Multi-Lingual SEO for Global Brands
You may have a rock solid English language SEO strategy that was developed by either your in-house experts or your search agency. Undoubtedly, that strategy likely involves optimizing for Google, Bing, and Yahoo! and keeping tabs on whatever it is Matt Cutts has to say.
But if your brand is truly a global one, how are you making sure that you are effectively communicating to your global audience? Making assumptions that most people outside the US and Canada speak English, or that translation services are good enough, may not be the best route. Sure, optimizing your site in English and then translating your content effectively is better than nothing. In fact, if your brand has certain resource constraints, this may be all you’re really able to handle. However, let’s look a little further, and think about some options for your brand if you do have the resources.
- What are the primary search engines within your non-English speaking target market(s)? Like the US and Canada, Google is still the top search engine for many other countries. If so, then that makes the process much easier.
- Does your target market have several distinct dialects? If so, can you pinpoint a geographical area from which most of your consumers are based and nail down that specific dialect?
Let’s look at Brazil and Russia as examples, answer the questions above for each, and recommend a strategy for multi-lingual SEO:
SEO Strategy for Brazil
- Portuguese is the official language of Brazil
- The southern region, where the two major cities Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo are located, speak a different Portuguese dialect than other parts of the country. This southern region is where a large number of our client’s customers (and potential customers) reside.
- Google is the search engine of choice for Brazilians.
If you, or your Search Agency, don’t have the language expertise, we would suggest finding an agency partner who has direct experience performing Portuguese language keyword research and content optimization. You know your client, and know the overall strategy, so being the strategic lead is still recommended.
SEO Strategy for Russia
- Russian is the official language.
- Yandex is the search engine of choice for Russians.
- Optimizing for Yandex is a bit different than optimizing for Google.
As with Brazil, we would also suggest finding an agency partner with direct experience performing Russian language keyword research and content optimization. However, since Yandex is the search engine of choice in Russia, that agency partner should also come with experience optimizing for Yandex. Once again, you should still command the strategic lead for the client with support from the partner agency.
At Intrapromote, we have experience partnering with other agencies (when we need to) to tackle SEO strategy for a multi-lingual and foreign search engine campaigns. Let us know how we can help with your global SEO strategy.
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A Few Good Links: Why Qualitative Link Development Is Worth Your Time
Most people don’t realize that the movie, “A Few Good Men,” is actually an elaborate metaphor for Search Engine Optimization. For instance, if written literally, the now famous court room scene would sound a little different.
SEO Consultant: You want answers?
Webmaster: I think I’m entitled!
SEO Consultant: You want answers!?
Webmaster: I want a lot of links!
SEO Consultant: You can’t handle that many links! The truth is that you can build as many links your as pretty little SPAM bot wants. But your link profile ain’t worth a bucket of sand in the desert if your links aren’t relevant to your site’s content!
Admittedly, that may be a stretch, but I took a couple of literature criticisms classes in college, so you’ll just have to trust my interpretation.
The truth is, link building with a big number in your head from the start is asking for trouble. While link popularity goes a long way in helping sites rank well in search results, that doesn’t mean you can afford to confuse link popularity with link quantity. Paying a company $99 for 2,000 links or spending your own countless hours upon hours getting your link numbers up may in fact get you more links. But that won’t necessarily get you want you really want: traffic, rankings, and conversions.
Few site owners run around bragging about how many links they have when no one’s coming to their site.
Instead of spending all that time quantifying your link profile, a more targeted link building strategy focused on getting links in the right places will build the quality of your link profile while also increasing rankings, traffic, and conversions.
Here’s how.
1. A Few Good Links Go a Long Way
So what is a good link? My co-worker here at Intrapromote, Bobby Pham, has a great blog series that answers this question in detail: “What Makes a Good Link” In short, a well-placed link can give your site algorithmic value. The quantity of links is not the only thing that matters. Link Relevancy, an important variable in search algorithms, determines how relevant the sties in your link profile are to your site’s content. That means if you have a site that sells dog toys, you are liable to get more value if your site has links on other sites relevant to dog toys like sites for pet shelters, pet product e-commerce sites, or blogs from breed enthusiasts to name a few examples.
2. Targeted Backlinks Focus on a Targeted Audience
“These days—our water coolers are increasingly virtual—there are many different ones, and the people who gather around them are self-selected. We are turning from a mass market back to a niche nation, defined now not by our geography but by our interests.” Chris Anderson from his book, The Long Tail.
So who would visit a site about breeding Dalmatians? People who are interested in in Dalmatians. While that answer seems obvious, it marks a change in how businesses can market their site’s content to drive traffic and conversions. A well placed link can also greatly increase traffic since users who might visit a website about Dalmatian breeding may be interested in visiting your website to buy a dog toy. A well-placed link on relevant site exposes your site to users who are deeply invested in the content topics and products that your site offers. That can translate into an increase in traffic and conversions.
3. Building Organic Link Popularity and Relevancy
Having a target audience in mind is only the tip of the iceberg. Interested users participate in niche groups by creating, sharing, and commenting on content in various communication portals like blogs or social networking sites. In that process, interested users are creating a trail of links along the way on pages with relevant content. For example, the Dalmation breeder blogger posts a reaction to an article on your site (you sells dog toys, remember?).
For this purpose, three types of users read the blog post:
User 1: The animal welfare advocate with a blog. User 1 clicks through to the article on your dog toy site, and likes it so much that he also posts a reaction to the article with a link to your site included in the post. Many of his readers, who are interested in animal care, click through to your site generating traffic.
User 2: An avid Facebook user with pets. User 2 clicks through to the article and shares your site’s content with his Facebook friends. Many of these friends own pets since interested individuals coalesce in online communities as Chris Anderson discussed in the above quote. Some of his friends click through to your site and share the article with their friends. Some, who have a blog, post it to their site (building more links and generating more traffic).
User 3: A casual reader/Dalmatian owner. User 3, the casual reader (making up the highest percentage of users), simply visits your site. While no more extra links are created by User 3, a little more traffic will not hurt.
While the above situation is hypothetical, marketing your content on relevant websites puts your links in front of interested users who are more likely to visit your site and share your site with other interested users. This takes time and effort, but building relevant links and generating traffic from niche sites can bolster rankings moreso than methods more focused on your overall link count.
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Optimizing For Google In 2012
At a recent client meeting, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation that was being given by a Google employee to the client’s team of local and regional marketers. The presentation was about How To Optimize For Google In 2012 and included some interesting info on some of the new features that are going to be rolled out later on in 2012.
According to the presentation, a successfully optimized website in 2012 will leverage four marketing pillars atop a foundationally sound website. I will go into each of these tactics separately below:
Organic + Paid Search: The basis for a successful website starts with an optimized site that is easily crawled and indexed. With right around 70% of clicks going to organic results, having optimized title tags, meta-descriptions, etc. is required and lays the foundation for your website’s representation on a results page. Within the organic space there are a myriad of new features that webmasters will be able to implement including everything from new social signals to rich micro-data thanks to schema.org. (See Caleb Dann’s recent post on that.) Now, Google is rolling out the display of schema.org content vertical by vertical (you can see that recipes and sports have been rolled out already). In any case, all of the search engines have agreed that this code will benefit your site by having the code on your site by the time they roll out the display to your vertical. So it definitely doesn’t hurt to have schema code up and ready to go.
Paid Search will also see some additions as well. Just as a disclaimer here: I was told that some of the new features I’m about to talk about are currently in the alpha or beta stage, so I make no guarantees these will be released at all. Even then the presenter confirmed that these features would be rolled out on a vertical-by-vertical basis as well (similar to how recipe searches are among the best examples of Schema.org-based rich markup). The two new cool features I saw included the ability to embed a video into your paid result, such as a commercial for your product or service. The next feature, much like the “Call” button you’ll see on your phone that allows you to call a business by simply clicking on the link, is a “Call Me” link. This link will create a pop-up that will allow you to anonymously submit your phone number to a business, allowing the next available customer service rep to call your already interested customer!
Google Places & Reputation Management: There has been steady growth in the amount of searches on Google containing “geo modifiers”, or the name of a city, town or street within the query string. I think it’s been well documented how a well run Places campaign can not only help your website, but your overall business as well. The most noteworthy item I found in this part was how much emphasis Google puts on “trust”. So say your Places page receives a horrible review from a customer. Google will find your site more “trustworthy” if the business responds kindly and respectfully to the negative review. “A successful response is more trustworthy than a good review.”
Speaking of negative reviews, reputation management was also a small part of the presentation. This part talked about 
how setting up a Google Alert for your company will help alert you as to when something regarding your company is added to Google. This way you can be proactive about addressing negative reviews/websites rather than being reactive.
YouTube: According to Google YouTube is now the second largest search engine, surpassing Bing and Yahoo. You’ll often notice when completing a search on Google that specific, long-tail queries will actually have the relevant YouTube video prominently displayed above any organic results. Having your own YouTube channel for your company with keyword-rich, unique content that solves someone’s problem is another great way to drive traffic to your site and build that “trust” Google is all about.
Social – Google+: This section discussed how, while Facebook and MySpace are social “networks”, Google is striving to create a social “web” through Google+. According to Google, social also matters when you’re searching. Google+’s ability to personalize results based on who Liked or +1’ed something is changing the way online marketers are approaching their work and it cannot be ignored. The big takeaway here: 71% of users are influenced by their family & friends. This applies not only to the way people buy but the way they surf the Internet as well.
Erik Dafforn has dissected the Google Plus Your World initiative in a recent blog post if you’re interested in learning more about how Google+ will affect your Google 2012 marketing efforts.
So does your website have its foundation and four pillars optimized for Google 2012? Better get going!
Learn what #Google says you need to know to optimize for search in 2012 – ow.ly/8ZDxM from @kyleSEO_IP
— Intrapromote (@intrapromote) February 10, 2012
What Makes a Good Link? Part 4 (PageRank)
In my first three posts of my blog series, I discussed the significance of the relevancy of the link, the age of a domain, and the ability to acquire the link.
Part 4: PageRank
Now it’s time to discuss a Foundational Link Building variable that finds itself in the center of several SEO & link building debates: PageRank (PR).
PageRank as defined by Wikipedia is: “A link analysis algorithm that is used by Google in which a numerical weight (ranging from 0-10) is assigned based on the relative importance of a page.” In other words, PR is a number assigned to a web page (note: “page”, not “site”) based on its relative importance and trust value.
As I mentioned earlier, the necessity of a high PR in acquiring high search rankings has been a constant debate since its inception. I am here to make an attempt to bring closure to this ongoing debate.
PR is old (in terms of Internet age), yet many SEOers still rely on it as a sole metric in link building and research. Doing so will only end in undesirable results. Google’s PR is not updated consistently and thus can display an inaccurate picture of a page’s actual value.
PageRank is calculated based on the linking popularity of the backlinks to a particular page. In other words, it examines the backlinks of “www.xyz.com,” the backlinks of those backlinks, and so forth (link popularity). After evaluating the backlinks within that detail, Google assigns a numerical value called PR. PageRank is excellent for calculating a page’s raw link popularity. However, it doesn’t take into consideration the relevancy of the link, the age of a domain, anchor text used, or if it’s a spam link.
Now that you have a solid comprehension of PR, I’ll show you how to actually apply your newfound knowledge of PageRank during your link building research.
As previously discussed, PR is on a scale of 0-10, or in some cases N/A (Download Google’s Toolbar to display a page’s PR). With the exception of a PR0, any PR is good (PR0 indicates that your page at one point had PR, but has since been demoted to a PR0 – which is not a good thing). Having any PR above 0 indicates that the page has link popularity. And getting a link from that page means you get some of that link popularity too!
Once you get around the PR4 – PR5 range, that page then has the ability to pass strong link value. And if you can somehow manage to get a link from a PR8 page like the homepage of the Economist, you’ll be on the receiving end of some powerful link popularity. So keep that in mind during your link research when you come across a page with PR7 or higher. Make sure to explore all white hat options in getting a link from that page!
Nonetheless, it’s important to remember that the PageRank of a page should not be the only factor to consider when doing link research and SEO. The anchor text, relevancy, age of the domain, popularity, and how well the site is currently ranking are all factors to be considered along with the PR of a page.
In Part 5 of “What Makes a Good Link,” I’ll discuss a factor that is often overlooked during the link research process: traffic value. Until then, keep looking for that relevant, aged, page with a PR4!
What makes a good link? Join @bmpham325 as he discusses #PageRank bit.ly/IPLDev1 #linkbuilding ^MLS
— Intrapromote (@intrapromote) February 3, 2012
Why Schema.org Markup Is The Microformatting Of Choice
The news of the top three search engines collaboratively recognizing Schema.org microformatting is not new. At least not in the world of search marketing, which sees regular change. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! announced last summer that they would all be recognizing Schema.org markup for search results. As with Schema.org, rich snippets are not new, but Schema.org markup should be considered the default format for the future.
The slightly bad news right now is the search engines are not yet recognizing microformatting across all verticals. That said, as the engines slowly roll out Schema.org microformatting across all verticals, it’s still a good idea to have your site ready. On the site, Schema.org has listed a complete hierarchy of categories for which they have microformatting instructions, even if engines don’t yet display rich snippets for certain categories in search results.
While microformatting won’t help your search engine rankings, it does enhance your results by providing users more information and promoting higher click-through rates (CTR). For instance, let’s look at some recipe results, specifically for bacon-wrapped scallops:
These are the first three results I was presented on a search engine results page (SERP). While the Cooks.com recipe ranked first, the following two are much more informative and eye-catching. The AllRecipes.com result provides an image, reviews, and cook time, and the Food.com results provides all that plus calorie count! While the second and third results aren’t first, their CTRs are likely quite high due to their enhanced appearance.
As I alluded to earlier, since the big three search engines are collaboratively supporting Schema.org, and even though they’ll continue to recognize other forms of rich snippets (such as hReview), we at Intrapromote believe Schema.org markup is the microformatting of choice.
If you’d like to enhance the search results for your site, or even if you’d like to prepare yourself for the future when the engines will begin providing rich snippets for your vertical, we would love to help you with the code!
@Calebdann discusses why Schema.org is the Microformatting of choice…and bacon is involved. bit.ly/IPSEO3 ^MLS #SEO
— Intrapromote (@intrapromote) February 1, 2012
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Featuring Content: Our Freshest Newsroom Contest Winner
Congrats to @ProcterGamble for winning our Freshest Newsroom Contest! Find out what makes them so “fresh” –> bit.ly/IPFresh ^MLS
— Intrapromote (@intrapromote) January 26, 2012
Congrats P&G! Freshest Newsroom Award Winner!
We’ve been conducting The Freshest Newsroom Contest for a few weeks now, and while there were many fine entries and two top contestants (Best Buy and CDC) we are bestowing the Virtual Blue Ribbon on the P&G Corporate Newsroom.
Dig just below the surface and P&G offers all of the typical news and multimedia archives a journalist would require. It’s this newsroom’s home page and its distinctive Featured Content theme that’s really worth a long look if your company is designing a newsroom.
- P&G gives busy users and journalists a quick take with their P&G Featured Views mini-slider. This preview mode provides short news snippets accompanied by meaningful images. Clicking through on any of these news previews shows the user a short news announcement with accompanying PDFs and resources provided as separate downloads. Printing, sharing and emailing icons are in plain view at the top of each article.
- On either side of the newsroom home page one finds a clean layout. The left navigation is short and self explanatory, and the right hand side of the page offers an uncluttered column containing a search box, list of media contacts, P&G social media links and the latest P&G tweets.
- Beneath the Featured Views section are the P&G Featured News Releases; presented in a similar format to Featured Views. This is a very user-friendly presentation that allows the user to see a variety of news pieces without scrolling. It’s not necessary to click through on most of the releases as they are succinctly summarized in the Featured summary.
- Completing the newsroom page layout is the P&G Featured Video. It is only 1:12 minutes long which is a perfect length to tell a story without losing the audience’s attention.
Congratulations P&G, our first annual Freshest Newsroom Award Winner!
