEO
Whether your focus is on national or international SEO, backlinks are a vital part of your ranking. Google sees backlinks as a sign that your website is a trustworthy resource for information and will boost your ranking accordingly. If you take two websites with the same quality of posts and content, but one has backlinks and the other doesn’t, the one with backlinks should get a better SEO ranking.
There are various strategies you can use to get quality backlinks and you can be as creative as you want to be. A common strategy is to build relationships with other content creators from non-competing websites and share links with one another. The one thing you want to avoid is including an abundance of backlinks to websites that aren’t trustworthy. By doing so, you’ll hurt your SEO ranking because Google wants to see that every page you link to is at least as reputable as yours.
Work With SEO Experts To Expand Your Brand
Whether you’re ready to take the jump and focus on national or international SEO, working with SEO experts to expand your brand can expedite the process. With so many different factors that go into an SEO ranking, you could be spending all of your time working on it. And when you do so, other aspects of your business could suffer in the process.
WebNet Marketing Studio helps clients develop the right SEO strategy whether they want to remain local or expand nationally or internationally. We will consider all aspects of your business now and your plans for the future to determine the best course of action. Our team will work with you every step of the way to ensure everyone is on the same page and you can build your trust in us along the way. To learn more about how we can help expand your business, contact us at any time.
