When you begin to get into multilingual and multiregional SEO, you know that you have taken a step forward as an SEO expert. Why? Well, because you are probably dealing with a large, complex site that demands the expertise of someone who knows what they are talking about. If you are dealing in multilingual or multinational SEO, then you are managing a complex website strategy that serves multiple locations and languages -- not just one. Lucky for you, most everything you need to know about multilingual and multiregional SEO is listed in this post. So, even if you are a first-timer, you now [...]

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I've been thinking a lot recently about the term "SEO" and what it really means today. After a record run of attending conferences ranging from San Jose, Toronto, London and Leeds (soon to be joined by Seattle and Riga), I've become very conscious of a cloud of what can only be described as "SEO Depression" unfolding over conference panelists (though much less so for the delegates themselves). The recurring narrative seems to be that Matt Cutts, like some kind of demon, is always about to unleash a torrent of difficulties for SEO folks. One area which has come under heavy scrutiny in lig [...]

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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.

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The lowly keyword phrase seems to be getting more attention these days. Last month, I spoke at SMX West about big data and co-optimization, then finished up at the International Search Summit with global keyword research and management. Based on the recently released 2013 Search Marketer Survey from BrightEdge, it appears as though global search marketing activities might finally be top of mind for search marketers: One of the areas getting a significant boost in interest is the discovery of keywords relevant to global audiences. The BrightEdge  survey of Enterprise Search Marketers ind [...]

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Brainstormings are wonderful things, and we creative types really love them! But, the writing is on the wall for brainstormings in international content marketing! We know that content is the new marketing driver which many are talking about. Google has driven us to it with a variety of animals (Pandas and Penguins) and has threatened to unleash even more terrible creatures on our poor quality content this year if we don't behave. Move over Pandas and Penguins, the Tigers are about to be unleashed. So, if you're a global company, it's fair to say that your international content strategie [...]

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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 marketers do, I got revenue involved in the equation. Want to know how to understand the revenue opportunity available to your brand globally? Read on... Calculating The Size Of The Pie First up: what's the current global reach of my client? To und [...]

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Speakers at the International Search Summit, which took place alongside SMX West in San Jose last week, shared many useful tips on improving various aspects of international search from geo-targeting issues to targeting and handling different languages. Maile Ohye of Google spent over an hour speaking to delegates and answering detailed questions covering many of the issues international marketers face. She covered the geo-targeting challenges faced by organisations and discussed how the still relatively new Hreflang tag, as well as Webmaster Tools, can be used to help Google make the right [...]

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SEO and PPC fans often find themselves in different parts of the building, on different floors and sometimes on a different planet. This shouldn't really be the case, but is. If you start to think of PPC as a device of SEO, it takes on a very different light and your own attitude shifts slightly. Now, I know you're already ahead of me and thinking of keywords and the dreaded "not provided" category of keywords as the point of this post -- but in fact, that isn't my main point. Rather, the insights which pay per click campaigns deliver to marketers are crucial to making the right decision [...]

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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.

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Unfortunately for those of us who work in the international space, launching a global PPC campaign is much less successful than doing so domestically? Why is this and what’s to be done? Culture and language is the answer you’re expecting from me – right? Yes, that’s definitely an important part of the mix, but there is more, much more, to it than that. Listening to Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, can give us a few clues. I have a sneaking suspicion that he would have also made a great PPC strategist. [caption id="attachment_148854" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Knowin [...]

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eMarketer's recent report on Global e-commerce growth showed online sales globally exceeded $1 trillion in 2012. They further indicate that global e-commerce will grow by an additional 19% in 2013, with the Asia-Pacific region surpassing North America in online sales. This reemphasizes the importance of articles like Andy Atkins-Krüger's recent article on international pricing strategies and how to manage pricing on a global scale. This week, I was doing price comparisons for a few products on international sites and noticed that when I tried to go to the Russian or French versions, I [...]

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In search marketing, we work in the communication business. Two aspects of communication which are often forgotten -- or at least not seen to be a part of the "message" -- are the buying or inquiring forms and the price. Let's deal with the forms first. Many writers at Search Engine Land have talked about the usability of forms, about them working and about avoiding obvious errors. An example is avoiding making postcode fields mandatory in a country such as the Republic Of Ireland where there are no postcodes. Hey presto, guaranteed zero performance! Forms Are Highly Significant To A Us [...]

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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) in common: HMV, Blockbuster UK, and Jessops. All had been considered institutions in UK retailing. Since 2008, the list of once-stalwart bastions of the high street entering administration has been relentless: Base, the fashion retailer Toyzone Sleep Depot MK One ( [...]

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Have you ever read those blogs and websites which start with the words, "74% Of The World's Consumers Don't Speak English," or "54% Of The Connected World Is Outside The US?" They're usually the first post of someone who has just discovered "global" and has been shocked by the numbers. International Business Is Becoming The Norm I'm not going to do the shocking numbers bit this time, but what I am going to say is that the Web is so significant to business development in the modern age, that the businesses which are going to do well will all be international! In fact, international will be th [...]

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In my last article, Big Win & Fails For Global Search Marketing, I recapped some of the failures and successes in Global Search Marketing and identified the lack of communication and collaboration as the biggest failure. While it is the biggest challenge, it is actually the easiest to fix. When Mike Moran initially brought me in to create the IBM search team (a team of 3 -- me, myself, and I), I quickly learned that in order to solve the organizational and operation challenges we had at IBM, I would need help. I set about creating an army of search loyalists that could help me solve the [...]

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Have you seen or read much about what steps we SEOs should take to manage our activities around a world where an increasing personalization of search engine results is an ever present feature? I've seen a few things about needing to take less note of rank positions and more of traffic but can't recall much else. Internationally, personalization is a relatively high risk strategy for search engines. If you've attended an International Search Summit, you may have heard me tell stories of high profile marketing failures resulting from new international roll-outs? Those roll-outs were typically [...]

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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 via Google's Webmaster Tools, now integrated into Google Analytics, which has the added advantage of being free, always a benefit to those working within tight budgets. Interestingly, looking at alternatives to see what the paid competition offers results in very little opportunity. Truly mu [...]

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As I write this piece, the Mayan calendar is about to end bringing about the demise of everything. So, if you're reading this, we survived and the predictions were wrong. Predicting the future is always tricky, but I'm going to have a go at predicting 2013 in the confidence that more of what I say here is likely to happen, than the Mayans were ever able to predict! The graphic below illustrates who I'm predicting will be the winners and losers (you can check back with me in a year's time to see how I did) and more of an explanation follows! Don't forget, I'm always talking about the global [...]

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[caption id="attachment_142421" align="alignright" width="143"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] Rather than one of the typical year-end/new year predictions, I am going to use this space to rant about our industry and some obvious fails that should not be happening with the level of maturity Global Search has achieved. I see far too many problems, organizational dysfunction, and hear lame excuses and failures by companies and agencies alike that can easily be overcome if we just stop and think about the end game, figuring out ways to work more effectively. In 2010, I wrote in this co [...]

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Everywhere I go and in every conversation I have, the importance of the quality of content keeps on cropping up. You've no doubt had the same conversations where Pandas and Penguins keep poking in their nosy beaks? So, here's my question: "If quality is so important, why do we give up caring when it's in another language?" Part of the answer, I know, is that if we don't speak the language we're managing, we're a bit less concerned simply because the visibility is not there. In other words, we don't know what the quality is. Part of the answer is an overwhelming confidence in the translat [...]

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