SEO Localization Versus Multilingual Website Development

There are two approaches to broadening your audience and enhancing your domain’s visibility locally and globally. These methods include localization and multilingual development. Although local market targeting usually overlaps with different SEO strategies, their distinctive features require a more well-thought-out approach to their selection. 

Compared to SEO translation, SEO localization of content and other UI/UX elements of the site delivers more customization and reader-oriented values for higher and more successful customer engagement. By modifying the content and eliminating inappropriate contexts and meanings, you better satisfy local search requirements. This adaptation format refers to the smallest details — from suitable cultural alternatives of taboos to local images and currency equivalents.

Olena Prokhoda

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat

A multilingual website has a language version of web content for every page, such as text, multimedia, ebooks, etc. In SEO localization, web content and other data are adapted for regional or local consumption.

Even if you deal with regions where people speak the same language, their online behavior patterns differ a lot. SEO specialists must consider such dialect and cultural nuances in the global market to enhance targeted audience engagement rates. 

Candies and gas stations in American, sweets and petrol stations in British, lollies and servo in Australian English correspondingly — these are just a few samples showing how distinctive communication channels become regionally. While some vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar differences seem fun and exciting, they also become hidden pitfalls for the best on-site indexing and scrawling in local searches.

When Do We Use SEO Localization?

It is conceivable to harness your online presence to promote global expansion in a way that ranks high, appeals to your local target market, and eventually brings in money for your company. 

Source: Localization Statistics

Converting a multilingual website into a platform that helps you reach better conversions and ratings is achievable through localization services.

SEO specialists have to modify their on-site materials to cater to the requirements of Google localization, including the adaptation of ALT tags metadata. This helps to add more user-friendliness to your product in the dedicated localization market. Traffic won’t come in because you qualitatively translated your posts and blogs.

Opting for local SEO is demanding for many reasons. Still, it can produce more efficient results, especially regarding how your website corresponds to local search intents. The right tone of voice and message guidelines you represent through your content and website’s architecture won’t be missed out with localized search engine optimization.

Key Considerations for Website Content Localization

Your worldwide marketing plan should include website localization as a significant component. At the same time, developing lasting relationships with your audience will be impossible if you neglect crucial aspects of your website’s performance in a different market.

You won’t find a one-approach-suits-all solution — you must develop many localized SEO strategies to achieve the business benefits. Instead of translation, utilizing the advantages of multilingual copywriting with local SEO in mind is beneficial.

Correct and precise acronyms, abbreviations, measurements, time formatting, etc., distinguishes SEO localization from SEO translation, which can also miss cultural sensitivity. Your customers will always remain the core of your marketing and search engine optimization strategy, so staying in touch via localized customer support services won’t be extra.

Beyond Content: SEO Elements to Localize

Aside from cultural adaptation in SEO and other related practices to improve localized content creation, you must take care of the concealed jewels. The list includes language-specific keywords, metadata, HTML tags, ALT tags, and much more. These aren’t the elements readers consider, but their importance in the eyes of Google and other search engines shouldn’t be neglected. They are examined in detail to rank your website in SERPs.

Taking care of such a technical aspect also provides a better user experience in localized SEO. Keyword translation won’t be progressive in the long run. With in-depth research, SEO experts can cater to different search behaviors in the global market. Cheap and automated translation methods might fail you with false translation and other unique linguistic idioms and characteristics considered in geotargeted SEO localization.

Handling SEO localization in-house might seem demanding. However, even covering the basic aspects of this functional transformation lets you stand out among other businesses in the field. Not only do you gain a competitive advantage through localization, but you also show your care for multiple audiences and their online habits and behaviors.

Common SEO Localization Mistakes to Avoid

The business benefits of SEO localization are highly varied. Still, suppose you want a better user experience in localized SEO, new organic traffic, more profitable conversion rates, global business expansion, and exposure to more authoritative backlinks, etc. In that case, you have to take your website’s transformation seriously.

Gaining a competitive advantage through localization means you take care of your localized content creation and technical website’s reorganization (meta tags, titles, and so on). Otherwise, your expenditures on SEO and marketing won’t bring the desired results. Your success depends on how well you understand and follow the factors that stay behind the definition of local SEO.

When you don’t have localization and consider different language patterns only, you make one of the beginner errors in the localization of content — unique idioms, metaphors, epithets, slang, grammar, and wording drastically alter the view of your keyword research ratings even in American, Australian, and British English, just to mention a few.

Another crucial mistake to avoid is to keep track of your local SEO performance. Over time, some chosen strategies might become less relevant to the ever-changing trends in the global market. Your diligence and attention to detail contribute to how pitfall-free your localization SEO strategy is from short-term and long-term perspectives.

Essential Resources, Tools, and Plugins

Localization starts with your market research. If you don’t understand where to go and what audiences to reach with your offer, your effort won’t lead to increased website traffic. To decide on the best localization strategies, build local citations and listings on multiple directories such as Bing Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Google Business, etc. Serpstat’s Local SEO tool will be beneficial at this stage.

Using local keywords in your website’s architecture is understandable, but you should go beyond that. Complement your localization strategies with mobile optimization as well. Although neither desktop nor mobile local search has cemented itself as the leading method, the percentage of people who satisfy their search queries on mobile devices is constantly increasing — over 55% of the overall website traffic, May 2023.

Market research and data analysis with tools like Google Analytics to track your performance become the fundament of your SEO localization.

Here are some beginner-friendly ways to boost customer engagement with your platform through localization:

• Ensure that your performance is consistent. The data accuracy has to remain, no matter what page version visitors might open. For instance, your business’s name, phone number, etc., have to coincide with the listings and directories’ chosen palette.
  
• Use additional resources to level up your keyword research and data analytics. With backlinks analysis, SEO experts obtain more locally efficient links to improve the website’s authority. Competitor analysis lets specialists monitor the rivals in the related market. AI tools for content creation simplify and streamline your international SEO strategies and regional SEO optimization.
  
• Utilize the power of social media interactions with your local and potential customers to the full extent. Maintaining your online reputation and replying to your readers’ comments and reviews are crucial for your site’s advertising strategy.
  

Last but not least important, don’t forget to inform Google about your pages’ localized versions. A sitemap is one of the easiest methods, but you can also go for HTML and HTTP Headers alternatives.

Conclusion

Localizing your website for the target audiences’ needs and demands usually requires different tools — from hiring native speakers for voiceovers or accommodating the user interface for new visitors to your domain. Whatever combinations of instruments you consider to implement international SEO strategies, the outcome pays off. Your effort will strive toward higher conversion rates, increased website traffic, and better local search engine rankings. With these and other benefits of SEO localization, you get enough capacity to expand your website’s reach and efficacy.