Singapore Search Marketer
Traffic Acquisition Consultant | Bring Quality Traffic to Businesses

Here’s a question that many have asked and I bet are still trying to figure out, when it comes to international site optimization what should be done.

• Should you use local top level domains or use country specific sub domains?
• Should you use the same content from your .com site or customize it?
• Should you use the same design layout for consistency with your main .com or use a totally different version?

Your company has plans to expand to multiple markets but can’t really get the organic search strategy for the localized sites penned down.

What to do? Here’s a list of guidelines that I use when thinking about international seo.

• Use local top level domains if possible. You need to check with tech to see if this is cost effective. If not I will opt for the Sub domain route and the sub folder route last.
• Countries that don’t use English as their primary language is straight forward use their native language. But for English speaking markets, you will need to localize the content to make it fit the locals.

  How? Some tips

Use their local lingo in content

Understand culture terms

Display products and services in local currency

Run promotions based of local events

Having a local mailing address is a plus.

• Usability is also a must, localize your user interface to fit the locals. If your users don’t like your site layout they wouldn’t stay and that’s bad.
• Site structure can be the same as your .com domain or if you want change is slightly to fit the logical flow of the locals. Remember to use local lingo in the URL structure as well.
• Set the target markets in Webmaster tools for each site so that Google knows who the site is targeting.
• Getting inbound links from local sites, this can be slightly harder to get but its a must.

So this is my take on international SEO, do you have any other items to add to the list? Please feel free to drop your suggestions in the comments below

Just posted my last post on some random snapshots of my day to day encounters with the PC, showing how wonky it can be or maybe how random i can get

So I was just Google my name for fun and I am amazed that Google has indexed and is ranking my latest post in the 2nd indent. I know its not new and Google has increased its speed of indexing but still its pretty cool for Google to index and rank so fast even for a small site like mine

New to SEO or internet marketing or cant get the meaning of some terminology used by your search agency? Here's a list of search marketing terminology and definitions compiled by Sean Hakes. Pretty neat list, this is going to be one of my for clients reference list.

Read more – For SEO Newbie – List of SEO Terminology and Definitions

Here's a good read for beginners who want to take a stab at SEO but not sure where to start. The article covers several tips on to ask when doing SEO for your site.

The bulk of SEO is pretty simple, but there is still about 20% that requires expert help. The issue with most websites is that they dont get the 80% right. If you need some help with your site, drop me a mail I would love to provide some free advice

Read more – Good Read – SEO: A Beginners Guide

Nick from Search Engine Optimization Journal wrote an article about pingbacks and if bloggers and webmasters are approving the wrong ones? Might be a good read for those who dont understand whats a ping back.

For me I normally disapprove all pingbacks unless they are from a reputable source.

Read more – Question about Pingbacks, do you approve the wrong ones?

Here's a quick find for link analysis while conducting link building for SEO. The data set seems pretty similar to that of Yahoo site explorer but the way it the data is displayed is somewhat different. Its better structured i guess.

Wonder what would happen to site explorer when Bing kicks in for Yahoo would it get canned like overtures keyword tool?

Check it out – Link analysis of external and internal links

Read more – SEO: Need a Link Analysis tool

Found this link building company Ontolo, they provide link building services for business. Not sure hows the quality or service. For now all my link building are done in house, wonder if its worth farming some of it?

Comments anyone?

Read more – Anyone outsources link building?

Here's another keyword research tool that you might find useful while doing SEO. Besides using the normal wordtracker, keyword density and Google external keyword tool, try using this as a complementary research tool while doing keyword research.

Read more – Niche Keyword Competition Checker Free SEO Research Tool

Check this out, this is something that Google is working on for the past few months. This is Google's new web search algorithm and infrastructure upgrades. Google is asking for us to test the platform at sanbox2.google.com, would this affect how we optimize websites ? I havent tried but would be playing around the web site just to see how different is it from the current version.
Google Search – Next Generation Sandbox Testkit

Great tool from Wordtracker labs. This tool helps you research the types of questions asked and they will return a result set of how many people are searching for it. Pretty nice tool to try out. Keyword Questions – Keyword Research Tool
Keyword Questions – Keyword Research Tool for SEO