Tips to Optimize Your SEO For eCommerce Localization

Modern connectivity empowers retailers to reach potential buyers worldwide, regardless of location. If you sell internationally, you're probably aware of how localization impacts consumers in other countries' feelings about your brand. The ability to adjust your product offerings to connect with your audience through language and cultural nuances is essential for building strong relationships with international customers. This is true for digital, print, and direct communications.

Unfortunately, many retailers who invest in localization for digital content find their efforts falling short. Lower rankings and decreased traffic on international pages may be incredibly frustrating when you've spent significant time and effort creating localized content. However, content is only one of the factors driving people to your website. SEO plays a critical role. If you fail to localize your SEO, local algorithms won't recognize the relevance of your pages to user searches, and your international web pages will continue to miss the mark.

Whether you're in a single location selling eCommerce internationally or have a local presence in various countries, local SEO matters. You can reach more potential customers by aligning your localization efforts with SEO.

How Localization Impacts SEO

For better or for worse, popular search engines like Google are constantly evolving to provide better search results for consumers. Such updates often feel like a double-edged sword for retailers. Although they make things easier for searchers and drive more traffic, they prompt website changes and extra work. Still, you can easily make the changes with an understanding of how keywords work.

SEO algorithms are designed to follow language patterns and user intention. Also, keywords vary from one country to another. As a result, your high-ranking SEO keywords in your native country might be limiting you in other locations.

Direct translation from English to another language doesn't always result in an optimal word choice. For example, "chips" refers to an entirely different food choice in American and British English. However, this barely scratches how terms change from one country to another. Differences in language structure, word meaning, and user intention can significantly impact your SEO efforts. As artificial intelligence (AI) innovations and voice search options continue to evolve, SEO requirements will become even more complex.

Localization errors and even correct localization on your web pages can affect your SEO in other locales. These are the most common ways localization impacts SEO.

Keyword Choice and Translation

We know there are better keyword choices than direct translation (i.e., if you want chips in the UK, you should search for crisps). However, there are other concerns affecting keywords and phrases. Different languages rarely follow the same linear fashion, meaning your keywords could be backward, tangled up, or irrelevant to the proper word choice.

While you might rent a car or a tuxedo in America, you "hire” those items in the UK. Meanwhile, a car rental in France is "location de voitures." But when the words are translated separately, a more accurate translation would be "rent (or lease or hire) of car." How your keywords appear in your content, URLs, and headings could be inconsistent with the typical format in the language you're attempting to use.

Changes in Essential Information

The numeric formats that we take for granted are far from universal. You should alter these items to ensure your relationship with your international customers and SEO.

Currency: 92% of shoppers are more comfortable with their country's official currency, and 33% are likely to abandon a purchase if pricing is only in US dollars. Uniform pricing in Google appears in SERPs and Rich Results and Ads, suggesting your website doesn't cater to customers purchasing with other currencies.
Times: Using the 24-hour format is the best way to create standardized timing on your website, as most languages don't have a translation for AM and PM.
Dates: Incorrect date formatting can result in significant confusion. US dates are formatted month/day/year. UK dates are day/month/year. In Japan, dates are formatted year/month/day. In the US, a delivery date 7/10/23 means July 10, 2023. However, a UK shopper would expect the delivery on October 7, 2023, while in Japan, the date might read October 23rd, 2007.
Numeric formats: While some languages use a comma to separate digits and a full stop as a decimal separator, some use a full stop to denote a thousand and a comma as a decimal separator (e.g., 1.000,50). Similarly, while three-digit grouping is commonly used in Western cultures, Hindi uses two-digit grouping for all numbers except for hundreds (e.g., 10,00,000).
Weights and measurements: While the metric system has been adopted by most markets worldwide, the US still commonly uses imperial units. Also, some other countries still need to adopt the metric system officially.

Getting these small details wrong can frustrate your end users and affect your SEO when local search engines deem them irrelevant to user searches.

Indirect Effects on SEO

User experience (UX) is a crucial part of effective localization. Research shows that 88% of shoppers do not return to a website after a single bad experience. UX best practices in navigation, informational hierarchy, and search styles can vary across cultures. You must carefully explore the link between UX and localization to avoid unintentionally turning away customers.

5 Tips to Optimize Your SEO for Localization

With a clear link between localization and SEO, it becomes easier to see how to optimize your international web pages more effectively. Although it takes a lot of work, it is worth the effort. Try these five tips to maximize your SEO for localization.

1. Use Local Keywords

Target and research relevant local keywords to ensure they represent search terms most likely to relate to your business, products, and services. You can use keyword research tools alongside your research to uncover the best local keywords. Use your list of top keywords to optimize your website's content, meta descriptions, and title tags.

2. Optimize Site Speed

You likely optimized your site speed before localization. However, the changes you make and the location of your users can impact your site speed. Website localization projects require changes to your hosting, visuals, plugins, ads, and other factors. As a result, your translated pages may be running slower. Optimize images, and minify HTML and CSS to improve site speed. Analyze your efforts to check for improvements.

3. Use Hreflang Tags

Hreflang tags are symbols that show search engines how your pages in different languages are connected. By tagging each page with the correct Hreflang tag, you can show search engines which page to list in each country. Conversely, incorrectly implementing these will prevent you from reaching the right local audiences.

4. Build Local Backlinks

Sources build credibility. However, if your references don't resonate with your audience, they will fail to have this impact and even turn away potential customers. It's crucial to link accurate information to local sources your audience will trust during localization.

5. Optimize for Local Search Engines

In the US, SEO is often focused on Google results. However, Google has a different presence in every country. Many countries have popular search engines. Researching those search engines and learning how to improve your local rankings is critical.

Website localization is a great way to connect with international customers. Even without considering the SEO side of the puzzle, you can still divert customers from your web pages. Localization doesn't begin and end with changes to content.