How can you use hreflang tags to improve international SEO?

1 What are hreflang tags?

Hreflang tags are HTML attributes that indicate the language and region of a web page. They help search engines understand the relationship between different versions of your content, and display the most appropriate one for each user. For example, if you have a web page in English, Spanish, and French, you can use hreflang tags to tell search engines that the English version is for users in the US, the Spanish version is for users in Spain, and the French version is for users in France.

2 Why are hreflang tags important?

Hreflang tags are important for two main reasons: user experience and SEO. By using hreflang tags, you can improve the user experience of your website by showing the right content to the right audience, avoiding confusion and frustration. You can also avoid duplicate content issues, which can harm your SEO performance and rankings. Duplicate content occurs when search engines index multiple versions of the same content, and do not know which one to prioritize. By using hreflang tags, you can tell search engines which version of your content is canonical, or the original source, and which ones are alternate, or the translated or localized versions.

3 How to implement hreflang tags?

There are three main ways to implement hreflang tags: in the HTML head, in the HTTP header, or in the XML sitemap. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your website structure and preferences. In the HTML head, you can add a <link> element for each language and region version of your page, using the hreflang attribute to specify the code, and the href attribute to specify the URL. In the HTTP header, you can use the Link header field to provide the same information as in the HTML head, but without modifying the HTML code. In the XML sitemap, you can add a <url> element for each page of your website, and use the <xhtml:link> element to provide the hreflang and href attributes for each language and region version.

4 How to avoid common hreflang mistakes?

While hreflang tags can be very beneficial for your international SEO, they can also cause problems if they are not implemented correctly. Some of the most common hreflang mistakes are: using the wrong language or region codes, omitting the self-referencing hreflang tag, having inconsistent or missing hreflang tags across pages, having conflicting or contradictory hreflang tags, and having broken or redirected links in the href attributes. To avoid these mistakes, you should follow the best practices for hreflang tags, such as: using the ISO 639-1 format for language codes and the ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format for region codes, always including a hreflang tag that points to the current page, ensuring that all versions of your content have the same hreflang tags, using the x-default value for the default version of your content, and checking the validity and accessibility of your hreflang links.

5 How to test and monitor your hreflang tags?

After you implement your hreflang tags, you should test and monitor them to make sure they are working properly and delivering the expected results. There are several tools and methods you can use to test and monitor your hreflang tags, such as: the Google Search Console, which can show you the coverage, errors, and impressions of your hreflang tags, the Google URL Inspection Tool, which can show you the hreflang tags and the canonical URL of a specific page, the Google Structured Data Testing Tool, which can show you the syntax and validity of your hreflang tags, and the Google Rich Results Test, which can show you how your page appears in the search results with your hreflang tags.