Go from Local Business to Global Company with Smarter SEO
Despite what many people may believe, English is only the third-most spoken native language in the world. That’s why taking your business to the next level will require reaching out to new cultures and languages.
However, running a global company comes with a number of challenges. The first is marketing your business to a new community.
With the right SEO strategy, you can reach out to regions around the world to start expanding your company’s reach on an international scale. Keep reading to learn more about how global expansion begins with SEO.
What is Global SEO?
Simply put, global SEO is using a variety of keywords in various languages to target users around the world.
For example, if you sell restaurant supplies, you’ll have to use:
- “Oven” in English-speaking countries
- “Horno” in Spanish-speaking countries
- “Faran” in Arabic-speaking countries
- “Pech” in Russian-speaking countries
It’s easy to see how having a website that’s only optimized for words in English will hurt your chances at reaching a global market. The billions of people who don’t speak English at all simply won’t be looking for the term “oven.”
If you’re ready to take your business to a global scale, the next section will help you do just that.
How to Turn Your Enterprise into a Global Company
These five steps are by no means quick or easy, but they’re all necessary to help you reach untold new customers for your business.
1. Market Research
Before you waste time and resources targeting a certain area, you need to be sure your product or service will be well-received by that region. Oil drilling equipment in Western Europe, for example, would be a lost cause.
Make sure there are already similar companies having success in that area. That will let you know that you can also have success. If there’s absolutely nobody like you in that area, there’s probably a good reason.
2. Prepare Your Website
Do a full website audit before you go any further in this process. If there are broken links, those will end up showing up on every translated page. So, you want to make sure your website is perfect before moving on.
3. Choose Site Structure
Once you know your website is perfect, it’s time to choose how you’re going to offer your site in different languages. There are three options for this:
- ccTLD
- Sub-directories
- Sub-domains
Each of these comes with its own benefits and drawbacks, so be sure you know which one will work best for you.
4. Find SEO Experts
Once your site is ready to be translated, you want to do more than find translators. You want to make sure the people translating your web pages for you are SEO experts.
This will ensure that as each new page is being built, it’s being done with SEO in mind, not only translation. This will save you from having to go back and fix these problems in the future.
5. Implement SEO Strategies
You should already have SEO strategies in place for your own website. Use these same strategies for every new region you target. That includes guest posting, getting backlinks, and using social media.
If you need help with SEO, be sure to check out our digital marketing booster for global companies.
Tips on Building Global SEO
Here are some additional tips you can use to build up global SEO for your business. As you’ll see these will help you continue to grow your business in every new market you want to reach.
Build Trust
Think to when you were just starting your business. One of the things you had to do before you could start selling your products or services was to build trust with your customers.
The same goes for global markets. Just because you had success in one part of the world doesn’t mean the rest of the world is automatically going to trust you.
Each new region you enter will be like starting your business all over again. You have to start by building trust with that new audience.
Analyze Data
One of the most important things you can do for your business is to use data integration to determine what’s working and what’s not. This allows you to keep making adjustments to find out how to best reach your new audiences.
Go Beyond Google
Although Google is the overall top search engine in the world, Baidu is the most popular in China. Other search engines have larger market shares in other countries as well.
For that reason, you have to look into the most popular search engines in each region and follow their best SEO practices. Most value relevancy above all else, but some still have a strong focus on things like keyword density.
Check Local Calendars
If you offer sales around holidays, you’ll want to make sure you’re targeting the holidays of each region. Consider the Chinese New Year, for example. This happens at the end of January or beginning of February instead of the end of December.
You’ll also want to learn about the spending trends of businesses in other countries. If their fiscal year starts and ends at a different time, they may spend more money during a different time of the year from what you’re used to.
Know Your Audience
Something to keep in mind is who you’re targeting in each area and how you need to speak to them. A great example of this is in Japan where there is a strong focus on respect.
When speaking to people who are older than you, you have to use a more respectful language compared to speaking to people your age or younger people. This extends to how your website content is written.
If you come off as a young person speaking disrespectfully to older businessmen you’re trying to work with, you’re not going to get far in your interactions. This is another reason to work with good translators who understand your intentions.
Ready to Start a Digital Marketing Campaign?
Now you know how to prepare to turn your local business into a global company. As you can see, it takes some work to get things started, but with so many potential new markets, it’s easy to see why it’s worth it.
If you’re ready to get started, let us help you. Check out how a digital marketing campaign can help you take your business to the next level.
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