Yesterday’s standing room only international SEO session at SMX Munich featured Johannes Müller of Google Zurich and one of Google’s most popular spokespeople, known in the forums as “johnmu.” In English, he typically goes under the name “John” [...]]]> Yesterday’s standing room only international SEO session at SMX Munich featured Johannes Müller of Google Zurich and one of Google’s most popular spokespeople, known in the forums as “johnmu.” In English, he typically goes under the name “John” so I’ll continue for this piece with that anglicised version of his name.

John is a specialist on Google’s webmaster tools and has a lot to say on geo-targeting for international websites. He’s due to speak on Thursday this week at the International Search Summit Munich which takes place in the Hilton Munich Park Hotel immediately after the main show. John will also be speaking there on the management of multilingual websites — no doubt another packed session, though this time in English.

The Trouble With Geo-Targeting

The trouble with geo-targeting is that, whilst it’s relatively simple in practice, it does appear confusing at first sight. John understands this too and begins his presentation with a very simple structure to represent the building blocks of international and multilingual website management. He initially subdivides the subject into international, multilingual websites and those using hreflang though this structure soon falls apart as the audience throw in question upon question.

The first key point is that local websites in a region — such as German-speaking Switzerland — are presented higher in the rankings by Google where that helps to deliver greater relevance to the user. John says “Internationalisation is not difficult — but you do have to focus”.

Google tries algorithmically to decide based on geographic factors which will be the most relevant result. He gives the example of a search for “Bahn”. Meaning “railway”, you would expect information on Swiss railways if you searched for “Bahn” in Switzerland and on German rail if you searched in “Germany”. Google looks at things such as the IP address of the searcher and which of Google’s domains the search is carried out on to help in presenting the right results. So Google.de will tend to provide results which are “Germany” related unless there are other factors about the search that necessitate the information being pulled from outside the country.

“Don’t Worry About Duplicate Content”

John says that you shouldn’t worry about duplicate content as that is not penalised and Google has a very rational policy to dealing with it. He explains that Google understands that on mysite.fr you may have the same textual content that you have on my site.ca/fr and works to present the right result. He adds to a questioner in the room who doesn’t seem to be setting the right result that it is important to look at how well Google is able to crawl the site.

He goes on to stress the importance of having a unique URL per set of contents, whether thats targeted by country or language and stresses the importance of keeping a “clean” separation between countries. As he’s speaking German, he uses the word “sauber” for clean, a word which is uttered at least 20 times during the session with an implication that most of the problems international sites currently have are caused by their owners messing things up. International and global SEOs, you need to clean up your act!

We have presented the different factors which Google uses to determine the geography which should be associated with particular websites for many years. But Google recently introduced the Hreflang tag, which Susan Moskwa presented to the International Search Summit in San Jose.

How Geo-Targeting Became Muddled

The situation then became a little muddled in a main session at SMX San Jose when the importance of canonical tags and hreflang tags was discussed.

The whole situation has left many global SEOs at least puzzled. I have been receiving messages from large website owners saying that they can’t see how it works, how they should deploy and, worse, that when they deploy the recommendations, it has no effect whatsoever. Yet we mustn’t forget that Google is introducing this for a reason, even if the reason is somewhat opaque.

John moves the subject along by providing a list I’ve never seen before from any of the Google speakers on the subject and which helps to set the recent changes in a more understandable context.

Google’s Geo-targeting Factors Ranked By Importance

He lists the factors which Google uses to determine the correct geo-targeting of sites and pages as:-

• ccTLD
• webmaster tools
• server location
• Rel-alternate hreflang
• Other signals

This is a very useful list because it does a number of significant things. Firstly, it re-affirms the fact that ccTLDs continue to have the greatest level of important appearing at the top of the list and meaning that these continue to take precedence over the newer Hreflang tag option.

Webmaster tools is also shown in second place to ccTLDs — exactly where it should be in my opinion, but many newbies to international SEO continue to think of that as the first and most ideal option for Google. However, Hreflang tags have taken a slot above “Other signals”, which is now where “language” must reside.

Keep It Clean Guys

The usual question crops up of whether you can use subdomains or folders and John takes the opportunity to reiterate that it doesn’t really make much difference between the tool, “As long as you’re maintaining a “sauber” separation between countries and languages.

A questioner asks about the fact that the using the geo-settings in Webmaster Central, Google’s webmaster console, John explains something which many web masters had figured, namely that it typically takes around a month for Webmaster Central’s geo-settings to take full effect.

He is then asked if the regional location of a server within a country has any bearing on geo-targeting or location placement and confirms that this has no bearing whatsoever.

Whoops A Little Disagreement

Then a slide appears what says that “Language is not geo-targeting”, giving the example of French being a language which people could possibly wish to view in many parts of the world, not just in France.

I disagree with John on this one — and the example is misleading. It is possible to geo-target the speakers of single country languages such as Polish or Korean and for many this would be the least cost route to reach their audience, as well as potentially capturing emigrants from that country in other locations. Of course for the world languages such as French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and so on, then the point is true.

He continues by explaining that It is not possible to target regionally, for example there is no setting or method for targeting “Asia”.

Who’s At Fault For Landing On The Wrong Pages?

On Thursday, I will say to John that he did make me chuckle with his next point. Instead of automatically re-directing users who are “Landing on the wrong pages”, he suggests using a banner which says “Did you mean to visit Switzerland?” The reason it made me chuckle is because, by implication, it means that the users of Google or the publishers of sites in Google, are actually the ones who’re at fault for causing landings on incorrect pages. Google’s algorithm is not at fault! Nice one!

It is important to have just one language per page — and particular attention has to paid to templates that are not translated whilst the content is as this is a situation which presents Google with particularly tough challenges. Pages with small samples of keywords in another language can cause problems — such as a German site promoting Spanish properties — because Google tries to establish the main language on a page.

He didn’t explain, but the background to this is that the first thing Google has to do when it indexes a page of content is to decide what is the principal language of the page as the remaining indexing processes are highly language dependent. Getting the language wrong at the first pass will mean that things do not go well down the line.

When Google Definitely Does Ignore Meta Tags

Language meta tags and language code references or variables, Google ignores. They are not a good signal because so much content is copy pasted without these settings being adjusted.

Automatic translation causes significant problems for search engine-related content. I also had to smile when John included “Google Translate” in his description as one of the culprits — with the intention I guess of giving a balanced and fair message.

Text in pictures and flash is difficult to recognise, which is something SEOs have known about for years, but localised websites in multiple languages often forget the images and banners with the result that content appears incorrectly on the page. Google still does not do much with this kind of content — which means that for certain difficulties it provides an opportunity to present content which it would be inappropriate for Google to index. An example would be a message that said “Are you looking for Switzerland or Germany?”

Unicode Helps to Avoid Gobbledygook

Cross linking to different language versions is desirable, as this helps Google’s algorithms to see the complete network as such and give it its proper values. John also warned that Google doesn’t accept “accept-language” requests.

Unicode or UTF8 avoids characters which are specific to a particular language looking like gobbledygook and difficult for Google to recognise — noting that Google has algorithms to recongise differences such as “ü” or “ue”. For non-German speakers, the “ü” can be correctly replaced with the “ue” — some years ago Google did not recognise these two versions as identical producing different sets of results.

John stressed the point that the Hreflang tag is a page level signal — not site level. It also has nothing to do with ranking but means that the pages are “swapped” in the results to show the right content at the right time to the right user.

John Müller will be speaking at the InternationalSearchSummit.com on Thursday of this week.

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With 153 million users, Spanish is the 3rd most used language online, trailing only English and Chinese. However, the variations of this language, along with the cultural diversity of those using it are vast, making the job of the search [...]]]> With 153 million users, Spanish is the 3rd most used language online, trailing only English and Chinese. However, the variations of this language, along with the cultural diversity of those using it are vast, making the job of the search marketer all the more challenging.

Ani Lopez, a native Spaniard working as an SEO Manager at Cardinal Path in Canada, will be speaking on the topic of keyword research for Spanish speaking markets at the International Search Summit @ SMX West on February 27th in San Jose. Here Ani shares important insights and tips for marketers targeting a Spanish speaking audience anywhere in the world.

Does the Spanish language create any particular difficulties for search marketers?

Sure! All languages evolve over time, but some are more diverse than others. Spanish is one of these that, growing richer, make it more difficult to manage when targeting multiple markets.

Its distribution is pretty blurry and jumps across continents, cultures and media. For instance, Spanish is the official language in 21 countries and an unofficial but widely spoken language in many others: There is the same number of Hispanophones in the US as the population of Spain and Spanish  is the 3rd most used language online (153M users) after English and Chinese.

With types of Spanish, like formal or colloquial, plus regional dialects and varieties, the idea of just using ‘standard Spanish’ is something that I don’t to buy into. Even grouping them – trying to make it simpler – leaves us with too many variants: Caribbean, South American Pacific, Central American, Highland American and more.

The rapid growth of Spanish speaking internet users is spicing up the language a bit, but it is the diversity that Spanish has achieved due to historical factors, different cultures crossing its path, geographical reasons and such, which makes it so intricate.

What are the major challenges of targeting multiple Spanish-speaking markets online?

Writing Adwords copy in Argentinean for a market of Spaniards is not going to be successful unless, of course, you are deliberately targeting Argentinean people living in Spain. Incorrect localization makes potential clients lose confidence in your company and raises brand reputation issues.

Besides the fact that grammar and vocabulary may change, you get very different dialects and accents. These, of course, do not severely prevent understanding among the educated but – big warning here - very common words in one country/language group may have not only different meanings, but vulgar or absolutely inappropriate ones in others.

In this complex scenario the real challenge is localization, something which is nothing new to advanced international marketers, but it becomes even more critical for Spanish speaking markets. This doesn’t just apply to grammar and vocabulary, but also style or the way we phrase ideas. While Spaniards are more direct and succinct, Uruguayans can be more creative or indirect in their expression. With Argentineans you have to read/write between the lines.

Are there any characteristics that are consistent across all markets where Spanish is spoken?

Formal Spanish is a little easier to cope with as it maintains a bit more consistency across borders and cultures. That’s a small relief when managing content strategies for corporate sites.

Other than that it is hard to find consistencies across markets. If you want to sell sneakers (that’s trainers in the UK) to teenagers in Mexico the Spanish you use is going to be completely different than the one you should be using addressing Argentineans or Castilian users.

What opportunities can organizations exploit in those markets?

It depends on the region. Nobody doubts, nowadays, that Latinos in US are a big demographic target. Proof of that is that big companies in many different market sectors have already translated their sites into Spanish. Victoria’s Secret, Papa Johns, Best Buy and Citibank are all good examples.

A different story is what’s happening south of the US. Fortunately, Latin American countries are awaking from a troubled past and poverty has continued to decrease over the last 10 years. Nothing makes me happier!

Therefore, there is a market of 572 million people, of which Spanish makes up about ~66% and Brazilian-Portuguese,~33%. Of course every country in the region has its own particularities but opportunities are already there for those who want to expand.

What tips can you offer marketers trying to reach Spanish speakers in the US?

That is even more challenging. ‘Hispanic’ in US refers to people whose origin is Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Spanish-speaking Central or South American countries, or other Hispanic/Latino, regardless of race. It is truly a melting pot of different cultures which must be considered – although Mexicans do represent a majority.

H.G.Wells in his future history “The Shape of Things to Come” predicted that, in XXI century, English and Spanish would become interchangeable languages. Well, more than interchangeable, we now have a new variance on top of this complex linguistic situation: Spanglish. Living la vida loca!

First Tip: Start planning using Hispanic demographic data in the US, but don’t expect your audience’s behaviour to mimic this data.

Second Tip: Listen carefully to your analytics’ tools to find more reliable trends and outliers.

You’re speaking specifically on keyword research for Spanish speaking markets at ISS. What will delegates learn from your session?

I’ll be explaining how to use free online tools to help you localize Spanish correctly. When it comes to localization, there is nothing better than having native speakers do the work, but even they have to double check localization of words and expressions to make sure their Paid Search or SEO campaigns target the right Spanish audience and yield the desired revenue.

Finally, why attend the International Search Summit?
That’s an easy question to answer. Simply because it is the best summit for those who will have to get their hands dirty planning or executing international online marketing campaigns.

Three reasons to attend:

1) It is organized by a company that knows the challenges of internationalization.

2) It has high level presenters and presentations offering fresh data and real cases.

3) Last but not least, the size of the event makes it very easy for everyone to mingle and chat with presenters and attendees. This is what makes it very exciting for me, because I love to exchange information and experiences.

Early Bird Rates for the International Search Summit and SMX West are available until January 28th. Others sessions include Google: A New Markup for Multilingual Content, Global Domain Strategies and The Other Search Engines.

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SaveurBière.com has been sentenced and fined a 10000euro fine by the Cour d’Appel de Douai, France (court of appeals of Douai) for abusive SEO tactics & techniques. Google did not think those techniques were outside its guidelines…

]]> SaveurBière.com has been sentenced and fined a 10000euro fine by the Cour d’Appel de Douai, France (court of appeals of Douai) for abusive SEO tactics & techniques. Google did not think those techniques were outside its guidelines…

The story

2007, Julien Lemarchand bought Saveur Bière.com domain name – as well as fifty odd related domain names (misterbiere.com, esprit-biere.com, couleur-biere.com…). Each domain name had a unique page with unique content. Julien’s goal was to capture Google’s – and other search engines of course – attention around the keyword ‘biere’, and rank on top for all keyword variations on the SERPs via his chain of unique websites. Lemarchand ultimate goal was to launch a beer dedicated e-commerce website which he eventually did with Saveur Bière.com.

The issue came from his website selectionbiere.com. The owner of selection-biere.com thought Lemarchand’s website was too close to hers and lodged a legal complaint against Lemarchand back in 2008. Then, Julien was sentenced and he got rid of most of his websites and by consequence stop his ‘illegal SEO tactics’.

Yet, since the likes of Google never told him he did wrong nor penalized him, Lemarchand decided to appeal against the tribunal’s decision.

The Court of Appeals of Douai decided to dismiss him and fine him 10 000euros. The Judge said: ” buying so many domain names repeating extensively the keyword ‘biere’ and working at developing links directing towards those websites resulting being on top of search engines results, Julien Lemarchand and SARL Saveur Biere practiced unfair competition practices preventing Celine S ( selection-biere.com ) from getting visitors on her website”.

This is a school case which is now a precedent in terms of SEO techniques and practices in France and perhaps Europe?

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International SEO will be a key topic at the upcoming International Search Summit on 24th November, where delegates will be guided through the challenges of marketing to a global audience by  international marketing specialists who have been there, done [...]]]> International SEO will be a key topic at the upcoming International Search Summit on 24th November, where delegates will be guided through the challenges of marketing to a global audience by  international marketing specialists who have been there, done it – and survived!

Annabel Hodges, aka @searchpanda, will be speaking on the international SEO panel, where she and her OMD colleague Martin MacDonald, will share strategies, tips and techniques for successfully optimising multilingual websites. We chatted to Annabel ahead of the Summit.

What are the common mistakes you see organisations making in global search campaigns? How can they be avoided?
The most common mistakes are I think still the simplest and most obvious. E.g. assuming that because two countries speak the same language, they must be similar in culture. France and French Quebec are worlds apart! Despite this, people continue to treat countries of the same language in a similar manner.  How to avoid this? Well I’m repeating myself in another of your questions here but I genuinely do think it still boils down to the most simply (yet often ignored) steps of international search. Understanding your audience. Do the research, learn the culture, get experts on board.

How can organisations achieve scale in international SEO to improve cost and time efficiency?
Working for a company like OMD, our life is made very easy as there are so many international colleagues in so many countries available to reach out to. I would say that one new country-targeted site done well is better than 100 international sites rolled out with no strategy. Both from a branding perspective and an ROI one. Poorly translated sites are far less likely to convert!

Don’t do everything yourself, look for commercial partners that understand your target market. This doesn’t have to be a huge investment or an entire company, even having one local member of staff can have huge impact. It may seem like a waste of money but the benefits should outweigh the cost.

What role, if any, do you think social plays in international seo?
I think social is big now and will be huge for the foreseeable future . Facebook has taken over the world but that’s not to say that other smaller social sites like Ameba in Japan or Tuenti in Spain should be forgotten.
More importantly, the world’s population is growing increasingly used to being social. No matter their choice of platform – ideas like infographics and creating digital content in general can be easily (and cheaply) used in a  global manner. Much more so than traditional media.

What is the biggest challenge facing international search marketers in 2011?
I don’t think the biggest challenges for international search are really any different to those faced by SEOs in the English language. Crucial over the next few months will be adapting to changes on the search landscape – from recent changes to GA tracking to increasingly frequent and impactful algorithmic changes such as Panda. It’s not the language that is important here, it is the wider strategy and understanding.

If you could give marketers working on global campaigns just one tip, what would it be?
It’s been said a thousand times before but: “Understand your audience”!
I’ve seen and heard too many stories of companies pushing forward into new counties without stopping to consider cultural/language differences or even simply tax/finance rules – and being hit hard.

Finally, why attend the International Search Summit?
ISS allows marketers from around the world to indulge in their more niche search concerns . Although the wider strategies are applicable to all, I think it is both helpful and reassuring to be able to hear and discuss specifics that relate to building up an international business. Personally I’ve always found real case studies to be really interesting and inspiring, particularly when dealing with international expansion and succeeding in search.

Find out more about the International Search Summit and Register at the best rates

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As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose [...]]]> As a board member of SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Association and a multilingual internet marketer, I need to weigh in on many things when I consult my clients and one of them is what search engine to choose to market through.

As a SEMPO board member, I also need to be aware of things such as the FTC’s investigation into Google and this prompted me to think “how can an organization like Google be reviewed, how can a company that relies only on its IP (intellectual property) be examined without having to yield and explain their algorithm and what is then left when the chef has given the secret spice in the award winning recipe?” Not much.

There are so many search engines out there including Yahoo!, Bing (now powering Yahoo! in many locations around the world), Ask and some regional ones such as Baidu in China and Yandex in Russia. You are actually likely to find literally hundreds of them.

Why then do most of the internet users around the globe start their online searches with Google? What makes Google better (or worse) than its competitors?  What is it that makes Google so special that even in languages that are considered hard to crack, such as my native language Icelandic, is Google superior to home-made engines that should at least give Google some contest and a run for their money?

In simple terms, Google gives the people the answers they’re looking for – it may be the latest news, information on a product or process, or the sellers of merchandise or services – but Google has everything in its massive database, everything needed to fulfill the needs of the user and they return, in most cases, the most relevant results based on my experience and tests conducted regularly at my company.

Google algorithms actually seem to understand what the users have in mind and do return relevant and excellent search results. But how does one define excellent search results? Perhaps, you can wind back to 1996 when search on AltaVista and Ask Jeeves comprised short tailed queries. You had to search manually through pages and pages of results before finding anything that made sense for you. It was Google that changed all that. Thanks to its superior search algorithms, you rarely need to go beyond the results of first page for any search.

Companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo have been gunning for Google’s level of search relevance for years. Certainly they do have access to talent for developing great algorithms but still Google continues to rule and is the favourite search engine for all.

There is a lot of hard work that goes behind Google results you are so accustomed to. The search engine makes up to 500 changes to search algorithms every year where each change aims to give better and more relevant results to users. It knows that users come to search engines to help them sift through all the information on the web and not every site can appear at the top of the results.

Certain websites complain that frequent changes in Google algorithms cause them to lose their ranking and traffic. But Google does provide huge information to websites on the techniques to improve their own performance through tools like the Google Webmaster Tools.

Google has also impacted technological innovation in positive ways. Its well-known Android mobile platform has sparked new improvements in mobile devices. Also its web browser Chrome helped to initiate innovation in the otherwise inactive browser domain.

Google’s search quality team has worked hard to develop algorithms that give better visibility to small and local business home pages. It was observed that web pages of small and medium business enterprises got buried or lost amidst big brand names on the web. But with Google publishing results based on local searches, they have better chances of reaching the top of search results. The search engine leader keeps small businesses in mind while improving and testing its new algorithms.

The biggest problem that small businesses face is that they do not have a website to reflect in results. But even they get the required support from Google through features like Google Places and Google Maps.  And Google’s new “Getting America’s Business Online” initiative is helping bring even more businesses online. This initiative actually interests me and I hope that they roll it out in more countries.

Based on what I have experienced and seems to be Google’s only consideration is to give the best answers to users’ queries – without any political viewpoints or advertising dollars. Indeed it also claims that free organic listings are clicked more often than PPC ads.

Sometimes the best answer to a query may be among one of the traditional “ten blue links.” But there are instances where it can also be a news article, sports score, stock quote, flight timing, video or a map — and Google can place it above other results if that’s what the user needs!

The bottom line is that no chef will give out their secret ingredient nor should they be forced to. The secret behind Google’s global success is that they serve their users in a simple and straight forward manner the right relevant results and while they do that they have the upper hand.

The user is wise enough to distinguish between relevant and non -relevant results.

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I have written before about how Bryan Eisenberg introduced me to his tools site and how there were several tools that stuck out as “must try now” tools. Among them was a tool based on the data from a Wordpress [...]]]> I have written before about how Bryan Eisenberg introduced me to his tools site and how there were several tools that stuck out as “must try now” tools. Among them was a tool based on the data from a Wordpress plugin called AddThis.

When reviewing the data it got me thinking that there was another dimension to it, especially when we look at how users across various nations and countries share the content they read.

When companies go global, and are targeting various markets, they tend to fall into the trap of generalizing their approach. By that they might be taking something that works in the U.S. or UK and applying it to Germany, Russia and China, to mention a few.

Why is this important? Well let me illustrate: If you are running a content rich site that you want the user to share with others, it is important to understand that not all sharing options are equal in all countries. If you are choosing the four most used in the U.S. you might opt for targeting Facebook, Twitter, Print and Email.

However, despite the fact that the U.S. is one of the leading online nations in the world, the rest of the world use various other channels, as well as the aforementioned.

Here are few random samples:
Russia has Vkontakte, Twitter, Facebook and Mail.ru
Saudi Arabia has Facebook, Facebook Like, Google and Google
The Netherlands has Facebook, Twitter, Print and Hyves
Brazil has Facebook, Facebook Like, Orkut and Twitter
India has Facebook, Email, Twitter and Google
Switzerland has Facebook, Ping.FM, Print and Twitter
China has Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Favorites

So while you might be safe with Facebook in most countries, it is important to understand that there are other channels unique to each country you are targeting. This is vital in order expand your content’s reach to local users.

Bottom-Line: Don’t generalize, localize!

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As the internet becomes more ‘international’ each day, will the ability to hold onto one’s national language increase or decrease over time? And how would a nation be able to track this?

One possible solution may be to track [...]]]> As the internet becomes more ‘international’ each day, will the ability to hold onto one’s national language increase or decrease over time? And how would a nation be able to track this?

One possible solution may be to track how internet users link to and comment on major news outlets in the world. Using a tool such as MajesticSEO, who track the backlinks to every website on the planet, we can in fact track that sentiment day by day.

One of the reasons why I like Majestic is that they already have ranked the top million websites based on the number of sites linking to each site. This means that if a particular language begins to loose popularity over time, for instance, if a trend emerges that those who speak both English and Spanish increasingly favour reading and linking to Spanish news, the flagship news portals for those languages should increase in the rankings.

Whilst this could be construed at a rather crude measurement of the popularity of a language globally, the tool is backed up by the world’s largest commercially available Link Intelligence map on the planet.

Here are the relative strengths of some of the most notable news sites in different languages as of today:

With the data being updated several times a day, you can compare the above table to a base line of the 31st August 2011, where the number of referring domains were as follows:

1) NYTimes.com (global rank – 35)
2) CNN.com (global rank – 40)
3) News.BBC.co.uk (global rank – 73)
4) WSJ.com (global rank – 100)
5) AlJazeera.net (global rank – 530)
6) LeMonde.fr (global rank – 759)
7) Welt.de (global rank – 985)
Yomiuri.co.jp (global rank – 1,009)
9) ElMundo.es (global rank – 1,475)
10) CNTV.cn (global rank – 1,476)

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On October 6th, the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle will host the the first International Search Summit in North America – but what is special about this event and why should people attend?

Michael Bonfils, CEO of WebCertain [...]]]> On October 6th, the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle will host the the first International Search Summit in North America – but what is special about this event and why should people attend?

Michael Bonfils, CEO of WebCertain US and the host of the Seattle Summit sums it up when he says, “Most conferences only speak about English and US related issues – there is a need to talk about the other 75% of the entire search market”.  And with more and more companies deciding they have reached a plateau in their home markets and branching into international markets, this other 75% is becoming increasingly relevant and important.

The US and Canada often sees new changes and developments in the online world before many other countries – for example the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance – so it is essential that marketers understand what is happening in each target market – and develops search and social media campaigns that are appropriate for that market.

In one session at the International Search Summit, Kelly Thomas Nojaim from Microsoft will be talking about the global plans for the alliance and what it will mean for international search. As Michael says, “Kelly’s discussion is going to be very insightful. As Google holds the majority of international market  share, I would like to know what it’s going to take to change that”.

One market in which the alliance is unlikely to have much impact is Russia, where local search engine Yandex has the majority of the market share. The Head of Advertising Technology for Yandex, Eugene Lomize, is traveling to Seattle from Moscow to share with delegates how the search engine maintains its strong position in the Russian market and what marketers need to do to appeal to Russian users and run successful campaigns in the country.

Japan is another potentially lucrative market, with a population that is very internet  savvy and search trends of its own. Koichiro Fukasawa, a Japanese search specialist and founder of Wasabi Communications, will be delving into the Japanese market and looking at key trends and developments which should shape any search and social campaigns targeting this market.

International marketers are now facing even tougher challenges, as the growth of social media continues at a phenomenal rate.  In the past year, Twitter and Facebook have increased their users in every global region and its clear that they are not just a fad, but here to stay. At the Summit, John Yunker and Anne Kennedy will focus on Twitter and Facebook, looking at how marketers can use them to  develop effective global strategies and boost international engagement.

Sometimes figuring out where a website is  going wrong, or where is the best place to start is the biggest battle and the Global Site Clinic at the International Search Summit gives delegates the chance to put their websites in front of the panel and get some guidance and advice on the spot.

The International Search Summit exists because international search is a discipline of its own. While there are of course techniques, rules and technologies that apply to all markets, there is a whole new set of challenges, strategies and tools that come into play when targeting multiple markets in multiple languages. The International Search Summit Seattle will attempt to address at least some of them, and send delegates home with a ton of knowledge, data points and insights to help drive their global campaigns.

If you’re involved in international search and social media, you don’t want to miss this event.

Tickets for the Summit are still available – view the full agenda and book your place now.

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In a research done by Nordic eMarketing in cooperation with the eNewsPR network, journalists are found to use less than 2.5 keywords most of the time. In the same research Nordic eMarketing found that French journalists are lazier than the [...]]]> In a research done by Nordic eMarketing in cooperation with the eNewsPR network, journalists are found to use less than 2.5 keywords most of the time. In the same research Nordic eMarketing found that French journalists are lazier than the English when searching for content and Scandinavian journalists are likelier to venture outside of their ccTLD and use .COM or other ccTLD endings when searching for content through their preferred search engine.

After reviewing well over 2 million individual visits and search referrals, filtering out various media from over 40 countries and all continents, Nordic eMarketing found among other that Twitter is a poor organic referrer and Google returns close to 90% of the reporters coming through search.

Stay tuned at Multilingual Search and be among the first to get this report/white paper on the behaviour of journalists and how they search for content.

It is due to be published late October this 2010.

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This is the message Marty Weintraub is going to share with delegates at the International Search Summit on 28th October in London when he presents on how marketers can use international social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and [...]]]> This is the message Marty Weintraub is going to share with delegates at the International Search Summit on 28th October in London when he presents on how marketers can use international social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as search and keyword tools to gain valuable insights and data that will drive global success.

In a recent SearchEngineLand post, Marty argues that marketers need to use the array of tools available to really segment their users and target specific demographics. He endorses contextual research – anything that isn’t search – as a means of finding out what your target audience is talking about, what they are interested in and what they need. This is done by engaging with users on sites such as YouTube and Twitter – join conversations, make friends, participate in debates and you will find those who either want what you’re selling, or will endorse it themselves.

Facebook, according to Weintraub, offers marketers a wealth of opportunity to gather this data due to the huge amount of information users share on the site, and don’t make private. Either by optimising your pages for internal search or targeting an audience through Facebook’s PPC mechanism, organisations should make the most of the access to data Facebook provides and use it to boost their online campaigns.

“Traditional” search still undoubtedly has a role, but by combining old techniques with new, marketers can vastly increase their data on, and therefore knowledge of global customers, prospects and brand ambassadors.

In his session at the International Search Summit, Marty will present case studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of blended data and discuss processes which enable organisations to deploy multiple search and contextual channels and effectively measure ROI.

Marty, who is President of US Agency aimClear,  speaks regularly at conferences on this subject, but will be focusing on the international aspects at the International Search Summit. Tickets for the Summit are available at the super early bird price of £125 –book now to avoid missing out as there are limited numbers of tickets available at this price.

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International link Building, duplicate content in multiple languages and geo-selection are just some of the topics discussed by WebCertain’s Andy Atkins-Krüger, when he spoke to SearchEngineWatch at SES London in February.

Andy’s key points from [...]]]> International link Building, duplicate content in multiple languages and geo-selection are just some of the topics discussed by WebCertain’s Andy Atkins-Krüger, when he spoke to SearchEngineWatch at SES London in February.

Andy’s key points from the interview are summarised below – or you can watch the video in full.

Link Building – Local links are the best

Generally speaking, local links are the best and you should target links in the language and market you are working in – so if you are targeting a UK-based, English speaking audience then you should target UK links.However if you want to become more of an international player – say have good visibility in several English speaking markets, then targeting a range of international links from those markets can also be a good strategy.

The same content in different languages is not duplicate

If you translate your English website into other languages it will not be considered as duplicate content by the search engines as they will see totally different characters on the page. However, just translating your pages will affect your keywords – carrying out keyword research for each separate market is essential to ensure your web copy contains the keywords that people are actually searching for.

Target main languages, not dialects

Unless you are targeting a very specific audience, who speak a certain dialect, it is better to target the main language of the market, rather than numerous dialects.

It is slightly different in markets such as Spain, when there are distinct variations on the main language – Catalan and Castilian – which are considered as two separate languages, rather than just dialects. In this case, Google does show results for both languages – and marketers need to be aware of that if they are targeting Spanish users.

In multi-language countries, lead with the major language

In countries like Singapore, Switzerland and Canada, where more than one language is spoken, it is generally best to have the major language appearing first on your local domain website, with clear options to click through to the other languages. Of course, if you are targeting speakers of one language in particular, lead with that language on your site.

If you have multiple language sites – interlink them

On large sites, it’s important to get the geo-selection right – that is the function that allows users to select their language choice. By strategically placing your geo-selector on your network of sites, you can increase the link equity throughout the whole site. Other elements on your site such as pop-up boxes and drop-down menus also need to considered when devising an internal link strategy – as they are not very effective at increasing link value across the various language sites.

The International Search Summit on 13th May in London will have more insights into multilingual search, where global seo and social media experts will offer advice and share their experiences of running international web marketing campaigns. Tickets are still available for the event.

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Whenever the topic of ‘international SEO’ is discussed – one of the very first subjects people want to learn and talk about is which domains to use and how to structure a website at the very top level. In [...]]]> Whenever the topic of ‘international SEO’ is discussed – one of the very first subjects people want to learn and talk about is which domains to use and how to structure a website at the very top level. In other words, whether to use local domains (ccTLDs), global domains especially the dot com OR sub-domains. Whilst SES London is without doubt the most international of the Search Engine Strategies’ conferences globally thanks to the relatively easy access to London for the whole of Europe, inevitably the conference has so much ground to cover, one session on global SEO cannot possibly go into detail.

The question about domains also crops up in other sessions and yesterday’s first day at SES London was no exception. The debate spilled over into the Industry Specific panel which I moderated immediately after presenting on the Global SEO panel. The whole point of this debate is related to ‘Geo-targeting’

What Is Geo-targeting?

What we mean by geo-targeting is making sure that, for example, MyFrenchSite appears:

• 1. In the ‘Web’ results even if a French searcher goes to Google.com but after Google has filtered the results for the French market to present more relevant local results
• 2. In the ‘Pages francophones’ radio button which means that Google has detected that the pages are published in the French language – regardless of which country they might be targeted at
• 3. In the ‘Pages : France’ radio button which means that Google believes that those pages are dedicated to the French geography – whether or not they are actually physically present there

Why Does Geo-Targeting Matter?

There are three main reasons why we worry about Geo-targeting:

• 1. To target the right pages at the right audience.
• 2. To give the French pages the best chance of ranking in the country to which they relate and in the various radio buttons
• 3. To reduce the likelihood of duplication causing a problem for my site.

Making sure the right audience sees the right pages could be significant for a marketer if, for instance, they sell different products or products at different prices to the Austrians and the Germans. A duplication problem – potentially caused by not taking care over the geo-targeting issue – would likely mean that the Austrians would see only German pages.

As far as the radio buttons is concerned, most people should now be able to examine in their analytics how much traffic they get from the different Google radio buttons. We’ve certainly been seeing this data for at least two years and the conclusion that there can be significant volumes of traffic going through searches with the radio buttons set. In the Global SEO panel, I showed a slide with 15% going into the language button and 10% the country. These figures are purely typical figures as it varies significantly from sector to sector and – even – from keyword to keyword.

So What Are Our Options?

1. Use a dot com or other top level domain and set the geographic location in Webmaster Central
2. Use a dot com or other top level domain and host locally
3. Use a local country domain

In the Industry Specific session both Dave Naylor and Rob Kerry put an additional spanner in the works by saying that Google no longer takes account of the IP address and therefore local hosting non longer has any value. I think that Dave and Rob are thinking about this thread on the use of IP addresses on the Google support forums which was also referred to by SEOMOZ recently.

All Google are saying here is that if there is a Webmaster Central setting or a local domain, then they will ignore the location of the IP address. If these signals are not present, then they will indeed still use the IP address location to help them decide where to ‘bucket’ the site.

Basically, this is a decision-making tree in which Google takes a hierarchical look at different signals:

1. Is Webmaster Central geo set?> Yes>> Look no further – ignore IP addresses – ignore geographic location of links.
2. Is Webmaster Central geo set?> No>> – Is this a dot com? >> Yes >> Check IP address for location – Check geographic indicator of links
3. This is a local domain>> Look no further – ignore IP addresses – Ignore location of links

The above is intended as a guide to make this confusing area a little clearer as this area is still more complex than shown above. For one thing when working with a dot com you then need to decide between sub-domains or folders upon which you plan to set Webmaster Centrals geo-targeting option.

My advice is quite clearly this; If you can use local domains – do. Only sectors which find it difficult to obtain local links at all (the adult zones) should opt from choice for a dot com. You cannot set a Webmaster Central geo for a local domain – but then you don’t need to because it is a very strong signal on its own. And just to throw a further spanner into the works, I happen to believe that local hosting even for local domains also helps.

Why Choose Local Domains?

1. Clear Geo-targeted Signal

You actually need to go and buy a country code domain or ccTLD and register with a local authority. As such, the local domain has always represented the best controlled and strictest identifier of a specific geography. There are some exceptions of course, but these are mostly to do with certain domains, such as .tv (the tiny island state of Tuvalu) having found that their particular geography had a gold mine domain name it could use to generate revenue.

2. Cost of Maintaining Content v Cost of SEO

When corporations calculate the cost of making the change, they tend to give less financial value to the ongoing cost of SEO and of compensating for not having the relevant local domain. This could mean additional local hosting costs or even substantial link building to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the dot com.

3. Better Conversions Rates -People Buy Locally

Some SEOs may not see conversion factors as the most important in recommending which steps a client should take. However, I firmly believe users read URLs in the search engine results and that it has a direct impact on how many of them click on links.

4. Easier To Obtain Local Links

Having a local domain also helps in your link building programs. Other sites in the same country are much more likely to link to you if you have a local domain. But it’s especially true that they’ll be more interested in receiving links from you if you’re local—after all, they need local links too. Many local directories will only accept local domain names in any case.

5. Power-Up Internal Link Structures

Links between sites of the same dot com are less valuable, in my view, than links between truly international versions using local domains. So a site which splits its dot com into many countries has an opportunity to reap some benefits from the many different domains it now controls—subject to the normal caveats such as having quality content and offering a good experience to the user.

6. More Stability in Rankings

I can’t prove this one to you, but after more than a decade of experience I’m convinced that local domain sites tend to be more stable in results than dot coms which move up and down when search engine algorithms change.

Set Up An Effective Geo-Selector

The geo-selector—the method by which countries and languages are chosen—plays a key role in sharing link values around the site. Dot coms have an advantage here,but only because using local domains shows up the poor structure of the geo-selector. This is one of the reasons why many jump to the conclusion that dot coms are better even for international sites.

In my long experience, I can confidently say local domains are winners every time.

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Over 13 billion videos were watched on YouTube in December 2009 in the US alone, and the video sharing site is undoubtedly the global market leader. After the US, YouTube is most popular in Japan, Germany, India and Italy, [...]]]> Over 13 billion videos were watched on YouTube in December 2009 in the US alone, and the video sharing site is undoubtedly the global market leader. After the US, YouTube is most popular in Japan, Germany, India and Italy, with Mexico, the UK, Brazil and France following close behind.

Almost 25% of the global internet population visit the site each month, a testament to the international appeal of the site, and the extensive range of content that attracts a wide demographic of users.

At the International Search Summit in May, Bruce Daisley, the UK Head of YouTube, will speak on how organisations can harness the international power of YouTube to increase global brand awareness and engage with audiences around the world.

Any organisation serious about international video marketing needs to have a YouTube presence as it really is a global tool.

The International Search Summit will cover a range of search and online marketing topics including mobile search, international domain names, global Twitter campaigns and social network advertising.

Register for the Summit – February Early Bird tickets are just £140.

Sources:
www.alexa.com
www.comscore.com

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Hurrah, the UK economy is out of recession. Boo, the UK economy is recovering so weakly from the global recession that it may be some time before things truly start to get better. Conclusion? Many experts say [...]]]> Hurrah, the UK economy is out of recession. Boo, the UK economy is recovering so weakly from the global recession that it may be some time before things truly start to get better. Conclusion? Many experts say that Britain – and the US – really have to do better in export terms in order for the recovery to gain strength. No surprise there – but one step the UK and US economies could take, bearing in mind that they are both supporters of the digital world, is to support the world of online marketing to help generate more exports.

Of course, governmental organisations both sides of the Atlantic are working hard to promote exports – I’ve personally spoken to and advised many of them. However, some support – and promotion of – international SEO is required with some urgency. I, therefore, felt a letter to Gordon Brown and Barack Obama would be just the ticket to highlight the need. Here’s my letter:

Dear Barack and Gordon,

The global economic crisis – the worst since the second world war – places us all in exceptional times calling for exceptional steps. Both of you have said so in recent days. Clearly, growth in the US and UK economies is now, more than ever, linked to success in export markets. Both nations are great exporters – but sometimes the way that we, the British and the Americans, communicate with our potential customers in other markets can be rather ‘clumsy’. Let’s be honest, both nations are not particularly gifted at working in languages other than English.

Both of you are also well aware of the impact of digital marketing on present day business life – Barack you have used this tool very effectively to promote yourself during the presidential election. You are also aware of the growth of the use of the internet in corners of the world in the so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – all of them economies which are performing relatively well despite the global economy.

Global Internet Economy Grows

The success of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex and Baidu is enabling internet-connected people to look well beyond the borders of their own nations to buy products and services or to compare other nations products and services and then to develop their own and compete. This easy access to the global village means there is an imperative to move forwards quickly with the development of the British and American approach to globalisation because the competition is actually growing every day.

Given that this threat is also an opportunity – there is no real option. British and American goods and services have to be marketed online and we have to act now to deliver the necessary economic growth. It is not acceptable for Governments to say, “If you’re having a hard time at home, you’d better export.” Although both governments do have very professional export support organisations, they cannot be expected to change the way they do things without either neglecting a service they already deliver today or falling behind the pace of other nations.

It Is ‘English’ That Puts Us At Risk

The English language is the US and UK’s big advantage in that everyone translates their website into English so if you’re English-speaking you can navigate around much of the internet-world and source products and services all over. In other words, English-speakers make good BUYERS. But that’s the rub! “If you want me to buy, speak my language!”. The big benefit of the English-language puts the UK and US at risk when it comes to export and to reaching the wider global market.

SEO or search engine optimisation – is a very effective and relatively low cost way for businesses to reach out to customers and, by localising and adapting websites effectively, this can enable businesses of every size from the smallest to the very largest to expand their export markets. Both the American and UK Governments should invest some of their export and trade subsidies specifically into ‘international seo’ or website localisation. This action would inevitably promote products and services very quickly.

Avoid The Risk-Averse Reaction

Promoting international SEO and website localisation would also help to counteract the risk averse reaction which potential new exporters have towards looking for new markets. Businesses in difficult tend to revert to their comfort zone and take fewer risks. This can be commercial suicide if your ‘comfort zone’ happens to be a part of the economy which is not doing well. It would also be relatively simple for government bodies to monitor the outcomes potentially even looking at international traffic generated to the websites.

I do need to declare a personal interest: my company delivers international SEO services and I would stand to gain from this. Nonetheless, my view that adopting a more aggressive national stance to use web site marketing and international SEO still stands. Britain and America need to expand their markets overseas in the most dynamic way possible. This is it.

regards, Andy

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Universal Search and Digital Asset Optimisation

Anne Kennedy – Beyond Ink

Universal Search – more content from the databases to get quicker to the information, created more ways to increase brand engagement and conversion.

We are actually doing [...]]]>

Universal Search and Digital Asset Optimisation

Anne Kennedy – Beyond Ink

Universal Search – more content from the databases to get quicker to the information, created more ways to increase brand engagement and conversion.

We are actually doing marketing

Why care?

• multimedia is a driver of search marketing
  • YouTube
  • Flickr
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
• Tap into these opportunities

• Use Video, upload it and have your contacts talk about it. These assets can be favored by the search engines and can send a lot of quality traffic

Photos and video require great attention in the descriptions – avoid alpha-numeric photo names.
VERY IMPORTANT: embed video and audio in keyword relevant text – it works !!

The message: text messages are good but images and video are more and more relevant and should be used.

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Google announced at SMX East in New York this week that the canonical tag is to be expanded by the end of this year. The canonical tag is basically a tool for telling Google that pages with identical content [...]]]> Google announced at SMX East in New York this week that the canonical tag is to be expanded by the end of this year. The canonical tag is basically a tool for telling Google that pages with identical content should be filed under a single URL or web address.

Until now, this particular tool is only available from Google – although both Bing and Yahoo have said that they will support in the near future. It also only works within pages from the same domain. Now Google plans to expand the canonical tag so that it can be used to associate content published across multiple domains with one particular domain. In other words, it is to be given a cross-domain capability.

This has potentially interesting applications for owners of international multi-country sites. For instance, if you have a dotcom site but would like to locally host each country’s home page directly in the country – but you aren’t able to prevent that content from also publishing on the dotcom, this new tag would help you do it. Of course, we have to see it first!

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Finally my presentation … I gave an overview on how to establish a multilingual international presence with a blog. I, like Multi-Lingual Search, use WordPress and based my presentation on that platform.

There is a paper I wrote with tips and [...]]]> Finally my presentation … I gave an overview on how to establish a multilingual international presence with a blog. I, like Multi-Lingual Search, use WordPress and based my presentation on that platform.

There is a paper I wrote with tips and information on multilingual blogging – you can download copy of the PDF here.

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Dixon Jones – Receptional

Getting indexed is the easy bit – problems arise when you start building brand – 3 elements are central to your placement

Now that links are imperative problems arise on how to interpret them. Social [...]]]> Dixon Jones – Receptional

Getting indexed is the easy bit – problems arise when you start building brand – 3 elements are central to your placement

• query
• site
• links

Now that links are imperative problems arise on how to interpret them. Social media amongst users of the same demographics will have an impact on your performance.

YAHOO! answers works quite well (also ranks on Google) – generates and maintains the trust chain that is changing. You’ll get an informed response.

You can get links in many many ways – use your imagination, work on providing a useful contribution to your community that also make the difference between junk traffic and quality traffic.

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Kristjan Mar Hauksson – Nordic eMarketing

Technical issues can kill your website – missed opportunities. In many cases CMS is at the base of the problem.

People are more likely to click on URLs that are READABLE (transparent and understandable)  – all [...]]]> Kristjan Mar Hauksson – Nordic eMarketing

Technical issues can kill your website – missed opportunities. In many cases CMS is at the base of the problem.

People are more likely to click on URLs that are READABLE (transparent and understandable)  – all search engines still have problems with dynamic URLs (although they are getting better and better).

Languag is a criical issue with many CMSs (special characters) , don’t handle multiple stylesheets and/or templates.

There are CMS systems that do not manage META DATA (early 2008).

90% of websites are not optimised properly for search engines.

Who should choose the system – don’t delegate to the IT department, create a shrt list of critical functionalities – it is a marketing tool !

Use XENU to test your website -  if the spider gets into a loop then your website has an architecture problem.

Think ahead – avoid last minute basis decisions.

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