?? 3 Important SEO Tips for Multilingual Websites by Martin Splitt

Martin Splitt from Google’s search team shared SEO strategies for multilingual websites, and these tips are worth gold to grow your business globally! Here are the three key SEO tips Splitt highlights to boost your international search engine visibility and provide a great experience for your users. If you’re ready, let’s start your global SEO journey! ??

??? 1. Website Structure: The Foundation of Going Global

How you structure a website for different countries and languages is a critical point of your SEO success. Splitt recommends three basic methods when creating a website structure:

• Using local top-level domains (e.g., .de, .fr)
• Using subdomains (subdomains)
• Using subdirectories

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, local top-level domains provide users with a site that feels like it belongs directly to a country, while subdomains and subdirectories allow for more centralized management.

???? 2. Hreflang Attributes: Be a Friend of Search Engines

Hreflang attributes are one of the first tools that come to mind when thinking about multilingualism in the SEO world. So, what should we pay attention to when using hreflang?

• It is very important to use valid language and country codes. If you use the wrong code, search engines may not understand your page and you may fall in international rankings.
• Make sure you link all language versions of your page together. So, if you have a French page, it should point to both the German and English versions. More importantly, each language version should also reference itself! So a page’s hreflang tag should also point to itself.

According to Splitt, you can implement hreflang via HTML tags, HTTP headers or XML sitemaps.

?? 3. Language Selection: Give the User a Choice!

Now we come to one of the most important user experience tips! Avoid automatic language switching. Why? Because every user should have the freedom to choose their preferred language. “Don’t guess or force your users to choose which language to use,” says Martin Splitt.

?? Bonus Tip: Quality is Always Priority!

While competing internationally is exciting, Martin Splitt emphasizes that you need to put quality first. It may be tempting to expand into too many languages and countries, but unless you deliver a great experience in each language, your efforts may be in vain.

?? Take Action for Your Global SEO Success with These Tips

If you are an SEO expert or website manager, these tips for international SEO by Martin Splitt are for you! So what should you do in light of this up-to-date information?

??Review your website structure: Determine which structure best suits your business and apply it consistently across your entire international site. It is crucial that your website is both user-friendly and search engine-friendly.

??Use hreflang tags correctly: Make sure hreflang tags are correct when managing different language versions. Make sure that all language and country codes are valid. Also, make sure that all language versions reference each other and themselves.

??Don’t do automatic redirection: Instead of forcibly redirecting your users to a particular language or country version, give them a choice. This increases user satisfaction and makes it easier for search engines to discover language versions.

??Prioritize quality without overpromising: International SEO can be exciting, but expanding is a waste of time unless you offer excellent content in every language. Choose the most important regions for your business and work deeply in those regions to produce quality content.

If you need help in this whole process, Markethinkers is here for you with its team of experts!????????