Multilingual SEO: What It Is & How to Do It

Multilingual SEO: What It Is & How to Do It

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Author: Tushar Pol

11 min read

March 28, 2023

What Is Multilingual SEO?

Multilingual SEO is the practice of converting your website content into multiple languages. Allowing users searching Google in specific languages to find your website in organic search results.

For example, if you’re translating English content into Spanish to reach search engine users in Spain, you’re doing multilingual SEO.

Multilingual SEO allows you to expand to an international audience. And drive more sales to your business.

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to do multilingual website SEO. Step by step.

Step 1: Identify Your Markets

In which countries do you want to expand your business?

Consider ones with high search demand for your products or services.

Then, translate your website’s content into the dominant languages of those countries.

For example, if you decide to enter France, you’ll translate your website into French.

If you decide to enter Brazil, you’ll translate your website into Portuguese.

Semrush’s Market Explorer tool can help you identify which countries are worth expansion for your business.

First, click on “ Analyze Category.” Then select your niche from the drop-down menu and click “ Research a market.”

Then, navigate to the “Market Geo Distribution” section of the report.

This should give you an idea of the countries with high traffic potential in your niche.

Another option is conducting competitor analysis.

If your competitors are present in certain countries, it’s likely those countries present a good business opportunity for you, as well.

Enter your competitor’s website into Semrush’s Domain Overview tool and click “ Search.”

Then, go to the “Distribution by Country” section of the report.

These are the countries bringing traffic to your competitors.

Translating your website content into the native languages of these countries could make sense for you, too.

Step 2: Conduct Keyword Research for Your Chosen Countries

After identifying your target countries, conduct keyword research.

At this point, consider hiring a native speaker or qualified translator to help brainstorm seed keywords in the country-specific language.

(Seed keywords are broad phrases or single words related to your business. You use them as a starting point to find other relevant, more specific keywords.)

Then, use keyword research tools to expand on your seed keyword list and pull metrics, such as search volume and keyword difficulty.

Our free keyword generator can help.

Plug your keyword into the tool and select your target country. Then hit “ Search.”

( Note: “seguro de salud” is Spanish for “health insurance.”)

The tool will generate relevant keyword ideas based on your input (in this case, over 23,000 keywords).

Some people use auto-translation tools, such as Google Translate, to directly translate keywords from English into other languages.

But these tools aren’t good enough yet. That’s why a native speaker or translator is an important part of multilingual SEO.

Knowing the specific keywords and language your ideal customers use is important. Really important.

So, don’t rely on automated translation tools. They make mistakes that can harm your multilingual SEO and keyword research efforts.

Step 3: Decide Your URL Structure

For a multilingual website, you’ll need to use dedicated URLs for each language and country version.

This will help Google index your site properly—i.e., store it in its massive database of webpages. So it can serve it to users searching in specific languages.

There are several options to choose from when deciding on URL structure. Each option has its own pros and cons.

Separate Domains

Using separate domains or ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) is one of the most popular options.

Examples:

Users are often familiar with the top-level domain of their country. So when they land on your site, they get a sense of being in the right place.

For this option, you’ll need to purchase and manage multiple domains. This requires a massive IT infrastructure investment.

From an SEO standpoint, you’ll need to build links to each domain individually. Which can be time-consuming.

But having separate domains gives you the ability to use localized hosting. Which could improve your page load times.

Subfolder

Using subfolders is also a very popular option for websites in multiple languages. With subfolders, all your content will sit within a single domain.

Like so:

Setting up different subfolders is relatively straightforward.

If you want to create a new language version of your site, introduce a new subfolder for that language and start creating individual pages in it.

From an IT perspective, this is easier than rolling out subfolders and pages on a completely different hosting setup.

That said, you can’t use localized hosting with this option.

Subdomain

Subdomains are another option to consider.

Examples:

The cons of using subdomains are similar to those of ccTLDs.

They're complicated to set up and can be technically challenging to maintain.

And many SEOs think Google treats subdomains as separate domains. This means you may need to build SEO authority for multiple domains as opposed to single, main domain.

But similar to ccTLDs, using subdomains gives you the ability to use localized hosting to improve page speed.

URL Parameters

Google doesn’t recommend using parameterized URLs when doing language SEO.

Examples:

Avoid this option.

URLs with parameters confuse search engines. Search engines may find it difficult to understand and serve correct language versions to users.

Step 4: Translate and Optimize Your Pages

Once your URL structure is set up, the next step is to translate your pages. And optimize each page for its target keywords.

When translating, don’t cut corners and rely on translation tools, such as Google Translate, to generate literal translations from English to other languages.

This is rarely the right approach.

Automatic translation tools don’t take nuance into consideration. So you’ll often end up with sentences and paragraphs that read too formally or even misconstrue information.

Involving a human being to perform manual translation is key here.

Anything that can be translated should be. In addition to the on-page copy, this could include:

As you’re translating your website content, ensure you’re also optimizing your pages for the following on-page SEO elements:

Title Tags

The title tag appears as the title of your page in search results.

Here’s the title tag for our guide to search engine results pages (SERPs) in Spanish.

Meta Descriptions

The meta description shows up as the short description of your page in search results.

URL Slugs

Google displays a URL slug in search results to let users know where they will land if they click on a page.

Internal Links

Internal links are links from one page to another on your website.

Linking to relevant internal resources helps visitors navigate your website and find more information. Google also uses them to discover more pages on your website.

When doing SEO for a multi-language website, add internal links to relevant pages in the same language, i.e., Spanish pages linking to other relevant Spanish pages on your site.

Step 5: Implement Hreflang

After translating your website content and performing on-page optimizations, implement hreflang attributes on your multilingual website.

Hreflang is an HTML attribute websites use to tell search engines the location and geographical targeting of a webpage.

In simple terms, hreflang helps Google serve the right language version of your pages in search results.

When implementing hreflang tags:

Step 6: Build Backlinks

Acquiring backlinks is an essential step in building a successful multi-language website.

Search engines like Google see backlinks as “votes.”

Generally, the more votes you have, the better your chance of ranking well in search results.

The majority of your backlinks need to be from relevant websites—both niche- and language-wise.

When building links, always aim to build links from reputable, high-authority websites. Links from high-authority sites carry more weight.

There are plenty of ways to build backlinks to your multilingual website.

Here’re some strategies we recommend:

Broken Link Building

Broken link building involves finding broken links on other websites and contacting the website owners to suggest replacing the broken link with a working, alternative link from your own site.

Digital PR

Digital PR is about getting media coverage for your brand. This helps boost awareness of your business, products, and services.

Go Multilingual with Semrush

Multilingual SEO is the way forward if you want to drive traffic and revenue by translating your website content into other languages.

Semrush offers a suite of SEO tools that can help you build a strong SEO presence with your multilingual website.