021. Multilingual and Multi-Regional Sites Best Practices

Hello everyone, this is Emilio Garcia from Boundify Life. Welcome again to another episode of these series of live streams. I'm really, really happy to have you here today. And today we are going to talk about multilingual and multi regional sites best practices. I'm really excited about this topic. Of course, the idea in general is that we are going to explore how using native language and localized content can help you optimize your site, especially for international viewers, while also keeping Google and search results in mind. So you want to have that nice combination of a great user experience and at the same time keeping in mind what Google and other search engines take a look into. So, so let's start right away. The first, probably the first thing that comes to mind is what's the difference? Or what do we mean by multilingual or multi regional sites? So in general this is the difference. In a multilingual site you offer the same content but in more than one language. The idea here is that you are, you know, pretty much have the same website, but the languages are different. In contrast, in a multilingual regional site, you explicitly target users in different countries and geographic locations. So content might not be exactly the same in that context. Multilingual pages are typically easier to make because you only have to translate content to a different language and and usually everything else is just the same. In comparison, multi regional sites often involve more than language translation. Different sites must be culturally relevant and culturally sensitive, so they are a little more complex to implement. Keep in mind that you can have both a site that is multilingual and multi regional. For example, imagine a company that might have both a Canadian and a U.S. version of the site and within the Canadian version they have available both French and English as language options. So in that scenario you have them both. Now what are some of probably the first question that most people that explore marketers are exploring to implement multilingual or multi regional website ask what are the best practices around the URLs? How do you structure the website so it makes sense for the users and for the search engines? So here are some ideas. First, it's important that you know obviously you think you give some thought to this since it's important that users can easily understand where the content is coming from. I'll give you a quick example. For example, usually the CA URL for Canada can use FR in its subdomain or subdirectory to indicate French content, right? For example, you can have an example site.k and then/fr for France French or the other example can Be using subdomains, you can have FR exampleside ca, right? So those are the possible combinations in one single URL you can express both the country and the language. And obviously it's useful to have different URLs for different variations of languages. There are some rules and that you can take advantage of that come directly from Google in terms of the expected either subdomains or folders that you should do. And for example, I mentioned frr, sorry for French and I mentioned CA for Canada. But also for example you have for Germany dead and for China cn. So there's a list that is very easy to get online where you can see the combinations that you can have for both countries and languages. Now I mentioned a little bit that the structures matter and you have different possibilities here. You can rely on folders or you can rely on domains or subdomains to structure your your website. You can even rely on just creating brand new domains or URLs for each country and each language. So each of them have pros and cons. There's a helpful resource available at Google Developers that you can take a look at. But I will try to explain some of the basic ideas. So one approach is going for the country specific domains like the one that I mentioned at the beginning. You can say example website.de and that will be a dedicated website just for Germany, that will be in German. And if you for whatever reason are going to have different languages inside that one, then you probably are going to rely on either folders or subdomains within that one. So some of the advantages is that there's clearly a a clear geo target in that one. When you use something like.de or mx for example for Mexico, there's no confusion about the type of content that you will have. And if the country have a main language, there's no confusions about the language. So it's very specific and that's easy to spot for both users and search engines. You can actually target that or set it up in the search console. It's very easy to separate websites. So you have a huge team or multiple people working on the different versions of the website. It's pretty convenient that you are able to dedicate a website and so the team works on that one and nobody you know, have issues with content being changed without the other team noticing. So those are the great things about it. Obviously there are some cons or problems with that. The main one is that if you have a lot of countries then it can become quite expensive because you will have to have a dedicated hosting for that website and therefore accesses. And if there's any change that you want to implement across the different versions, then you will have to replicate that change across all the different versions that are being host. Probably you will pay more fees in general because you will have, you will have a greater or larger structure to maintain. So keep those in mind. This structure probably works best when you have a very large company, a very large team that can manage all that complexity in decentralized manner. Sorry. Now the other possibility is that you go for subdomains. So in this example, taking again that Germany example, you have de but instead of using it as the URL at the end, you put it as a subdomain at the beginning. So it will be de.exampleide.com so for each country or language you would use a subdomain. So one of the advantages obviously is that it's easy to implement. So you will not have multiple subdomains like the country specific example, you will have just one domain and for each of the language and or countries you will use just the subdomain. So it's easy to set up. You still have the ability to for that whole website set up like a search console, geotargeting version of it. And it's pretty easy also in the analytics to delineate it because it's behaves a little bit like a separate website. You will have different locations and all. However, still depending on that situation, you will have to manage different websites or different hostings because you have it on a different or a separate subdomain. Depends on the CMS that you might be using. There are some CMS that will allow you to put all those different variations into just one hosting experience. Experience. But still you will have some complexity. Just like in the specific subdomain, the only thing that you will be saving yourself from is the complexity of the domains themselves. The other challenge is that some users might have an issue with the subdomain at the beginning because we are so used to just www.or not using a subdomain at all and just using the root domain to find a website. So. So that's not that common. That combination is not that common. I don't see it quite often. And finally, the last alternative, the one that I see probably the most and probably the one that I feel more comfortable with and recommend the most, is using just subdirectories or subfolders to organize the content. So going back again to that example, if you have examplesite.com then you just make a subfolder DE so that way will be a subfolder and you can organize that into. For example, if you have country with two languages, then within that subfolder you create another one for each of the variations of the languages. Or you just put the language as a subfolder too, like ES for example or fr. So again, one of the benefits of this combination is that is quite easy to set up because you only have one domain and this usually also include just having one hosting because in this case the pages are just organized by the subfolder that they pertain to. You can still use search console geotargeting because you have a specific location. As long as you are consistent with that experience of putting just the same kind of pages in inside that subfolder requires definitely lower maintenance because you have just one implementation. However, separation is something that you might struggle with a little bit, especially if the team is not organized. If someone forgets to create a page under the right so folder structure and so it requires a little bit more of organization and coordination within the team to make it work. However, I think in general it offers the best experience available for the users from all the other options for sure, right? One last option that I have I don't see as often but I know it's around there is using URL parameters like lock equal to D. That one I don't recommend it at all because you know you will have dan problems maybe indexing and user recognizing the target and the country. So it's better to set up the structure not in a dynamic way but actual static way in the. In the form of folders and you know, static URLs with where you don't have to figure out how to type it using special parameters to get there. It's also for sharing is not that good. Now about some of the tips that I can share with you about the user experience, right? Some of the things that you can do to make sure that your implementation works best once you have set up or decided what structure to use. So some things that are important to remember is that you gotta make sure that you cross link each of the language versions, right? You find a way and it depends on the tool or the cms. Where if you are in the English version and someone wants to look at the Italian version, they can click on something and go to the related page. So you do that for the user in the form of little icon that shows you the available languages for the page that you're looking for or in the form of a flag if you are organizing it by country of course, but you also do it internally, right? You set up the metadata required for the search engines to know all the different versions of the website. So Google can also organize the content and serve the right page most of the times to the right user, depending on where searching for. Another important thing is that don't rely only on cookies or browsing settings to adjust the content of the page. I have seen this sometimes where where people instead of just offering options and letting the user select the language and content they want to look at the content at, they rely with cookies or browser settings to define the default. And the challenge with that is usually that most users do not change the default settings for language unless they for whatever reason they need something special. So you end up in a situation where most people have just English, for example, even when it's not their primary language and you are offering constantly the English version, when probably the Spanish or German or French version will be better. So keep that in mind. Obviously avoid redirecting people to the perceived language precisely for that look for that reason. Another important one is that don't rely on just automatic translations for any of the content that you're creating. It's a good start, but there are definitely nuances on even for areas like might look like the content will look the same. Like for example, if you look Latin America and you think well everything is going to be in Spanish, there are little nuances not just on the words, but in the intent and culture cultural clues that you need to remember and that usually a translator will be best to just copy proof all the content that you have created and that way it doesn't look like just a machine created it. Another important aspect, especially when you're creating multi regional sites, is that you should consider if beyond the words, beyond the copy, you need to do changes on color or the layout, or if there are some design preferences or practices that are relevant to the country or or the culture you are trying to show up your website. So don't think only on terms of the content itself and the fact that definitely you will need a translation to be performed. Also think about the social cues, the cultural cues that might be relevant for your website. Even layout might change depending on how people usually consume content on a specific country, right? So very important aspects to consider when you are implementing those websites, especially for multi regional ones. Now there are some tips also that are important not just for the user, but also for Google itself and for any other search engine, right? It's not just for Google, but in general you want to keep, you know, both content and navigation text in the same language. So that would also improve user experience. But it helps Google to understand the relationship with the language. Right? So you, you want to make sure that your menu reflects the, the language that you are showing up instead of having a, you know, one language menu and content in different languages. Because Google relies a lot in the content itself, not just the cues on the URL, to determine what will be the best language for to describe the particular page and match it to the searcher. Right? Obviously another important one is that if you can use the define country codes and the defined language codes, then it's easier to classify it. Don't forget about that. In terms of when you're doing your translation, it's important still that if you're going to optimize for SEO that, that you look for the search terms that are relevant in that language. Sometimes even when you do the right translation, that is not the way or that is there's not the phrases that the users typically search for the things that, or the product or services that your company might be offering. So just as important as it is that you have a human translating the content, then when you are optimizing for SEO, it's important you also rely on someone that knows how to do SEO in that particular country or that particular language. Because the words or the phrases are going to be different from the original intention of the content of the, of the text that you have there. Another important thing, obviously a signal that is important is that if you can serve the content, you know, to a location that is closer to the user. Nowadays that's, you know, easier than in the past. In the past you require to define your hosting or, you know, depending on the location they weren't showing up. Right now or nowadays, with the use of the CDNs, it's possible to just let the machines decide where will be the best source. But just consider that when you are doing a multi regional website that the different versions are served as close as possible to the user, right? So those are important things to consider. Now one last piece of information that I want to share with you are some of the, you know, of the reasons why creating multilingual and multi regional sites matter if your company has an international market, right? And you might say, well, with English we're okay, we can cover most of our users. So it's important to remember that for example, right now most of the websites are in English. 60% of them of all the websites in the Internet are in English. But the majority of the users of the Internet users do not speak English, so it's relevant to create versions of them that cater to those users and that, you know, they can, they can consume the content in their own language. So really important to think about that. My recommendation on where to start if you are exploring this idea is that I recommend to first start with languages, right? If you, if you have to choose between the two ideas, start with languages, go maybe for the second language where most of your users are coming from and you can that information from your Google Analytics and set up the second language, maybe a third or a fifth language. And once you have a good chunk of the languages captured, you can explore the next level of the idea which is the countries, right? Usually in that case you will go to your primary language like English, if that's your case, and then look for the countries where you can do some customizations to the website and obviously adapt the content to that specific location to even cater in a deeper way to your potential audience. Like for example in the U.S. usual targets are the UK and Canada and maybe Australia. So same language but you break down the experience to cater to those particular locations to improve your presence. One key idea behind this is that you need to remember your self esteem on those efforts. If you are going to start making the effort of having a presence on a particular country or a particular language, you want to make sure that the experience after someone fills a form or pick up the phone or start a chat conversation is backed by the organization, right? You want to have native speakers if you are going four languages or you want to have sales support on those countries if you're going for countries. So think about that is really important. So it's not that you just have content in that language and that's it, or you have content in that country and that's it. You have to back it up by your sales team and support team to make the experience really relevant for your users. So that's all that I have for today. I hope you have enjoyed this episode. If you have any questions or comments on this or any other of the episodes, feel free to reach out. I'm mostly active on LinkedIn. If you like this episode and you find it useful, share with anyone that you think might be interest. I will deeply appreciate it and subscribe to any of the social media channels or our email list so you can get more content in the future episodes. It's been a pleasure and have a great day. Bye bye.