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Take control of your localized website for SEOFor digital marketers managing many localized websites, multilingual SEO can be a whole different ballgame compared to traditional SEO strategies. Sure, some practices are similar, such as placing appropriate keywords in headers and metadata. However, there are many new considerations to factor into the plan when optimizing your website for various cultures around the world.
After all, there is a lot more to multilingual SEO than translating a few keywords.
5 Tips to avoid with your website localizationHere are five common setbacks to avoid even before you head down the website localization path. Along the way, I’ll share some valuable tips to help guide you on the right path to search engine (and customer experience) glory.
Tip 1: Thin, low-quality content on your localized websites
As you may know, SEO is not about stuffing your website full of keywords. In fact, doing so can land you right on Google’s naughty list.
Google’s recent Panda 4.0 update was meant to help rid the Internet of this type of thin or low quality content. For multilingual SEO, this means that each localized version of your website needs to have high-quality, localized content.
Grammar and translation quality are important parts of having valuable content and Google can recognize this. Jumbled, poorly translated copy that doesn’t sound like it was written by native speakers can put your website at risk for penalty.
Other ways to add value include:
Incorporate localized videos into each version of your website
Embrace user-generated content such as reviews and social media feeds to give your website even more of a local feel
It’s all about creating a valuable experience for your customers. One important way to do that is to offer a unique experience on each of your localized websites.
Tip 2: Lack of unique content throughout your website
You don’t want to have duplicated content all over your many website versions. That’s why it’s critical that you have in-country linguists translating your website. Only native speakers know how to translate your content best so that it strikes a chord with locals. They understand how Web users in your target region refer to your products and services, and can align the tone and positioning correctly.
For e-commerce sites, it’s a good idea to switch up your product descriptions. Build out unique and thoughtful descriptions—avoiding non-specific ones like ‘small, blue, 4 x 4,’ etc. If you do this, you’re likely to find these words duplicated across your products, which may result in a penalty.
Tip 3. Translating Keywords, word for word
It won’t be effective to do keyword research in English and then translate those keywords word for word. Without localization, you will likely miss the proper context of your phrases, which means you risk damaging your brand in how locals perceive it.
At the core, keywords and phrases are all about how your audience thinks about things. Given that, you want to ensure that you’re truly speaking their language when choosing keywords for multilingual SEO.
Web surfers across locales search on and refer to your products and services differently. For example, in the U.S. people call a bridge over the highway an overpass. In the U.K. it’s called a flyover.
That’s why your keywords will need to be completely re-created and positioned to meet these needs. If you’re having trouble identifying keywords, you can work with a professional language service provider to help you.
Tip 4: Not making it easy to direct traffic to the correct website version
The entire purpose of multilingual SEO is to make it easy for potential customers to find your website—and the appropriate version of your site at that. One of the simplest ways to do that is to use a country code top level domain (ccTLD).
A ccTLD is simply the domain suffix that associates a website with a geographical area—such as .fr or .uk. See the photo below of the Chinese version of McDonald’s website as an example.
An international company should purchase country-specific domains for every country they operate in, before or during the website localization process. This is perhaps the most effective way of optimizing a website for an international audience to make sure it gets found by the right people.
You see, this domain structure clearly indicates that these websites are meant for various countries (and audiences understand these country-specific suffixes). Because of that, search engines rank these sites better for audiences in those countries.
Another way to tell Google that your website is intended for a given locale is to use Google’s Webmaster tools. You’re able to go into the dashboard and select a target location for your website. This tells search engines that your website is intended for a certain region, which then helps Google prioritize the site for that country.
Tip 5. Not continously monitoring and measuring your efforts
Just like everything in marketing, you need to continually track your efforts to ensure your tactics are working. Search algorithms are constantly changing, which can mean that you may need to change up your approach.
Monitor your site traffic in Google Analytics, check your organic search rates and see which keywords referred visitors to your website.
If you find your keywords aren’t resonating, you may need to conduct some market research to find out why or seek help from an experienced language service provider that specializes in multilingual SEO.
Have you localized your website and implemented multilingual SEO strategies? What other tips do you have to add?
Thanks to Rachel Chilson for sharing her thoughts and opinions in this blog post. Rachel is a Marketing Communications Coordinator at Sajan, a leading language translation and localization provider with offices around the globe. She is responsible for Sajan’s digital marketing efforts, including managing the company’s website, social media sites and chúng tôi can connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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4 Technical Seo Tips For Multilingual Websites
Multilingual websites extend content in multiple languages, empowering audiences to access information in their preferred language.
On the other hand, they help businesses maximize their reach and engagement with global audiences.
But that’s not all!
By implementing the best technical SEO practices, businesses can unlock a treasure trove of greater benefits.
For instance, strategic optimization of several technical elements can help businesses effectively capture language-specific queries and improve their visibility and rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs).
This can boost website traffic, accelerating the chances of high conversions and revenue.
However, several challenges might impact multilingual website performance.
In this post, we will share four technical SEO tips to optimize multilingual websites for the best outcomes.
Let’s begin by looking at the key issues with multilingual websites.
Lack Of A Solid URL StructureURLs allow the target audience to navigate different language versions of the multilingual website, enhancing user experience.
Besides this, they inform search engines about the page’s content to ensure proper indexing and language targeting.
A lack of well-structured URLs can negatively impact user experience and lead to incorrect indexing.
Poor Content Translation And OptimizationTranslating the content into multiple languages while maintaining its context and SEO parameters intact is challenging for multilingual websites.
For instance, translating Spanish content into English while incorporating relevant keywords in the respective language can be tricky. Additionally, literal translations can change the meaning of the original content, weakening the content and SEO strategy.
Duplicate Content IssuesThe search engines can interpret multiple URLs with the same content as separate pages.
This can lead to duplicate content issues (+ penalty!)
Automatic RedirectsAutomatic redirects from one language to another version based on the user’s browser can prevent them (and search engines) from viewing various versions of your website.
Technical SEO Tips For Multilingual WebsitesNow that you know the key challenges, let’s explore the four technical SEO tips to combat them and improve your multilingual website’s performance.
1. Focus On The URL StructureCreating dedicated URLs for each language and country version sends signals to help search engines like Google index the website accurately. This practice increases the chances of your website pages appearing in search results in multiple languages.
The result? Improved rankings in SERPs!
So, specify the regions you want to target with languages to cater to the target audience.
Here are a few crucial approaches to consider while determining the URL structure.
Separate Domains Or ccTLDs (Country Code Top-Level Domains)This approach involves using separate domain names or ccTLDs specific to each language or country version of a multilingual website.
ccTLDs are two-letter domains assigned to individual countries.
Here are a few examples:
mybusinessname.es
mybusinessname.fr
This approach makes it easy for search engines and users to identify the content is intended for specific countries. This way, separate domains can help you with clear regional targeting.
However, buying and managing multiple domains can be an expensive venture. In addition, building backlinks and authority for each can consume resources, time, and effort.
Subdirectories With gTLD (Generic top-Level Domain)This approach involves using subdirectories reflecting different country or language versions of a multilingual website within a single domain (same gTLD).
Here are a few examples:
This practice allows you to centralize hosting and SEO efforts under a single domain.
However, the users might get confused about whether the subdomains represent country or language for several cases (fr – country or language).
Subdomains With gTLDThis approach involves using subdomains to highlight different countries or language versions of a multilingual website while maintaining the same gTLD for the main domain.
See the examples below:
Implementing and managing this approach can require rigorous efforts and time. Again, the structure might confuse the users.
However, localized hosting is cost-effective and can help improve the website page’s speed.
URL ParametersThis approach involves using a URL parameter to the URL to specify the country or language version.
Here are a few examples:
The URL parameters “?lang=fr,” “?lang=es,” and “?lang=en” depict French, Spanish, and English versions.
Google doesn’t recommend this approach because URLs with parameters can confuse the search engines, negatively impacting the indexing.
2. Translate And Optimize The PagesAccurate page translation and optimization can help you reach the target audience and communicate the brand message effectively.
So, begin with content translation.
If you rely on tools like Google Translate, proofread the content closely for accuracy.
While Google has incorporated new AI-powered features to provide accurate translations based on context and intent, do not take any risk.
Even minor errors and inaccuracies can alter the intended meaning of the content, thus hurting the user experience.
When proofreading, pay special attention to elements like:
Time and date format.
Units of measurement (length, volume, weight, etc.).
Cultural references (idioms, metaphors, etc.).
Currency (monetary format, currency symbol, conversion value, etc.).
The key thing to remember here is that everything on your web page should resonate with the target audience’s language, including the writing style and visual elements.
So, avoid using phrases and visuals that are culturally inappropriate.
Here’s how you can optimize the content:
Use Multilingual KeywordsDon’t forget to translate the keywords!
However, rather than sticking to exact translations, use popular search terms in respective languages that can appeal more to native speakers. Finding effective multilingual keywords for the target markets that align with your content can amp up the SEO efforts.
Optimize The Vital SEO ElementsTranslate the below-shared non-visible content elements to ensure your international SEO efforts are successful.
Not doing so can send false information to search engine bots indexing your website.
Image alt texts: Write accurate and helpful alt texts describing the images for each language. Besides improving the page’s accessibility, they improve the chances of images appearing in Google search results in multiple languages. Note: The length of the meta descriptions, title tags, and image alt text will vary according to the search engines. For instance, writing meta descriptions of 150-160 characters is a good practice to achieve rankings in Google SERPs. However, for the Chinese search engine Baidu, you should maintain meta descriptions of around 120 Chinese characters.
Internal links: Add internal content links to relevant and helpful pages in the same language. For instance, link a French page to other relevant French pages on the website. This practice will help simplify user navigation while helping search engines discover relationships between pages.
3. Use Hreflang TagsHreflang is an HTML attribute that signals search engines of content variations.
See what a hreflang tag looks like:
Here:
hreflang=”en-us” highlights the language (English) and region (United States) of the alternate version. The attribute “en-us” indicates the page targets English speakers in the US region.
Since they represent unique language variations, appropriate hreflang implementation can prevent duplicate content issues and penalties.
The key points to remember while implementing hreflang tags:
Consider including a language and, optionally, a region code. The language code should be in ISO 639-1 format, and the region code should be in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format.
Add them to all the pages with language variations, including the main version (self-referential). This indicates to Google that there’s a link between the pages, or the search engine might misinterpret the hreflang annotations.
Include a default page using the “x-default” hreflang tag. It helps users select a suitable language when they can’t find an appropriate version.
Check out this beginner’s guide for hreflang implementation for complete details.
Note: Hreflang tags tell search engines like Google and Yandex about the content variation, but they are not directives. Besides, search engines like Bing and Baidu do not count on hreflang tags. Instead, they leverage “content-language” meta tags to gauge content variation.
4. Provide A Language SelectorGood practice for multilingual websites is to provide a country language selector.
A language selector refers to a user interface (UI) component that empowers users to select a language they prefer while exploring a multilingual website.
They help address different language speakers from the same country, distinguish between languages, and communicate effectively with customers.
This can help uphold your SEO efforts by offering better usability and website crawling.
Plugins can provide language selectors. However, there may be better choices than showcasing national flags according to the target audiences.
For instance, if a US-based website aims to attract Spanish-speaking Canadians and Italian-speaking Americans, there may be better options than using Spanish and Italian flags.
The reason?
Flags specify countries, not languages.
Multiple countries can speak the same language.
A country can have several official languages.
Visitors can get confused seeing multiple flags and make the wrong decision.
What should you do?
You can refer to a language in its native way of representation.
For example, use “日本語” rather than “Japanese” and “Deutsch” rather than “German.”
Additionally, you can use ISO 639, an international standard.
It consists of a set of two-letter codes to classify languages. For instance, English is represented by the code EN, French by FR, and more.
Leverage any suitable method to enable users to select their preferred language.
Final ThoughtsFollowing the aforementioned technical SEO tactics for multilingual websites will help you overcome the key challenges, ensuring that each page on your website is well-structured and optimized.
Besides providing a good user experience, these tips will make it easier for search engines to find and index your web pages in all languages.
Moreover, beyond the technicalities, focus on the language-specific search engine behavior and the SEO best practices of the target countries.
On the content SEO front, understand the local culture, language, and how users interact with the search engine.
Content that resonates with the audience in terms of language and relevance drives value for the target audience.
More resources:
5 Traps The (New) Pirate Bay Must Avoid
Ah, the Internet cafe; home to yuppies, flavored lattes, and The Pirate Bay? If you haven’t heard, Swedish Internet cafe operator, Global Gaming Factory X, today bought The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million. The new owner says it intends to sail The Pirate Bay out of its murky waters, and put the former rogues gallery on the straight and narrow. In other words, The Pirate Bay is going legitimate.
“Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners.”
If reading that news just upset you, then perhaps you are one of the millions of one-eyed curs who regularly pillage copyrighted content with the help of the site. But before you draw your sword in anger over the death of your beloved pirate haven, perhaps this is your shining moment to choose a life free from lurking in the seedier regions of the Internet. Pirates can reform themselves after all, and maybe it’s not too late for you to avoid the fate that led Jammie Thomas to the RIAA’s gallows.
So before you do something hasty — like moving over to torrent tracker alternative site Mininova — prop up your wooden leg and read my list of five things The (New) Pirate Bay needs to avoid to keep its six million registered users happy.
1) Don’t turn into Napster
Graphic: Diego AguirreIn its heyday, Napster was the ultimate file-sharing site. But its rogue life was cut short when heavyweight lawyers from the record industry caught up with Napster. Now, Napster is a shell of its former self, and has been re-launched at least three times with as many new strategies. Currently, Napster users can download five songs a month and get unlimited streaming for a monthly subscription fee of five dollars. Is it restrictive? Yes. Do people like it? Not as much as the first incarnation of Napster. The Pirate Bay needs to avoid Napster’s fate at all costs.
Illustration: Lou BeachPeople came to The Pirate Bay for everything from MP3s to episodes of their favorite TV shows. Would TPB’s user base be willing to pay? Maybe, but legitimacy means content deals; while that may be a good thing for some, content deals also mean restrictions on what can be viewed, shared and downloaded. If there’s one thing a TPB user hates, it’s to be held up by business deals and red tape. There are plenty of other torrent sites out there, and TPB’s reformation is not going to stop people from getting their hands on the most current episodes of popular shows like Weeds, Dexter, Californication and The Office. Not to mention rogue copies of movies and music.
Graphic: Diego AguirreSay what you want about the Swedish outlaws, but the creators of TPB knew how to run a popular Website. Sure, it took on some water every now and then, but most of the time the site was up and running. TPB has been out of its creator’s hands for only a few hours, and the site has already dropped off the digital horizon. At the time of this writing, chúng tôi was returning a network timeout. Has TPB gone to Davy Jones’ locker already?
The Pirate Bay was primarily a conduit for file sharers to find each other, so the site really had no control over download speeds. That being said, today’s torrent technology could stand to go a little faster. TPB’s new owner has promised to speed things up for users, and has acquired Peerialism, a p2p technology specialty firm, to aid its task. We’ll see if the tech company can help TPB increase its speeds, and if it can’t, well then it’s the plank for you Peerialism.
5) No Streaming
Pirates Overboard
If piracy is still the life for you, there are many sites out there to keep you sailing like ActiveDots, ISOHunt, LookTorrent, Mininova, NowTorrents, and Torrentz to name just a few.
5 Ways To Boost Your Seo With Third
Third-party reviews offer invaluable insight from an unbiased perspective on your business. They also instill trust with potential customers, which may help guide their decision to purchase your product or service.
In fact, nearly half (42%) of internet users in the U.S. cite reviews from other customers as a feature that would most increase their likelihood of buying a product.
When compared to first-party reviews, third-party reviews can also appear more credible to a searcher. After all, a business is unlikely to publish negative reviews on its website.
Whether you’re looking to convert searches into sales or improve your search ranking, focusing on enhancing your reviews’ search engine optimization (SEO) efforts can achieve both. Reviews are a heavily weighted local search ranking factor, accounting for 16% of the Local Pack ranking.
How can your business better showcase the sentiment found in your reviews to searchers looking for your product or service?
And, what are some proven strategies for surfacing this valuable content through SEO?
You’ll learn both in this post as we discuss five surefire tactics to boost your SEO with third-party reviews and stand out among your competitors.
1. Improve Your Review ScoreThe GMB help guide states that local search results “are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence.”
Prominence refers to how well-known a business is, which directly correlates to the number of reviews a business has as well as what customers think about the business.
The help guide also notes:
“Google review count and review score factor into local search ranking. More reviews and positive ratings can improve your business’s local ranking.”
There are several approaches to take to improve your overall review score for your business locations.
First, ask customers who have had a positive experience with your business to leave a review. Not only are they already motivated having had a positive experience with your business, but they’re also likely to leave positive feedback to help you boost your rating.
We also recommend responding to all of your reviews, positive or negative.
When a reviewer sees you’ve taken the consideration and time to respond to their praise or complaint, they’re more likely to have a favorable view of your business. This may lead to the reviewer recommending your business to family or friends.
It also allows you to control the narrative and target your sought-after keywords in your response.
Not only will your overall star rating help improve your SEO but also your sales. According to a recent study, 52% of consumers wouldn’t consider using a business with fewer than four stars and cite star rating as the most important review factor.
2. Factor in Review VelocityReview velocity refers to how often your business receives new reviews.
According to Moz, review quantity, review velocity, and review diversity account for 15% of Local Pack ranking. A frequent flow of new reviews also provides your business with new content.
Along with its SEO value, consumers prefer to read new reviews to learn more about your business.
Forty percent of consumers say they only look at reviews of local businesses written in the past two weeks. Additionally, 85% say reviews more than three months old are no longer relevant.
Encourage happy customers to leave reviews often and make it a part of your purchasing process to keep a steady stream of up-to-date reviews.
All of these tactics can solicit new reviews and fall within Google’s review guidelines:
Send your customers an email
Print a QR code on every sales receipt.
Send a follow-up text after an appointment.
Simply ask for a review during the transaction process.
3. Focus on the Volume of Your ReviewsConsider this: You’re out of town visiting a new city where you want to find a restaurant nearby for dinner. Would you prefer to go to a restaurant with 10 reviews or one with 100, both with a similar overall star rating?
More than likely, you’d opt to dine at the restaurant with more reviews as that restaurant appears to be more credible. A solid review gathering strategy can help bridge the gap of having too few reviews to encourage new business.
It can also help legitimize your business with search engines as well.
GMB’s help page states that:
“High-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility and increase the likelihood that a potential customer will visit your location.”
The best way to get customers to leave a review is to ask them to do so. If your customers have opted into your email or text marketing campaigns, it’s ideal to ask them to leave a review as soon as possible while your business is top of mind.
For service-based businesses that use online booking systems for their services, after the customer has completed their appointment, they should receive an automated message (text, email, etc.) that asks them to leave their honest feedback regarding their experience with a direct link to leave a Google review.
Brick-and-mortar stores may also benefit from having a QR code on receipts that directs customers to leave a Google review.
While all review platforms encourage businesses to ask customers for reviews, it’s important not to violate any policies. For example, Google states businesses can’t “selectively solicit(ing) positive reviews from customers.”
Additionally, Google also forbids:
Reviews left by employees.
Soliciting reviews in bulk.
Paying customers in exchange for reviews.
Discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews.
Posting fake reviews for your business.
You can read more about Google’s official guidelines here. Keep in mind that every platform will have different rules and regulations and it’s important to check what each allows.
4. Respond to Positive and Negative ReviewsResponding to positive and negative reviews not only shows consumers you care about their feedback but has also been confirmed by Google to play a role in SEO.
Google shared,
“Respond to reviews that users leave about your business… Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback they leave about your business.”
Responding to every review may seem like a daunting task for a business that has many locations. However, a good workaround for eliminating work is creating corporate-approved templates.
These templates can be based on your brand guidelines and should adhere to your brand voice.
Your business should also have a process for escalating reviews that require a more in-depth response, as well as a point person who can respond to these reviews quickly.
If your business is just starting with your review response efforts, focus on responding to negative reviews first, especially those left within the past few months.
Recent reviews will be more prominent to searchers. Once you’ve worked through all your negative reviews, you can then move onto responding to your positive reviews.
5. Consider the Content of Your ReviewsGoogle continuously evolves to meet the needs of searchers. Their goal is to deliver accurate, timely results to end-users to create an optimal user experience.
Yet, in order to deliver top-tier results, they rely on business information.
Some of that information may be sourced from your review content, such as a customer mentioning the city your store is in or the street name where your business is located.
These words send powerful signals to Google helping your business improve its relevance.
Additionally, a review with positive language from a local customer signals to Google that your business is trustworthy. This applies not only to reviews left directly on your GMB listing but on other third-party platforms, as well.
Reviews left on third-party review sites increase your exposure, drive traffic to your website, and add legitimacy to your business.
Your business can’t dictate what a consumer writes about their business, however, you can ask consumers to mention the location in which they did business within their review.
These mentions can continue to help your brand achieve the authority that Google looks for in its search algorithm.
Conclusion: Why Implement a Third-Party Reviews SEO Strategy?Consumers’ expectations are continuing to evolve with business operations in an ever-changing and unpredictable climate.
These expectations are showing up more frequently in reviews. If your business is keeping up with current trends and maintaining a solid reputation management strategy, your path towards SEO success becomes clearer.
Following the above tactics will help you improve your third-party reviews SEO efforts, and in turn, provide an exceptional experience for your customers.
More Resources:
Top 5 Mistakes To Avoid When Selecting A Pos For Your Business
For many business owners, point-of-sale (POS) has also become a point of contention. Why? It should be getting simpler and easier.
Despite the shift to tablets and the increase in available point-of-sale applications, which have simplified most aspects of the process, many merchants often end up dissatisfied with their POS system. This dissatisfaction can typically be traced back to five common mistakes business owners make when it comes to building their checkout system.
How do you avoid these pitfalls and ensure you end up with a point-of-sale system that will meet your needs for years to come?
Do your research. There’s no shortage of special offers available and salespeople who are trying to convince you to use a particular software or application. Most merchants who end up dissatisfied with their point-of-sale system are those who dealt with an assertive salesperson who was trying to push a square peg through a round hole. Today, however, the marketplace for small business POS systems is so diversified there is likely one out there specific to your type of business or industry. For instance, there are applications out there specifically for restaurants, salons and spas, and even specific regions of the globe. Research the options for yourself. A simple online search will yield a bevvy of results. Request demos and take your top choices for a test drive to make sure it has all the features you want and need. You might also ask others in your industry which systems they like or dislike and why.
Seek flexibility. Some POS software vendors require you to use proprietary hardware, which can pigeonhole you down the road. While initially this bundling of hardware and software appears to be a convenient, all-in-one, time-saving purchase, it can become extremely costly to leave should you be dissatisfied with any aspect of that solution — and the vendor knows it. Instead, look for flexibility in your point-of-sale vendor. Their solution should have matured to a point where they support multiple tablet operating systems, allowing you to pick the tablet you prefer, as well as the stand that secures it. This allows you to easily shift to another software without having to throw out the hardware or switch to a different tablet.
Simplify your system. Don’t get lost in an endless list of features. Finding one that does everything under the sun may be appealing, but these often come with a hefty price tag. Most of those features end up like that super combination blender/juicer/coffee maker that’s collecting dust in your kitchen cupboard. Some of the best point-of-sale apps out there are incredibly simple, but support easy integration with other solutions such as cloud-based accounting systems. This approach allows you to mix-and-match your total solution with a number of simple systems that you prefer. Using simple applications developed by those who specialize in that area is almost always the best route to go. Just as you wouldn’t rely on your accountant to also specialize in marketing, don’t count on a jack-of-all-trades software to solve all your business needs.
Look for support and expertise. This goes for the software and hardware selection. Always ask if the company will offer support after you sign up. Can you build a direct relationship with someone at the company? Does this company have a good understanding of the industry as a whole or more specifically, your industry? The more deeply they understand your business, the better the support they can offer. This goes a long way.
Customize it to your brand. Today, you can curate everything in your store right down to the custom-made furniture and wall coverings. Now you can do the same for your POS terminal. You can build every element of it from your tablet to the color scheme, cash drawer and receipt printer. Don’t let a salesperson choose for you. Build a system that fits with your brand and helps add to the customer experience.
Bottom line, don’t be pressured by salesperson pushing their solution. There are enough options out there now to be choosy. Do your research and be aware of what’s coming down the pike with the latest technology and important industry changes, such as the migration to EMV and introduction of mobile payments technologies like Samsung Pay.
Top 5 Challenges Of Enterprise Seo
What makes enterprise SEO unique from a general knowledge in SEO?
The complexities.
A larger company has the technical challenges of a complex site architecture to getting budget for the tools and help needed to be successful.
I have seen many SEO professionals come from consulting or agency environments who have strong technical, content, and general knowledge of SEO.
What they lack, however, is the ability to work with other teams or understand the complexities that enterprise organizations face.
Without the experience of working in-house in such an environment, any SEO professional will struggle to gain credibility or make any sort of impact – resulting in a stagnant outcome with no signs of growth.
Here are the top five challenges any SEO might face when working in an enterprise environment:
Complex technical challenges.
Getting buy-in.
Priority for the business.
Tracking effectiveness.
Budget for tools/help.
If you can navigate through these challenges then support from the organization – all the way from the top down – will become strong, allowing for the overall health of the company’s SEO to flourish.
1. Complex Technical Challenges for SEOWhen it comes to technical SEO for enterprise organizations, the level of complexity increases tenfold.
Sites that don’t focus on the technical aspects of SEO will often fall short no matter how excellent content, brand recognition, or link authority is.
When a site has 90% of its pages throwing errors around redirect chains, improper or self canonicals, duplicate titles, JavaScript issues, etc. are less likely to get results than their competitors who have only 20% (or less) of those issues.
New projects that are launched are less likely to gain traction in the search results or may struggle to ever get indexed at all.
Larger organizations consist of multiple engineering teams working on several aspects to a site and often on different platforms.
When entering into an enterprise environment, it’s good to understand that your first few months are going to be about learning:
How a site is structured.
How the engineering teams work.
How SEO can play a part.
From the use of subdomains/subdirectories, pushing chúng tôi files, generating chúng tôi identifying pages that need or have noindex tags, pagination, JavaScript implementation, how canonical tags are generated, pagination, infinite scrolling, Ajax calls, and so much more.
All of this may be common knowledge, however, working in the enterprise environment with a large site managed by multiple stakeholders that have business decisions that could impact SEO adds a level of complexity that is a challenge to navigate.
When dealing with the complexities of technical SEO in an enterprise environment, an SEO must not only be knowledgeable but be willing to listen.
A strong enterprise SEO can look at data, analyze crawl reports and web logs, and know who to talk to in order to understand the history of the work that has been done for SEO.
A good SEO should be able to make authoritative decisions while maintaining humbleness as trial and error tests present the best results.
By focusing 30% of the team’s effort on technical SEO fixes and mitigating additional issues, an enterprise site will have greater success.
2. Getting Buy-inAsk any SEO and they will tell you how obvious it is why companies should invest time and money into SEO.
With a little effort from engineering, some tweaking by the content teams, and a small investment in SEO experts any company could make money with very little overhead.
Unfortunately, not all organizations see it that way.
Whether it’s a lack of understanding of what SEO is or what all that goes into SEO companies don’t often see it as a worthy investment.
SEO professionals should know that working within an organization doesn’t make it any easier to get work done for SEO.
Calendars could be filled with meetings all day but a discussion might come up in a meeting where stakeholders decide that SEO isn’t important and the SEO wasn’t in the room.
Later they find out that after a project was launched the company could have benefited greatly from considering SEO.
The key to getting buy-in for SEO is for an SEO to get to know as many people as possible in the organization from the top down.
Even when it doesn’t seem like someone will ever need or ever work with SEO, it’s still good to get to know them and their role.
One of those people could be in a meeting the SEO is left out of when a group decides that they don’t need SEO. In which case they would be able to speak up for SEO in their absence.
Additionally, any successes the team can have for SEO are always a good way to get organizational buy-in.
Find some pages or a section of the website that could use some changes to help improve SEO and report on the growth that you have accomplished.
This will show stakeholders and decision-makers that some work for SEO can increase traffic and revenue.
They will have more respect for SEO as well as the team that works on SEO and will want the same for their projects and responsibilities.
Getting buy-in from key stakeholders on what it takes to get work done for SEO is one of the biggest struggles any SEO faces in a larger organization.
From convincing the CEO that SEO can increase the bottom line, all the way down to getting engineering teams to spend the time to make their JavaScript crawlable by Google, SEO pros can spend a lot of time getting buy-in.
3. Priority for the BusinessI will, at times, refer to SEO as the red-headed stepchild (a phrase used to describe a person who is neglected, mistreated, or unwanted) of the business.
Many companies know that they can benefit from SEO, but don’t understand enough about it to make it a priority.
Organizations that end up in this hole of lack of support, or understanding for SEO, have a difficult time digging themselves out and therefore reaping any benefit from SEO.
While getting stakeholders to buy-into SEO, it’s also important to push to establish SEO as one of the important priorities for the business as a whole.
By communicating with the business showing small, or even large, wins a team can establish SEO as a priority and align with what the business has planned for.
Aligning with the business isn’t always an easy task, and not all organizations are transparent when it comes to communicating what is a priority to the SEO level.
By focusing on getting to know teams and stakeholders within the organization the SEO team could become part of the conversation when there are talks about priorities for the business.
While getting SEO established as a priority for the business is a struggle, the benefits can be astronomical for both the business and the SEO team.
4. Tracking EffectivenessMany times I have worked with agencies that report on their wins by showing keywords that have moved up in rankings, or pages they have worked on appearing higher in the search results.
The biggest struggle that SEO will often have within a large organization is reporting. Most enterprise businesses expect SEO to impact revenue.
While ranking changes and increases in traffic are nice, everything boils down to how much the company makes.
Tracking keywords to revenue is virtually impossible.
Calculating can be a complex estimation based on formulas with an understanding of what pages showed up for which keyword searches, with a count of keywords to that page, cut by percentages of Google traffic from organic from how much that page generated in revenue.
It’s a formula that isn’t always doable for each business, especially in times where there are multiple pages that appear in search results for a keyword.
The best way to track SEO’s effectiveness is to understand what is important for the business.
Some businesses are happy with free signups and might have a revenue value associated with them.
Working with data scientists and understanding hurdles associated when reporting for SEO is one of the biggest struggles an SEO faces in a larger organization.
5. Budget for Tools/HelpOne of the biggest struggles I have faced in all my years as an SEO and working for many enterprise organizations is getting support and budget to hire help (agencies, consultants, or staff) and the tools needed that can handle large complex systems.
Hiring agencies that have the technical knowledge, experience, and understanding of what it takes to manage SEO for large organizations are few and far in-between, and they don’t come cheap.
Getting budget support for the expert help needed takes a lot of hard work and scrappiness from the SEO (or team) that is in place.
SEO professionals shouldn’t be expected to know everything there is to know about all aspects of SEO.
Some are more versed in content, or some may be more technically savvy.
Some may have a good sense for navigating the red tape of the organization but aren’t strong in content or technical. In that case, hiring a consultant or an agency to help to make the team even stronger would lead the business into a strong SEO presence.
The best way to approach this is for the existing team to not be afraid to speak up and let their coworkers know when they aren’t strong in an aspect of SEO.
Most organizations will respect this and support the hiring of an agency or consultant that specializes in that part that is lacking.
If SEO has shown wins from technical fixes and mitigation then an expert or agency that can help put a content roadmap together with a growth plan would make sense.
The key is to show stakeholders that there can be success with one aspect of SEO and that there is potential for growth from others. In the end, everyone will benefit.
At the enterprise level, well-known tools like Moz, DeepCrawl, and Keylime Toolbox aren’t able to handle the complexities or the massiveness of enterprise sites.
For larger organizations, tools that are capable of handling complex sites, and that have the staff of support that know what SEO professionals at that level face, require big budgets.
Getting budget approval for these tools can often be a struggle, but when the support comes in and the tools are being utilized, SEO greatly benefits in the long term.
The key is to start small with the more widely known tools and focus on a smaller part of a site.
Use the data found to gain some wins while expressing that there are tools that are helping, but there are struggles due to their limited capabilities to manage larger sites.
When SEO brings in several billion in revenue for a business and the team is asking for a tool that is a very small fraction of that, the return on investment makes sense.
SummaryThe challenges that enterprise SEO professionals face are definitely unique.
But these aren’t impossible impossible to overcome.
By understanding that enterprise SEO has its own struggles and having the patience and experience to navigate through them, any SEO in a larger organization can have a successful career and the business will benefit in the long run.
Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita
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