Technical SEO for Non-English Websites: A Comprehensive Guide

There are several technical Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) considerations to consider while building up a non-English website.

Making sure your site ranks well benefits your business and your clients because factors contributing to effective SEO also improve the overall user experience.

First and foremost, you want to make sure that users are viewing the appropriate sites for their location when it comes to non-English SEO. Additionally, you want to prevent duplicate content penalties. Thanks to Google's guidance on non-English SEO best practices, there are several steps you can do to raise your ranks.

To get past the algorithm and increase organic traffic to your non-English website, we will look at concrete tactics you can take as part of a high-quality content marketing strategy in this piece.

What is Technical SEO for Non-English Websites?

SEO for non-English websites entails authoring the content of your website in a variety of languages to make it accessible to users worldwide through organic search results and searchable in new marketplaces.

Experts of SEO believes that it is wise to make the website in other languages than your own. This is necessary for SEO for non-English websites.

Most content on the internet is in American English. It can be the native language of website owners as well. English is among the thord most spoken language globally. Therefore it is helpful to use non-English SEO for reaching out to a wider target audience.

Relying on Google Translate can be helpful. It can also be used for translating materials of the website and the Google search engine results. The truth is that you will get a lot better result in terms of the calibre of the translated content and SEO if you implement a targeted non-English SEO strategy.

Importance of Multilingual Technical SEO

If you are marketing internationally, you are probably aiming to reach audiences who are multilingual and come from a variety of markets.

Basic website translation is insufficient in this situation, and automated translations may even be mistaken for spam because they don't always make sense.

While it may be tempting to rely on Google Translate to ensure that visitors who do not speak English can understand the material on your website. However, a multilingual website SEO plan will yield much better results. Why?

It is mainly because most people start their Google searches in their mother tongue. Because of this, it is in your best interest to adapt your SEO strategy to the language-specific search terms that your international audience uses.

Steps for Bettering Technical SEO for Non-English Websites

Following are some steps that can be taken to improve technical SEO for non-English websites.

Using Dedicated URLs

Similar material is one of the basic concerns with non-English websites. Even if duplicate content is not always negative, it can nevertheless lead to penalties like deindexing or lower rankings if it appears on multiple URLs.

Google's best practices advise utilizing 'dedicated URLs' with a language indicator to prevent duplicate content penalties.

International users and search engines can determine the language just by looking at the URL.

Your choice of URL structure, specifically the distinction between using specific Country Code Top Level Domains (CCTLDs) and sub-domains on your site, will determine where the language indicator appears in the URL.

Adding Hreflang Tags

In addition to the language indicators stated above, Google additionally employs hreflang tags to detect the language of the page as well as the region it is meant for.

These tags can be added via a sitemap or in the header area of the original page.

If a page is meant for different geographical areas, it may have numerous hreflang properties added. But it's important to note that this entire process is challenging and time-consuming, especially for people with no experience.

Focusing on one Language on one Page

It could be alluring to translate some content on a website while leaving other sections in their native tongue.

But having several languages on one website could make it less enjoyable for users. The reader might be able to comprehend the essential points yet have problems moving on to additional pages. User-generated information in many languages may cause debates to lose context and a reader to get perplexed or even angry.

Translation of the Metadata

Focus more on the site's content during translation when building a non-English website. Another aspect that will improve your ranking for the new countries you're aiming for is your metadata.

What might be a keyword on your site in the original language won't always be the same on the translated version. You will therefore need to undertake fresh international SEO keyword research for your new target areas.

The Website must Load Quickly

Making your website quickly is one of the relatively simple things you can do for your non-English SEO. Since July 2018, search engines now significantly evaluate the speed at which your website loads. Any effort you make to make your website load faster will directly impact how much traffic it receives, especially if some of your pages take more than three seconds to load.

Conclusion

A non-English website should take into account several crucial SEO elements. You need to make sure your content is unique and that each page has a particular audience in mind.

Taking care of these problems will help your rankings and enhance the user experience.