Creating SEO-optimized content for a multi-lingual web site presents a whole new challenge for
SEO. Needing a multi-lingual site is a good problem to have. It usually means that you have customers
in multiple countries. However, it also means you have to double or triple your SEO efforts.
The good news is that optimizing your foreign-language web site is very much the same as optimizing
your English one. You just do it in a different language. Here are some guidelines that should
serve as reminders of what you should plan to do during the SEO process:
Translate keywords into the new language. In some cases, you won’t be able to translate
your keywords into a matching word in another language. In that case, you’ll need
to choose new keywords.
Translate existing web content. Again, translations can sometimes be squirrelly. Unless
you’re an expert in the language to which you’re translating, hire someone to do it for you.
A bad translation could cost you more in lost traffic than the services of a good translator.
Apply all of the same SEO rules to your foreign content that you’ve learned for your
English content. Just because the language is different doesn’t mean that the search
engine or the search engine crawler is any different.
Include the proper links both to and from your English site to your foreign-language
site, but also include the appropriate links to English on the foreign-language site.
Make language options clearly available on your web site. If these options are not clearly
marked, your foreign visitors could miss them, and then you’ll lose visitors before they’re
fully engaged in your site.
SEO is really no different in any other language than it is in English. The biggest concern when
translating your site to another language is the actual translation. The SEO efforts are essentially
the same, but getting the language wrong could cost you just as much as not having a foreignlanguage
site at all.
SEO. Needing a multi-lingual site is a good problem to have. It usually means that you have customers
in multiple countries. However, it also means you have to double or triple your SEO efforts.
The good news is that optimizing your foreign-language web site is very much the same as optimizing
your English one. You just do it in a different language. Here are some guidelines that should
serve as reminders of what you should plan to do during the SEO process:
Translate keywords into the new language. In some cases, you won’t be able to translate
your keywords into a matching word in another language. In that case, you’ll need
to choose new keywords.
Translate existing web content. Again, translations can sometimes be squirrelly. Unless
you’re an expert in the language to which you’re translating, hire someone to do it for you.
A bad translation could cost you more in lost traffic than the services of a good translator.
Apply all of the same SEO rules to your foreign content that you’ve learned for your
English content. Just because the language is different doesn’t mean that the search
engine or the search engine crawler is any different.
Include the proper links both to and from your English site to your foreign-language
site, but also include the appropriate links to English on the foreign-language site.
Make language options clearly available on your web site. If these options are not clearly
marked, your foreign visitors could miss them, and then you’ll lose visitors before they’re
fully engaged in your site.
SEO is really no different in any other language than it is in English. The biggest concern when
translating your site to another language is the actual translation. The SEO efforts are essentially
the same, but getting the language wrong could cost you just as much as not having a foreignlanguage
site at all.
