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Internationalisation Checklist
Before we introduce you to the possibilities of international search marketing, please make sure you’ve read our ‘Global Research Page’ to find out more information on whether your business is well placed to take this step. After this you must ensure your site is technically set up to handle international traffic/sales, please visit our ‘Internationalisation’ page to find out more.
If you have completed the above steps and would like to continue, you’re well on your to opening up your business to a whole new range of international markets.
At its basic level, international search marketing is the same as marketing in the UK, the same techniques and principals apply as Google is the number 1 search engine (with the exception of Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China) almost everywhere. A successful campaign starts with the technical aspects of the website being correct, this can often be the most time consuming and difficult part of the campaign.
STEP 1: GLOBAL MARKET RESEARCH
STEP 2: TECHNICAL INTERNATIONALISATION IMPLEMENTATION
STEP 3: INTERNATIONAL SEARCH MARKETING CAMPAIGN
Website Checklist
Can your website
- Display products/services in the correct language/currency for any country you wish to market it.
- Serve up content that is tailored to the country a visitor is from, not generic English content if you are looking to target German customers.
- Serve different countries on specific sub-domains/sub-directories.
- Track traffic and conversions on each sub-domain via Google Analytics?
- Track traffic and conversions via any 3rd party advertising platform you with to advertise on, such as Facebook, Instagram or Google Ads?
International Search Marketing Channels
As with any other search marketing campaign, there are a variety of channels to choose from when it comes to advertising internationally. Each one has its own plus and minus points, to be truly effective your campaign should encompass a few different channels.
International PPC/Google Shopping Running campaigns internationally via Google Ads is the same as running them in the UK, targeting is simply set to different regions and languages. The most difficult aspect of these campaigns is getting the content right. Accurate translations are vital, we can do this for you or are happy to be supplied translations should you have the resources to do so.
International SEO The fundamentals of SEO remain the same on Google no matter which country it is in, high quality links and good content are essential. Google does have a presence in China and Russia but it is a very small share, it is better to optimise your site on Baidu or Yandex instead. The standard of SEO in many countries around the world (when compared with the UK and USA) is very poor therefore we tend to find it is much easier to rank well for highly competitive keywords in other countries.
International Retargeting Works in the same way and is probably the easiest service to adapt, using dynamic adverts to serve the most relevant products to users. We segment based on country and only show the most relevant ads with the correct language/currency.
International Search Engines & Events
There are different search engines around the world other than Google as well as promotional events that are largely untapped markets to many UK based companies.
Baidu
The Chinese search engine Baidu, is bigger, has more users and generates more revenue than search giant Google. Very few UK based companies are listed on there as it can be a complex process to say the least. Central to attaining a listing on Baidu is having an office location in China where your domain name is registered to. If you can mange this though, there is a vast market at your disposal.
Yandex
The Russian search engine Yandex has more users than Google in Russia, partly due to Google’s prior lack of language support for any country that doesn’t speak English, German or Spanish before 2010. Anybody looking to break the Russian market needs to start here, although Google does have a presence, it is quite small
Singles Day
A day that very few people know of in the UK, it is the Asian equivalent of Black Friday and dwarfs Europe & USA in every sense when it comes to the numbers. Singles Day generates more revenue, has better technology to help market products and is spreading across the globe every year. This year it falls on Sunday 11th November 2018, almost 2 weeks before Black Friday.
Black Friday
The western equivalent of Singles Day, it seems to get bigger every year and is now more important to ecommerce businesses than the build up to Christmas in December. In 2018, Black Friday falls on Friday 23rd November and will no doubt once again extend to ‘Black Week’ and soon ‘Black Month’ as the sales get longer and longer each year. It is essential to have a great strategy in place for this period.