In today’s globalised world, having a multilingual website has become a must for businesses. A multilingual website enables you to reach a larger audience and expand your customer base. However, creating a multilingual website can be tricky, especially when it comes to SEO.
As we’re aware, search engine optimisation is the process of optimising your website to rank higher on SERPs. When you create a multilingual website, you need to ensure that your website ranks high on SERP in all the languages you are targeting. This means you need to optimise your website for each language individually.
While optimising your multilingual website for SEO, there are some common mistakes that people make. These mistakes can harm your website’s SEO and negatively impact your website’s ranking on SERP. In this article, we’ll discuss five common multilingual mistakes you should avoid to boost your SEO.
Mistake #1: Using Automated Translation Tools
One of the biggest mistakes people make when creating a multilingual website is using automated translation tools like Google Translate to translate their website’s content. While these tools may seem like an easy and cost-effective solution, they often produce low-quality translations.
Automated translation tools lack the nuances and subtleties of language and can result in inaccurate translations. This can negatively impact your website’s SEO, as search engines like Google prioritize quality content that is relevant and useful to users.
To avoid this mistake, consider hiring a professional translator or a multilingual guest posting service that can you with high-quality native content in any language you desire! This will ensure that your website’s content is of high quality and relevance, helping to boost your SEO.
Mistake #2: Not Optimising Your URL Structure for Each Language
Another common mistake people make when creating a multilingual website is not optimising their URL structure for each language. Your website’s URL structure plays a crucial role in SEO, as it provides information about the content of the page to search engines.
When creating a multilingual website, it’s important to have a separate URL for each language version of your website. This will help search engines understand that you have multiple language versions of your website, allowing them to serve the appropriate version to users based on their language preferences.
To optimise your URL structure for each language, you can use a language-specific subdirectory or subdomain. For example, if your website’s main URL is example.com, you can create a subdirectory for your French language version at example.com/fr/ or a subdomain for your Spanish language version at es.example.com.
Mistake #3: Not Translating Your Metadata
Metadata refers to the information that appears in search engine result pages below the page title and URL. This includes the meta description, which provides a brief summary of the page’s content.
When creating a multilingual website, it’s important to translate your metadata for each language version of your website. This will ensure that your metadata is relevant and useful to users who speak that language.
To translate your metadata, you can hire a professional. This will help ensure that your metadata accurately reflects the content of the page, helping boost your SEO!
Mistake #4: Not Using hreflang Tags
Hreflang tags are HTML tags that indicate to search engines which language versions of a page are available and which version should be served to users based on their language preferences. Hreflang tags are essential for multilingual SEO, as they help search engines understand which language versions of your website to display to users.
When creating a multilingual website, it’s important to include hreflang tags on all your website’s pages. This will ensure that search engines understand which language versions of your website are available and which version should be displayed to users based on their language preferences.
To add hreflang tags to your website’s HTML code, you need to include the “hreflang” attribute in the “link” element. For example:
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fr” href=”http://example.com/fr/page.html” />
In the above example, the “hreflang” attribute specifies that the page is in French, and the “href” attribute specifies the URL of the French language version of the page.
Including hreflang tags in your website’s HTML code will help search engines understand which language versions of your website are available, improving your website’s visibility on SERPs.
Mistake #5: Ignoring Local SEO
When creating a multilingual website, it’s essential to focus on local SEO as well. Local SEO is the process of optimising your website to rank higher in local search results. This is particularly important if your business has a physical presence in multiple countries or regions.
To optimise your website for local SEO, you can create location-specific pages that target specific regions or countries. This will help improve your website’s visibility in local search results, increasing your chances of attracting local customers.
You should also include your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on your website’s pages. This information should be consistent across all your website’s pages and should match the information on your Google My Business (GMB) listing.
Additionally, you can create location-specific content, such as blog posts or articles, that target specific regions or countries. This will help improve your website’s relevance and authority in those regions, boosting your website’s local SEO.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, creating a multilingual website can be a complex process, but it’s essential for businesses that want to expand their customer base. When creating a multilingual website, it’s important to avoid common mistakes that can harm your website’s SEO.
By avoiding automated translation tools, optimising your URL structure, translating your metadata, using hreflang tags, and focusing on local SEO, you can create a multilingual website that ranks high on SERP in all the languages you are targeting. This will help you reach a larger audience, expand your customer base, and grow your business!
