Attracting more traffic to your website is the ultimate goal of any website by Boost SEO. Although this is challenging, it is also quite straightforward. You can create new content, run paid ads, use social media handles to attract visitors, and much more. One approach that most website owners often overlook is making the website multilingual.
Translating an entire website may seem like a lot of work, but surprisingly, it is not. Focusing on SEO for multiple languages is quite effective for driving more traffic. The benefits of translating a website into different languages are many. Let us break them down so you can efficiently improve your website rankings.
How Does Adding More Languages Improve Website Traffic?
The best content available on websites is usually written in English. The fact that the internet is a lot more than that is often overlooked. Some of the largest social media platforms and eCommerce websites do not even use the English language! This brings us to realize the fact that the world is a lot bigger than we assume.
Including more languages in your website helps you reach a wider audience worldwide. Including Spanish on your website will give you a chance to reach about 437 million people alone. Moreover, adding the Italian language will give you access to another 63 million internet users while the Korean language will help you capture a huge 75 million users.
Keep in mind that a mere translation of the website alone will not be enough to increase traffic. Getting access to such a wide audience, you need to consider SEO optimization as well. This means translating Meta tags and including keywords that you might not have considered before. Getting professional advice from SEO marketing services is a good way to start the translation process.
Tips for Improving SEO for Multiple Languages
If you are unsure how to start the multiple languages SEO do not fret. The following tips can help you get started and ace the translation process.
Translating the URLs
The most important element people often overlook is translating the URLs as well. For example, if a URL leads to the shop page, the URL must also be translated into the targeted language. You can do this by modifying the slug for every page you aim to translate. A slug is the identifier page that comes after the domain name like, www. yourwebsite/shop.
Translating every page and the slug for each domain is ideal for localizing your website. Just this one step will drive more traffic to your website. Consider sitemaps as another way of boosting SEO with website translation. It will help crawlers to rank your website higher when a user looks for something in a different language.
Using hreflang Tags:
Snippets of codes that allow search engines to detect the language you are using on each page are called hreflang tags. These tags are very useful and an interesting feature for websites built on WordPress. It helps Google differentiate between each version of your content pages. Although it is useful, it can be time-consuming especially if you wish to translate your website into several languages.
Translating Metadata:
Metadata is not visible to internet users but it works in the background. The entire collection of meta tags, meta descriptions, and image alt text is metadata. This should also be translated into the targeted language to ensure maximum SEO optimization.
This is the most effective way of bringing more traffic to your website with the use of other languages. The translation process of websites will go to waste without the translation of metadata. Your web pages will not rank higher unless someone looks for them in the English language.
Again, this can be time-consuming. Every page and all metadata elements should be translated for this to work. In case you are planning to translate your website into multiple languages, this step needs to be done for every web page and every element.
Review of Keyword Use
Keywords play the most important role in SEO optimization and it takes time to master the art. Imagine how difficult it would be to use the right keywords in another language. Using the right keywords in the right amount can do wonders but backfire with overuse. The trick of keywords for translation is to ignore them during the translation process.
However, they should be added later in the process. The first step is to make a list of useful and effective keywords. Secondly, translate each keyword carefully and insert them into the content. Another useful tip is to look for keywords that are used locally in the language you are targeting. Keep in mind that this only works if you have an accurate translation.
Reviewing every page manually is important in this step since using automatic translation functionality can often backfire. The translation through such tools is not accurate although it can save time. Consider using SEO marketing services or a freelance professional to look into this matter.
Research Keywords in Other Languages:
Using the right keywords allows your website to rank higher and the same goes for translated websites. However, some keywords can rank higher while others can stay a victim of a language barrier. Keywords with a high number of searches may not have any searches when translated into another language. This brings us to the fact that translation of queries is more important to drive traffic to the website. Although, the query can be similar in another language, keeping in mind the localization of content can change everything.
To start with, using popular keywords in other languages is important and the focus must stay on the same. However, you can move on to translating the rest of the website at a later stage. The aim is to first drive traffic to your website using another language and then driving them to further content. Making use of free keyword tools online is a good way to start.
The Google Keyword Planner is a great tool for research on keyword volume. This tool not only gives you the estimated number of searches but also suggestions for related searches online. What’s more? You can look for keywords in any language!
No matter in what language you plan to translate your website, the Google Keyword planner will give you suggestions from every region and every country. Talk about localization of content? There you have it! Since the aim of creating a multilingual website is to drive more traffic, this tool helps in suggesting target keywords that perform better in other languages than they do in English. This helps you reach a wider audience worldwide and attract more online traffic.
Boost SEO with Multiple Languages:
In a world that is more connected today than it ever was, multiple languages can be used to target a wider audience worldwide. Website translation, especially one that is in more than two languages is a fantastic step!
Although English is the common language, digital entrepreneurs and marketers must not overlook the fact that the world is much bigger! To reach the world, it is important to target an audience that speaks another language. However, for a successful translation of a website, translating content is just a start. Multilingual SEO and metadata are equally important.