Most websites owners or web developers are following Google SEO best practices when publishing content in the original language. It\u2019s mandatory if you want a chance to rank for your keywords among search engine results. When going global, adding one or several languages, you should take the same care with SEO in the different translated versions.<\/p>\n
When it comes to having a multilingual website, if your translated pages are only visible to human visitors, you\u2019re missing one big half of the website translation benefits: showing up in Google results for your organic search and keywords in other languages.
\nOn the other hand, SEO translation, is a simple and low-cost leverage to test if you need to invest additional resources in that language. Once available in the new languages, the very first green lights of a language could be a traffic increase in that language and, or more customers in that language (coming from the traffic increase or an enhanced conversion rate thanks to translations).<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s break up the \u201cincrease traffic = increase customers\u201d due to SEO translation. Getting ranked up by Google or other search engines is going to attract qualified leads to your website. Your goal is not to increase traffic without any conversion, but to attract qualified traffic with the best conversion rate.
\nAnalyzing the local requests made in your industry by web users will give you the insights on what keywords you should use. Then, make sure you\u2019ll have them on your pages and you should get ranked accordingly.
\nSo, you\u2019ll get incremental organic traffic in your translated languages, drove by relevant requests. These qualified leads are more likely to convert since their requests match your offerings. Ultimately, it means a strong and healthy conversion rate in your new languages.<\/p>\n
With online ads such as google Adsearch, the relevance of the landing page (where potential customers are redirected on your website) is playing a key role on the final price. The more relevant the page is vs. the keywords you\u2019re bidding on, the less money it\u2019s going to cost. Having content that is similar to the bidding keywords, in the same language should improve relevance.
\nHaving ranked search results in the translated languages, also means you have more pages for Google. More pages means more content which has a positive effect on your ranking. So overall, you\u2019re adding languages and getting a better SEO scoring, which also increases your relevance for your campaigns and drive lower costs for your ads.<\/p>\n
According to Google<\/a>, there are 3 key best practices to apply to any translated website.<\/p>\n It is the only way to have translated pages indexable and it shows search engines that your pages are available in multiple languages.<\/p>\n According to Google, there are 3 possible URLs structures:<\/p>\n With WordPress, you can easily do that using Weglot translation plugin<\/a>, it will automatically add subdirectories URLs to your website. If you have different versions of a page in multiple languages, you should tell Google about it. Hreflang attribute (or tag) allows you to indicate Google that your website pages are available in several languages. You have two choices when it comes to translation plugin: Dynamic multilingual plugins VS Server side plugins. There are 3 key benefits with SEO translation:<\/p>\n Follow these 3 best practices to match Google SEO translation guidelines:<\/p>\nUnique and dedicated URLs<\/h2>\n
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\nEach of these structure have there pros and cons<\/a>.<\/p>\nHreflang attribute<\/h3>\n
\nIt will tell Google what are the added languages, the pages to visit and the different regions targeted by these pages.
\nThese tags can be integrated in the header section of your pages (alternatively, you can also use a sitemap).
\nHere is an example of Hreflang attributes:
\n<link rel=\u201dalternate\u201d href=\u201dhttp:\/\/example.com\/fr\/\u201d hreflang=\u201dfr\u201d \/>
\nIn this example, we are showing Google that our page is also available in French.
\nTechnically speaking, if you have multiple translated pages targeting various regions<\/i> you will have to integrate Hreflang tags to each pages and repeat the operation as you\u2019re adding more languages to your website pages.
\nWhen you\u2019re looking to translate your website, make sure the plugin you use can do it, such as Weglot.<\/p>\nTranslated content on server side (in your source code)<\/h3>\n
\nDynamics multilingual plugins only show your translated content to human visitors. We\u2019ve already talked about the benefits of making your translated pages visible to Google and search engines, so you know what you\u2019re missing doing that.
\nSo, such plugins will not index your translated pages and might have a negative impact on your current SEO with potential duplicated content.
\nOn the other hand, server side plugins will translate content in your source code making it visible for humans and search engines. SEO tags such as title, meta description, heading, image alt attribute and others will also be translated. Your website will have full benefits of SEO translation.<\/p>\nWrapping-up<\/h2>\n
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