How SEO is Different Around the World, According to HubSpot Content Strategists

In 2020 Brands are becoming increasingly popular worldwide with international marketing strategies. An important way how they directed traffic from different regions to their site is through international SEO.

But as with any marketing campaign, SEO is not always a unified approach. In fact, each country is different, uses the Internet a little differently, and may have different regulations. Not to mention that the audience in one country may have very different interests, cultural backgrounds and values ​​than the audience in another region.

As a marketer, your primary goal should be to know your audience. According to HubSpot SEO experts, this is no different when it comes to developing an SEO strategy for your international or multilingual website.

“If you are running a multilingual version of your website and are serious about delivering high quality, high quality content to an audience around the world, you should invest in an international SEO strategy that relies heavily on a proper technical structure and global strategy Content strategy taking local nuances into account, “advises Karolina Bujalska-Exner, HubSpot’s international SEO manager.

But how do you create a successful international SEO strategy? First of all, it is important to determine how SEO, search engine algorithms and search platforms can differ from region to region.

To help those interested in global online awareness, I spoke to HubSpot’s SEO experts to find out how optimization strategies differ around the world. Here are four things to know.

4 ways SEO varies around the world

1. Your search competition may be different in different regions

If you’ve only marketed your brand in one country, it will take some time for a new international audience to get a social media following, email subscribers, traffic, and other metrics. This is because people around the world are getting to know your brand for the first time.

Similarly, although SEO focuses on search, it will take time to raise awareness of another country’s Google or Bing domain.

“Every region of the world has its own Google ccTLD (e.g. Google.com, Google.es, Google.fr, Google.jp etc.). Each Google domain follows similar – if not identical – algorithms, but one each is ultimately a separate market with its own publishing industry, “explains Becker.

“Another Google website doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll start with zero domain privileges if you expand your content to other regions,” added Becker. “However, this means that your brand may not be as well known as Google.com, so traffic growth can be a tough struggle when it comes to building an audience.”

Even though you may be ranked in the US version of Google, you should be aware that the target groups of Google.fr in French areas may not yet know that you exist. If you create more content for these markets, they will have more chances to click on your content and increase the authority of your website. However, if you start without SEO or content strategies for this market, it will take some time before the traffic is required for a quick ranking.

2. The language and local nuances of a region can affect your placement in that area.

If you’ve been into SEO, you probably know that keyword research is an important way to create and optimize content so that it ranks on Google. This is no different in other regions where English or the language of your website may not translate as smoothly.

“When content is delivered in different languages, translations or localizations are sometimes not enough to win rankings or get valuable traffic from another locale,” says Bujalska-Exner.

“Why? Even if the most amazing content is optimized for a region, it may not have a similar meaning or wording when translated into another regional language.”

To avoid translation problems, Bujalska-Exner says: “It is important that you do your keyword research in the target language so that you can find the best regional options for main and long-tail keywords.”

“The same applies to search intent. A term could have a completely different purpose in another country,” added Bujalska-Exner. “The appearance of SERPs differs worldwide. Some countries have more specific search features than others. This should always be taken into account when deciding how to structure your content.”

When doing international keyword research, Bujalska-Exner recommends: “Remember that some SEO tools provide more accurate results for search volumes in certain languages ​​or regions than others. Test several tools before you implement one that has the most accurate information for your Delivers target language. “”

In addition to research, another helpful way to optimize content for a region is to write it in the language of that locale from the start.

If a regional creator writes your content in their language, the author can better ensure that the content is “optimized, helpful, and engaging” for the regional audience. They can also use their knowledge of the area and the audience to include “local examples and ideas,” says Bujalska-Exner.

“There are many ways to set up your website for an international audience. The most common are separate ccTlds, subdomains or language folders“Bujalska-Exner explains.” Each of these has advantages and disadvantages. You should choose your strategy based on what you want to achieve. You need to think about your SEO needs, the resources you have or could invest in, and choose the best option for you. “

For a technical comparison of ccTlds and international subdomain options Check out this guide.

3. The top search engines in some regions may not be Google or Bing.

While search engines behave similarly internationally, it is important to know that some of the most important websites like Google, Bing or Yahoo are rarely used or banned in other countries. If you are marketing web content in these areas, you may need to consider an alternative other than optimizing your website for major search platforms.

“A very clear difference that exists worldwide is the language portion of a search engine in different countries,” explains Becker. “Most of the search engines you’ve heard of – Bing, Yahoo, Google – have similar algorithms and ranking factors, so you’ll benefit from search engine optimization for one search engine across multiple search engines. However, some national markets operate under completely different rules.”

As our SEO experts have shown, you don’t have to change your SEO process dramatically or find out about a completely new list of algorithms to rank on Google in different countries.

Although the basis of your keyword research and SEO strategy may vary from country to country, you still need to determine how search behavior differs internationally, which languages ​​are critical to your SEO, and which local topics certain international markets may have more search.

“When discussing SEO, we usually think about optimizing for Google, but Google’s market share is actually very small in many countries around the world,” explains Bujalska-Exner. “Instead, there are other regional alternatives that are used as the main engines. For example, Yandex is used in Russia and Russia Baidu is mainly used in China. “

Although search engines like Baidu (see below) are similar to Google, our experts believe that they do not necessarily behave the same way.

Becker, who also describes China as a region with its own search engine, adds: “China is unique in that Google is not present in this country at all. The main source of information in China is Baidu, which does not resemble the ranking factors, that Google’s marketers are familiar with. “

4. SEO is not that different around the world – but you still need a strategy for each country.

Since platforms like Google, Bing and Yahoo are still present around the world, optimizing your website doesn’t differ from country to country. According to Braden Becker, an experienced SEO strategist, there are a number of strategies that work for these search engines in many different countries.

“SEO doesn’t really differ globally, it extends globally,” says Backer. “In the case of HubSpot, we have an SEO strategy that is native to every region and follows a set of universal SEO techniques that marketers need to know to do international SEO successfully.”

Yes. If you want to develop an audience in international areas, you need to take into account that people in other regions are looking for different phrases in different languages. This immediately makes keyword research and SEO strategies different in each area.

However, the ranking algorithms that large search platforms like Google use in one country do not differ significantly in another country. So if you have SEO specialists in different locations, they may be using a similar keyword research and SEO optimization strategy. However, you will likely discover different lists of keywords and different blog posts to optimize based on the search results in your region.

Navigation in international marketing

As with any other international marketing strategy or audience growth strategy, you ultimately need to know your audience, give them content that they like, and encourage them to visit your website more often. When you get traffic to your international website, you gain brand awareness and ranking authority from these markets.

More international marketing tips can be found at This post on social media platforms that were not founded in the United Statesas well as this list of brilliant international marketing examples.

Would you like to delve deeper into international search engine optimization? Here is a technical guide Information on how to optimize your website for global search engines. Or are you afraid of making a big global SEO mistake? Read this post to find out how to sabotage global SEO.