This document provides an overview of search engine optimization (SEO) best practices for marketing websites internationally. It recommends using country-specific subdirectories on the main domain, like creatorseo.com/ie, rather than separate country domains, for easier management. Localizing content for each target country or market is important, including using local addresses, currencies, and customizing content. Design and usability should also be tailored to different cultural preferences across countries. Key SEO tactics covered include optimizing for local search results, adding sites to local business directories like Google Places, and following Google's guidance on creating useful page content.

1. John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267/ 01 5313061
086 2410295

2. 1. Introduction

3. Internet marketing
•
SEO
•
PPC
•
Social Media
•
Videos
•
Website ……

4. IM Strategy
Digital strategy:
Marker-place analysis:
Goals and KPI’s:
Strategy:

5. The Social Landscape

6. SEO Introduction
Customers expect to find information for products
and services in multiple on-line locations
SEO is the process used to increase the amount of
visitors to a website
i.e. obtain a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search
engine including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines
www.creatorseo.com

7. SEO Introduction
A Web site is, by definition, a singular on-line entity.
It has a unique address, internal links and menus,
some level of Web design elements supporting the
Web page content and is basically a standalone
document
A Web presence is a greater influence than a
"standalone" net site
www.creatorseo.com

8. Why bother with SEO?
85% of all traffic on the internet is referred to by
search engines
90% of all users don’t look past the first 30 results
(most only view top 10)
2.4B global Internet users and 8% Y/Y growth rate
based on the latest available data.
- Source: United Nations / International Telecommunications Union, internetworldstats.com.

9. Google Queries
http://www.quora.com/How-many-search-queries-does-Google-serve-worldwide-every-day

11. How Do Search Engines Work?
Spider “crawls” the web to find new documents (web
pages, other documents) typically by following
hyperlinks from websites already in their database
Search engines indexes the content (text, code) in these
documents by adding it to their databases and then
periodically updates this content
Search engines search their own databases when a user
enters in a search to find related documents (not
searching web pages in real-time)
Search engines rank the resulting documents using an
algorithm (mathematical formula) by assigning various
weights and ranking factors
Spiders read text and nothing else

12. What a Search Engine Sees

13. What a Search Engine Sees

14. Understanding the Search Page

15. The Golden Triangle

16. The Golden triangle
When it comes to getting your website found and then converting your traffic into leads
and sales, you should take The Golden Triangle very seriously.

17. 2. Which?
- search engines!

18. Be found on the internet
Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

19. Be found on the internet
Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..
Google has approximately 250 items in its algorithm
1 Search terms in the HTML title tag
2 Search terms in the HTML body copy
3 Search terms in bold typeface
4 Search terms in header tags
5 Search term in anchor text in links to a page
6 PageRank of a page (the actual PageRank, not the toolbar PageRank)
7 The PageRank of the entire domain
8 Quality of link partners
9 Type of backlinks that bring anchor text juice for search terms
10 The speed of the web site
11. Search terms in the URL - main URL and page URLs
12. Search term density through body copy (About 3 - 5%?)
13. Fresh content
14. Good internal linking structure
15. Age of the domain
16. Links from good directories
17. Image names
18. Image ALTs
19. Reputable hosting company
20. Sort of the same as your number 8 but I'd also add to have good diverse link partners too :)
21. Geo located search results
22. Rate of new inbound links to your site
23. Relevance of inbound links - subject specific relationship with target page negative factors too:

20. There are hundreds of Search Engines
… but you can get very good results by optimising the site for the primary search
engines

21. Be found on the internet
Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

22. Be found on the internet
Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

23. Be found on the internet
Ranking
= 2a+0.7b+12c+9d+2(a-b+d)-1.5e+2f …………..

27. World-Wide Search Engine
Market Share

28. Search Engine Market Share

29. Search Engine Market Share

30. What do Search Engines think?

31. 3. SEO
Strategy

32. Strategy
Language? Culture?

33. Search Pyramid

34. Search Pyramid
You have to get these
right first

35. Before you get these
right first
Local quality content is king
Search Pyramid

36. Hummingbird and Carousel

37. The search demand curve
Source: SEOMoz

38. Search and targeting
1

39. Search and targeting
1
2

40. Search and targeting
1
2
3-4

41. Search and targeting
1
2
3-4
4+

42. 4. Geographic
Targeting

43. Google.ie

44. Trading internationally
Common situations:
one country, several languages
one language, several countries

45. Trading internationally
What can be done?
domains by country?
main domain and subdirectories per language?
main domain and directories per language?
Geo targeting on Google

46. Trading internationally
Best option domains by country
creatorseo.com
creatorseo.fr
creatorseo.de
but
complicated to manage and coordinate
one CMS for all or one per domain?

47. Trading internationally
Directories by country/language
creatorseo.com/us/
creatorseo.com/fr/
creatorseo.com/de/
One language, several countries
creatorseo.com/es/
mycompany.com/es-pu/
mycompany.com/es-mx/
(Peru)
(Mexico)

51. Trading internationally
Directories by country/language
Cheaper
Less technical resources required
Easier to manage and coordinate
Directories contribute to increase the general
relevancy of a domain

52. Trading internationally
Subdomains by country
X
Search Engines consider subdomains almost a
completely different entity than their domain
they don’t inherit most of the domain's relevancy
Example of a sub domain
http://spanish.creatorseo.com

53. 5. Competition

54. Competition
On-line competition may not be your traditional
competition
Different competitors in different regions
SEO is about beating your competition in the
targeted geographies

55. Search is a process
www.creatorseo.com

56. 6. PPC
versus SEO

57. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click
“Organic” SEO
results in 1-2 days
results take 2 weeks to months
easier for a novice or one with
little knowledge of SEO
requires ongoing learning and
experience to achieve results
ability to turn on and off at any
moment and easily updated!
very difficult to control flow of
traffic

58. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click
“Organic” SEO
generally more costly per visitor
and per conversion
generally more cost-effective,
does not penalize for more
traffic
fewer impressions and exposure
easier to compete in highly
competitive market space (but it
will cost you!)
SERPs are more popular than
sponsored ads
very difficult to compete in
highly competitive market
space

59. PPC versus “Organic” SEO
Pay-Per-Click
“Organic” SEO
Ability to generate exposure on
related sites (AdSense)
ability to generate exposure on
related websites and directories
ability to target “local” markets
more difficult to target local
markets
better for short-term and highmargin campaigns
better for long-term and lower
margin campaigns

60. Which one?
You shouldn't be limited to SEO or PPC.
Integration is the best approach. Each has
different strengths and weaknesses.

61. 7. Audience

62. Audience
Know your audience
Cultural
In Mediterranean counties
- Internet use is driven more by social factors rather
than anything else,
where Nordic countries rely on the internet for more
pragmatic, functional purposes.
Language

65. 8. Local
content

66. Local content
Use local addresses and contact information
Add local case studies/ testimonials
with names and images
Customise content for each country or market
More relevant, increases local link building
opportunities, and decreases duplicate content
Currency

67. 9. Design and
usability

68. Basic requirements for any
website
A web site is a bit like an advert!
Clear purpose
Easy to use / intuitive
High impact
- you have only 4-6 seconds to impress!
Optimised for visitors
Target audience
Easily found by the target audience
Content must be dynamic and interesting

69. Design and usability
Different countries prefer different design
aesthetics
Recreating your website in a different language
may not be enough
Get feedback on your site from locals in your
target country

70. 10. Be
local

71. Register each site with Google Places, Bing
Business Portal for example.

72. 11. Tools

73. Tools to use
www.mysiteperformance.com

74. 12. Google
guidance

75. Guidance
Create useful page titles
Use informative URLs
Provide relevant page descriptions
Add your business to Google Places
Manage your site links

76. Guidance
Value proposition
Call to action
Relevance
User experience

77. Things to watch out for
Spelling, stylistic, or factual errors
Is your content mass-produced by or outsourced
to a large number of creators, or spread across a
large network of sites?
Does your page have an excessive number of ads
that interfere with the main content?
Are the articles short or lacking in helpful
specifics?
Is your main content below the fold?

78. Some Final Tips
Get a local mailing address
Send website visitors to the right domain
Speed
Add Google translate to your site

79. Some Final Tips
Country Top Level Domain's automatically
associated to country
Webmaster tools help directories-by-country
sites
Host in country
Cross domain canonical links

80. John Caldwell
john@creatorseo.com
061 513267/ 01 5313061
086 2410295