Google & Yandex announced the new x-default hreflang tag earlier this month, and in doing so closed the final gap in executing 'perfect' SEO platforms for multinational brands. There is, however, the question of what language content to use as your default, and how you can bring a little quantifiable information to play to determine your best, overall, choice.
Recently, I was asked to run an estimate of traffic opportunity for a multinational sports franchise in which I modeled their current global traffic against brand visibility growth opportunities. However, I also identified that to make the estimate relevant, I needed to quantify the traffic more than they had suggested. So, like all good Web […]
Looking back at 2012 statistics for smartphone usage & tablet sales figures paints a picture of significant multinational SEO opportunity in 2013. Here are three key SEO opportunities for 2013 and how to take advantage of them.
The UK has seen the closure of three high-profile, traditional retail brands in the last fortnight, following on from a dismal 2012 and an increased downturn for the sector since 2009. The recent closures had legacy presence in bricks and mortar on the UK high street (AKA: the UK’s Main Street or Mall retail profile) […]
Whether you report on just two or twenty different regions, getting a centralised report on search engine result page performance by region can be a headache if you don’t have an easy — and scalable — reporting system in place. There are lots of ways to tackle the problem, but by far the easiest is […]
With the extensive localisation controls provided in Google's webmaster tools these days, is there still a case for multinational strategies using local TLDs for SEO benefit?
Dialling back the importance of exact match domains, despite only effecting 0.6% US English search terms, will still have a strong impact in the Retail, Travel, Gambling & Finance verticals.
Linkbuilding still lies at the core of any successful SEO campaign. Indeed, campaigns at the very top end in the most competitive verticals are all about the effectiveness of their linkbuilding strategy. When you look at delivering significant returns across a range of countries, this truism is even more pronounced: despite all the advances in […]
Handling established campaigns across multiple countries can quickly become a case of handling overwhelming quantities of data interspersed with never-ending menial jobs, preventing the SEO from developing their strategy to squeeze yet more value from their campaign ROI.
Google rolled out its Trusted Stores program earlier this month, acknowledging the importance of trust to improving online shopping experiences.
Google's Venice update has caused surprisingly few ripples in the search engine marketing industry given the scale of its impact on search: it's easily as important as Big Daddy from 2006, itself the most significant update made by Google up to that point.
One of the biggest challenges to delivering an effective social media campaign for big, multinational brands is executing the strategy on a practical level: you’ll have multiple networks, profiles, languages, and social media managers to control across different countries. Implementing your social channels effectively is critical for search optimisation these days, so getting on top […]
In previous posts in this column, I’ve covered the intricacies of multinational search from a technical SEO’s standpoint. Leveraging multinational markup while clearing up in-site duplicate content and avoiding multinational homepage calamities is no easy matter to coordinate for big site SEO. Bringing all of those strategies to bear, and then also attempting to integrate […]
On any website, getting the homepage right is a critical (and difficult) series of important design decisions. When you’re also catering for navigation to appropriate countries covering much of the globe, that difficulty is increased and the impact of getting it wrong can be catastrophic for your SEO. I’ve seen plenty of different solutions in […]
Most multinational sites will serve content via a Content Delivery Network (CDN). But not all CDNs are equal: what should you look for to get the best bang for your buck in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) across the globe? Since Google’s Caffeine update to its server infrastructure back in June 2010, Google has stepped […]
Earlier this month, Google announced support for additional multinational HTML markup to allow webmasters to indicate the intended market for translated content and, in doing so, changed the SEO game for multinational businesses. Previously, Google’s Matt Cutts had stated that blocks of poorly (or auto-) translated content would be considered duplicate. Obviously, for verticals which […]
By dominating the SERP real estate for related search terms, taking around 65% or more of all search traffic (depending on the flavour of Places functionality) for top level terms, Google Places performance is critical for travel accommodation businesses across the globe.
We've seen a number of queries on the suitability of various platforms for SEO, and so I've pulled together some pointers that may prove useful when choosing a commonly available, free, website platform for a site that will - either immediately or at a later date - be expected to deliver an SEO friendly website that can dominate the rankings in multiple countries.
Whether you are taking over a new multinational account as an agency, or maintaining your company’s global Web presence as an in-house SEO, being able to quickly identify internal duplicate content is a vital skill. Duplicate content is a big problem for SEO for a number of reasons. If you’ve been following this multinational series, […]
Resolving indexing or duplication issues are usually top of the list when working with a new domain, but how can you achieve the same level of performance once the obvious SEO wins are in place?
One of the major headaches in multinational campaigns is solving the many web analytics issues thrown up as a result of operating across multiple subdomains, in multiple languages. Part of the problem is technical, but probably the most difficult issue you’ll encounter is actually maintaining consistency in numbers across the various departments and agencies involved […]
It's now well understood that maximising your conversion rate is critical to compete in the most competitive markets, but what's often missed is how extending your conversion optimisation to the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) can influence your site conversion and increase the total available traffic from each search term.
Most businesses either already have a Social Media Strategy, or know they need one. But what makes a good strategy? And how can you set - and measure - success in terms of bottom line business benefit?
So, you’ve patiently built your brand as a local market .com TLD (in the UK, Germany or elsewhere) and, over the last couple of years, built a great reputation for service quality and hitting delivery deadlines with your niche products. Well done! Requests for your company’s products have gone through the roof in your local […]