International SEO Tips
Websites that need an international presence in countries where different languages are spoken would ideally own a country code top level domain for every version of their website, coupled with local hosting.
Registering an additional top level domain is not always a viable option: Some countries apply very restrictive requirements and most companies can’t afford all the expenses related to domain registration and local website hosting.
What many webmasters do is creating folders for pages in different languages (www.example.com/it/), or even better use sub domains like www.it.example.com (hopefully Page Titles, menu items and noscript content will be in the new language too.)
More important than the URL structure is page content. Translating the original content isn’t enough for multilingual SEO.
International SEO Localisation (and Localization)
It’s not just a matter of spelling: Content needs to be localised in terms of language and communication style that can differ from culture to culture. What can make a difference in SEO terms is localisation in keyword research.
Translating keywords would be a terrible mistake. Keyword research must be carried out by people that can understand the language, preferably by native speakers.
Other on page activities helpful in indicating the geolocation of your pages are the declaration of the primary language for each Web page with the lang attribute in the tag (<html lang=”it-IT”>) and using the meta language tag (<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”it”>.)
Set a geographic target on Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools gives you an opportunity to specify your target audience. Under Site configuration settings you can select your Geographic target or leave it as Unlisted to tell Google that your website isn’t associated with any country.
Submit multiple XML Sitemaps
Google Webmaster Tools lets you submit more than one Sitemap on the same domain. By creating Sitemaps for different subfolders or subdomains (uploading them on the specific root folder like example.com/it/sitemap-it.xml), you can then verify them and select the appropriate country setting.
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