International SEO Expansion: Best Practices Guide

Getting your international SEO strategy right can be an elusive feat.

There are a lot more factors at play than people give credit for, and it’s often a thankless job.

A successful international SEO strategy requires a deep knowledge of your company’s commercial strategy as well as technical SEO knowledge, cultural sensitivity, and excellent data skills.

Yet the industry often regards international SEO as just your hreflang setup.

In this article, I will distill the complexities of international SEO success into an actionable step-by-step list that will take you from beginner to advanced practitioner. Let’s begin!

Part I: Be Commercially Aware

1. Understand Why Your Company Is Going International

Companies can grow by expanding their products and services, focusing on gaining market penetration or expanding into new markets.

While your team’s goal might be traffic, leads, or revenue, the leadership team is likely working under a different set of parameters. Most of the time, leadership’s ultimate goal is to maximize shareholder value.

• In founder-owned companies, growth goals might be slower and more sustainable, usually aimed at maintaining and growing profitability.
• VC-owned companies have high growth goals because they must provide their investors with a return that’s higher than the stock market. This is what is known as the alpha, or your company’s ability to beat the market in growth.
• Publicly traded companies are likely aiming to grow their share value.
• Startups, depending on their maturity stage, are likely looking to prove product-market fit or expand their reach fast to show that their operations are scalable and have the potential to be profitable in the future. The goal of this is to aid in raising further capital from investors.

Understanding why businesses go international is essential for informing your SEO decisions. What’s best practice for SEO isn’t always what’s best for business.

You must adapt your strategy to your company’s growth model.

• Companies choosing to grow sustainably and maintain profitability will likely expand more slowly to a market that resembles their core market.
• VC-owned companies will be able to invest in a wider range of countries, with a smaller concern for providing their users with an experience on par with that of their core markets.
• Startups can try to beat their competitors to market by expanding quickly and throwing a lot of money at the project, or they might be concerned with cash flow and try to expand fast but cut corners by using automatic translation.

2. Stack Rank Your Target Markets To Prioritize Your Investment

I promise I’ll get to hreflang implementation soon, but so much about international SEO has to do with commercial awareness – so bear with me; this will make you a better professional.

Many companies have different market tiers to reflect how much of a priority each market is. Market prioritization can happen using many different metrics, such as:

• Average order value or lifetime customer value.
• Amount of investment required.
• Market size.
• And market similarity.

American companies often prioritize developed English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada, or Australia. These are most similar to their core market, and most of their market knowledge will be transferable.

After that, companies are likely to target large European economies, such as Germany and France. They might also target the LatAm market and Spain in the same effort.

The last prioritization tier can vary widely among companies, with a focus on the Nordic, Brazilian, or Asian markets.

Part II: Know Your Tech

3. Define Your International URL Structure

When doing international SEO, there are 4 different possible URL structures, each with its pros and cons.

ccTLD Structure

A ccTLD structure is set up to target different countries based on the domain type.

This structure is not ideal for companies that target different languages rather than different countries. For example, a .es website is targeting Spain, not the Spanish language.

An advantage to this kind of structure is that the ccTLD sends a very strong localization signal to search engines as to what market they are targeting, and they can lead to improved trust and CTR in your core country.

On the other hand, ccTLDs can dilute your site’s authority, as links will be spread across domains rather than concentrated on the .com.

gTLD With Subdirectories

This is my personal favorite when it comes to international SEO.

These URL structures can look like website.com/en if they’re targeting languages or website.com/en-gb if they’re targeting countries.

This configuration aggregates the authority you gain across your different territories into a single domain, it’s cheaper to maintain, and the .com TLD is widely recognizable by users worldwide.

On the other hand, this setup can look less personalized to people outside the US, who might wonder if you can service their markets.

gTLD With Subdomains

This setup involves placing international content on a subdomain like us.website.com. While once popular, it’s slipping in favor because it doesn’t bring anything unique to the table anymore.

This setup offers a clear signal to users and search engines about the intended audience of a specific subdomain.

However, subdomains often face issues with SEO, as Google tends to view them as separate entities. This separation can dilute link, similar to the ccTLD approach but without the geo-targeting advantages.

gTLD With Parameters

This is the setup where you add parameters at the end of the URL to indicate the language of the page, such as website.com/?lang=en.

I strongly advise against this setup, as it can present multiple technical SEO challenges and trust issues.

4. Understand Your Hreflang Setup

In the words of John Mueller: hreflang can be one of the most complex aspects of SEO.

Screenshot from Twitter, May 2024

Hreflang reminds me of a multilingual form of a canonical tag, where we tell search engines that one document is a version of the other and explain the relationship between them.

I find hreflang implementation very interesting from a technical point of view. Because development teams mostly manage it, and it can be very much hit or miss.

Often, hreflang is constructed from existing fields in your content management system (CMS) or content database.

You might find that your development team is pulling the HTML lang tag, which follows a different ISO standard than hreflang, leading to a broken implementation.

Other times, there is a field in your CMS that your development team pulls from to build your hreflang setup.

Finding out how your hreflang tags are generated can be extremely helpful in identifying the sources of different issues or mitigating potential risks.

So speak to your engineering team and ask them how you’re currently generating hreflang.

5. Implement Hreflang Without Errors

There are three ways to implement hreflang on your site:

• On your sitemap.
• Through your HTTP header.
• On your HTML head.

The method most of us are most familiar with is the HTML head. And while you can use more than one method, they should match each other perfectly. Otherwise, you risk confusing search engines.

Here are some basic rules for getting it done correctly:

• In your hreflang implementation, the URL must include domain and protocol.
• You must follow the ISO 639-1 language codes – don’t go around making up your own.
• Hreflang tags must be reciprocal. If the page you’re listing as a language alternative does not list you back, your implementation won’t work.
• Audit your hreflang regularly. My favorite tool for this, since it added the hreflang cluster analysis and link graphs, is Ahrefs. For the record, Ahrefs is not paying me to say this; it’s a genuine recommendation and has helped me a lot in my work.
• You should only have one page per language.
• Your hreflang URLs should be self-canonicalizing and respond with a 200 code.

Follow the above rules, and you’ll avoid the most common hreflang mistakes that SEO pros make.

And if you’re interested in the technical SEO aspect beyond hreflang, I recommend reading Mind your language by Rob Owen.

Part III: Invest In Content Incrementally

6. Translate Your Top-performing Content Topics

Now that you have the basic commercial and technical knowledge covered, you’re ready to start creating a content strategy.

You likely have a wealth of content in your core market that can be recycled. But you want to focus on translating high-converting topics, not just any topic; otherwise, you might be wasting your budget!

Let’s go step by step.

Cluster Your Website’s Content By Topic

• Crawl your site using your favorite SEO tool and extract the URL and H1.
• Use ChatGPT to classify that list of URLs into topics. You might already know what you usually write about, so include those topics in your prompt. You don’t want to have a classification that’s too granular, so you can prompt chatGPT to only create groups with a minimum of 10 URLs (adjust this to reflect the size of your website) and class everything else as other. This is an example of what your prompt might look like: “I will provide you with a list of article titles and their corresponding URL. Classify this list into the following topics: survey best practices, research and analysis, employee surveys, market research and others. Return this in a table format with the URL, title and group name.”
• Start a spreadsheet with all your URLs in the first column, titles in the second column, and the group they belong to in the third column.

Measure Your Performance By Topic

• Export your GSC data and use a =VLOOKUP formula to match your clicks to your URLs.
• Export your conversion data and use a =VLOOKUP formula to match your conversions (leads, sales, sign-ups, or revenue) to the right URL.
• You can then copy your topics column onto a new sheet. Remove duplicates and use the =SUMIF formula to aggregate your click data and conversion data by topic.

Choose What Topics You’ll Be Translating First

Using this data, you can now choose what topics are most likely to drive conversions based on your core market data. Choose how many topics or pieces of content you’ll be translating based on your budget.

Personally, I like translating one topic at a time because I’ve found that generating topical authority on one specific topic makes it easier for me to rank on an adjacent topic that I write about next.

7. Localize Your English Content

Once you’re set up with all your key pages and a few content topics, it’s time to evaluate your investment and see where you could be getting a bigger return.

At this stage, many companies have translated their content into a few different languages and likely copied the US content into their UK and Australian sites. Now that you’ve done some translation, it’s time to work on localization.

If you’ve just copied your US content into your UK and Australian sites, your Google Search Console indexing report might be screaming at you, “Duplicate, Google selected a different canonical than the user.”

A very easy fix that could yield great returns is to localize your English content to the nuances of those English-speaking markets.

You will want to instruct your translation and localization providers to adapt the spellings of certain words, change the choice of words, introduce local expressions, and update any cited statistic for the US with their local equivalent.

For example, if I’m targeting a British audience, “analyze” becomes “analyse,” a “stroller” becomes a “pram,” and “soccer” becomes “football.”

8. Invest In In-market Content

Once you’ve got the basics in place, you can start tackling the specific needs of other markets. This strategy is expensive, and you should only use it in your priority markets, but it can really set you apart from your competitors.

For this, you will need to work with a local linguist to identify pain points, use cases, or needs exclusive to your target market.

For example, if France suddenly made it mandatory to run a diversity and inclusion study for companies with over 250 employees, I’d want to know this and create some content on DEI surveys at SurveyMonkey.

9. Integrate With Other Content Workflows

In step six, we evaluated our top-performing content, chose the best articles to translate, and got it all down. But wait. Some of these source articles have been updated. And there is even more content now!

To run a successful international SEO campaign you must integrate with all the other teams publishing content within your organization.

Usually, the teams creating content in an organization are SEO, content, PR, product marketing, demand generation, customer marketing, customer service, customer education, or solutions engineering.

That’s a lot, and you won’t be able to integrate with everyone all at once. Prioritize the teams that create the most revenue-generating content, such as SEO, content, or product marketing.

Working with these teams, you will have to establish a process for what happens when they create a new piece, update some content, or remove an existing piece.

These processes can differ for everyone, but I can tell you what I do with my team and hope it inspires you.

• When a piece of content that’s already been localized into international markets is updated, we get the content in a queue to be re-localized the next quarter.
• When they create a new piece of content, we evaluate its performance, and if it’s performing above average, we add it to a localization queue for the next quarter.
• When they change the URL of a piece of content or delete it, all international sites must follow suit at the same time, since due to some technical limitations, not making the change globally would create some hreflang issues.

Wrapping Up

International SEO is vast and complex, and no article can cover it all, but many interesting resources have been created by SEO pros across the community for those who want to learn more.

Navigating the complexities of international SEO is no small feat. It’s an intricate dance of aligning commercial strategies with technical precision, cultural insights, and data-driven decisions.

From understanding your company’s core motives for global expansion to meticulously implementing hreflang tags and localizing content, every step plays a crucial role in building a successful international presence.

More resources: 

• How To Use Market-Specific Conversion Tracking To Drive International SEO Success
• 4 Key Areas Of International SEO Focus For Entering A New Market
• Getting Started In International SEO: A Quick Reference Guide

Featured Image: BritCats Studio/Shutterstock

Today’s ask an SEO question comes from Mark:

“How can a small company that only ranks in its local markets begin to rank in another market? What would you do to help the small company rank in a new area?”

Great question, Mark! The good news is that the answer is fairly easy and can be applied to local, national, and international in the base strategy.

All three can also require foreign language versions, but that is for another post. I’ll give some hints in this one for that situation, though.

I’m going to cover the basics of getting SEO traffic in new markets here, making the assumption it is regional vs. new products, and then share some tips specific to local, national, and international.

Google Business Profile (GBP)

If you’re local or have a national footprint, when you expand, make sure to update your area served or serviced by location. This link goes to Google’s guide for how to use a service area.

Make sure to keep your hours up-to-date on the website, landing page, and on your GBP.

This helps the search engines to understand where you’re now offering services, what your footprint is, and when customers can access your offerings.

You can also launch new profiles for new locations. Just make sure you verify ownership for each one and keep them up-to-date. This includes holiday hours and closings.

Schema

Do you have service area or organization schema on your site or pages? Make sure to fill out and update the “area served” fields by referencing Wikipedia or Wikipedia’s entries.

Wikidata has almost every city, county, state, country, and region to help you define where your products, services, stores, etc., are located.

The more you can help the search engines know where you offer services, and the hours you offer them, the better job they can do at showing you as a provider to people in those markets.

Do you offer services in all of North America (US, Mexico, Canada)? There’s a page for that, too. This way, you don’t have to reference all three.

But something really weird here is that Wikidata includes “Greenland” as North America.

That’s definitely not accurate for your locations, although it is technically part of the continent (geographically). Politically, Greenland is part of the EU, as it is currently a territory of Denmark.

Here’s a screenshot of the page with a date stamp. This likely wouldn’t impact your ability to rank, so don’t second-guess yourself here.

I’m using this as an example because it could be confusing as to why you may reference this page when you don’t offer services in Greenland.

Screenshot from Wikidata, January 2023

Localize Or Regionalize Your Titles And Descriptions

Meta descriptions are not a ranking signal or used in rankings – at least, that’s my opinion – though they do influence how many people click through to your site. But only when a search engine uses the meta descriptions you create.

Title tags, however, do move the needle, based on my experience, when combined with other on-page elements.

When the description reinforces the region or market the title displays for, you create an enticing ad for a consumer to click on.

And meta descriptions are vital.

If you are optimizing for tourists and mention you’re right by a specific landmark, they will know you’re close to their location and may click on your listing over another business higher up that shares generic titles and descriptions.

This can work for retailers, pharmacies, restaurants, housing or car rentals, etc. Here’s a guide I created for writing localized meta descriptions and title tags.

Build Citations And Do PR Work

This one is a double win! Look up local blogs, newspapers, and magazines, then focus on getting featured and mentioned.

By being featured, you can get referral traffic and customers to your business and signal to search engines you have a new local location or expansion. In some cases, you may get a backlink.

Whether the backlink is natural and good or not depends on the site linking to you and the type of link.

As an added bonus, if the new market you have moved into recognizes and trusts the media company’s brand, feature the logo on your page.

This may help build trust to increase conversions both online or for foot traffic if they’re deciding between two businesses to try.

If you were to expand into my city (Washington D.C.), focus on Washingtonian Magazine, Popville, or ARLnow. These could be recognizable by locals in our area.

Other Things To Pay Attention To

One thing to keep in mind when you expand your footprint is that demographics may change location by location.

You may find the new location has a different skew for race, religion, single vs. married, income levels, or age ranges. This means the way you market also needs modifying.

• If you offer new languages, make sure to check your hreflang tags so they reference the correct language version for products, services, and content. Here’s Google’s guide on this.
• Update the imagery to match the demographics of the customers who will be contacting you for services or visiting your location.
• Make sure the wording makes sense for their needs. If your original location is in a DINK-heavy area (dual income, no kids), and the new one has multiple elementary schools, mention the new location is kid-friendly or add in relevant promotions, e.g., “kids eat half price.” While you might do this for the kid-friendly location, keep the wording focused on relaxing, calm, quiet, and romantic for the DINK location.

Expanding a business or service is exciting, and it is easy to begin getting traffic, customers, and sales from it.

You just need to put in the work, make sure you cater to the needs of your new audience, and that your content and code are updated regularly. I hope this helps.

More resources: 

• How To Use Market-Specific Conversion Tracking To Drive International SEO Success
• How Do I Rank Better Internationally In One Or Many Countries?
• A Guide to Local SEO

Featured Image: Toey Andante/Shutterstock

Included as a part of Google’s search quality rater guidelines is “E-E-A-T,” which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. These are evaluated using a mix of signals – not a specific ranking factor – and help Google determine if the content is relevant and helpful enough for users that it should be prioritized in their search results.

E-E-A-T is especially relevant for topics referred to as “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL). These topics can have a significant impact on an individual’s or society’s health, finances, safety, security, knowledge, or well-being.

E-E-A-T has a fundamental importance for YMYL topics. But what happens when we want to create international strategies? What are the digital actions that we can promote that can help or hinder our international sales?

Would you buy from sites from other countries that don’t use the payment methods you’re used to, or where the content isn’t well translated or transcribed in your language?

What about sites that don’t have reviews or have almost no mentions? Sites that are, basically, not trustworthy enough? Well, you probably wouldn’t – and neither would other people.

International ecommerce is a big market filled with opportunities, not just for big brands and companies but also for medium and small-sized businesses.

I’ve experienced this first-hand with the online store I founded two years ago. There, I’ve managed to sell two of the most fun and unique traditional Catalan Christmas items to an international audience: the Tió de Nadal and the Caganer.

But how did I manage to attract users from all around the world to buy these typical Christmas products from Catalonia? How did I gain online presence and recognition in other countries?

How did a small store selling local Catalan products become one of the leading online references in Spain and other countries?

Through leveraging E-E-A-T to boost my international expansion!

So, let’s take a look at some practical actions you can implement in order to achieve these international results. In this case, we’ll focus on demonstrating your expertise and authority on an international scale.

How To Become A Worldwide Expert In The Field

As Google defines it, expertise is considered the extent to which the content creator possesses the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic.

Different topics require varying levels and types of expertise to be considered trustworthy.

And how can an international e-commerce site leverage its expertise? Let’s explore some actions.

Create And Complete The Author Pages

Does the author have experience in the topic they are writing about? Then you need to demonstrate it! Create a detailed “About the Author” page that highlights the author’s expertise in the topic.

This could include mentions from local magazines, publications, social media channels, interviews, and more, from all your potential countries!

Also, in order to help Google better understand and represent the content’s author, it is recommended to include schema markups, such as:

• Author schema markups
• Person or Organization schema markups

However, while that’s great, it’s not sufficient if you want to showcase your expertise. You need to do more to demonstrate your expertise on a global scale.

Topic Cluster Research

Topic clusters are groups of pages that demonstrate expertise and authority in a specific topic.

That’s why you must do keyword research that goes beyond what users are searching for in relation to your product or service.

Screenshot from Semrush, December 2023

In a topic cluster study, you need to analyze everything related to your topic. The research should include the entire mental framework surrounding your products or services.

You need to ask yourself: How can users who are not familiar with you find you? How can you awaken their interest and create brand awareness? Then, analyze everything related to those concepts.

Screenshot from search for [funny christmas traditions around the world], Google, December 2023

Screenshot from Semrush, December 2023

On an international scale, it’s important to do a specific topic research for each potential language or country.

This is because the knowledge users have about your product may change significantly from one region to another.

By tailoring your content to address users’ needs, you can demonstrate that you are the most relevant website for the entire topic related to your products or services.

Create Content Focused On Your User’s Search Intent

The types of searches on an international scale can change significantly depending on the region, especially when creating content for a global audience.

It’s not just the search content that can differ; the type of search intent may also change, even for the same search term.

To demonstrate your expertise in the field, you must understand the users’ intentions to offer them the most relevant content.

By using keyword research tools and analyzing the SERPs in each country, you can determine the best content to provide based on the country.

For instance, the keyword “cagatio” in the United States, typically has an informational intent. Users want to learn more about the tradition or see what it looks like in pictures.

Screenshot from search for [caga tio], Google, December 2023

Screenshot from search for [tio de nadal], Google, December 2023

This insight will guide us in developing and creating content that is optimally tailored to the specific needs and contexts of each region.

Build Audience On Other Platforms

Building an audience on different channels and platforms is a great way to leverage your expertise to potential customers.

Does your product have a decorative use? Consider if Pinterest could be a viable channel.

Can you create engaging videos about your product? Explore the possibilities of building your brand on TikTok or YouTube.

Are users asking questions or discussing topics related to your items? Seize the opportunity to lead discussion forums on the subject and share your knowledge.

It’s important to consider different platforms and analyze the types of searches users make related to your product.

Have you taken into account all your potential channels? Did you compare and analyze the channels to determine which ones are more transactional and which are better suited for brand awareness?

Comparing “Ideas For Christmas Decorations”: Google Vs. TikTok Vs. Pinterest

keywordtool.io

Screenshot from keywordtool.io, December 2023

Screenshot from keywordtool.io, December 2023

Explore Each Region And Culture

In Spain, December brings cold weather for Christmas celebrations, while in New Zealand, Christmas is celebrated in short sleeves during the summer season.

When developing content and strategies for an international audience, it is essential to delve into the specificities of each region.

Understanding the unique cultural and seasonal aspects at different times of the year and how they relate to product searches is key to demonstrating your comprehensive knowledge of the subject worldwide.

For example, the term “Christmas sweater” sees a lot of searches in Spain during Christmas. On the other hand, in New Zealand’s Christmas season, there’s hardly any demand for this product.

Screenshot from Google Trends, December 2023

Screenshot from Google Trends, December 2023

Authoritativeness: Building Your Brand Reputation

As Google defines, authoritativeness is considered the extent to which the content creator or the website is known as a go-to source for the topic.

If you become a leading company in your respective markets, you will achieve greater brand authority.

This makes it more likely for you to receive mentions from industry magazines, websites, blogs, social media, and industry experts, as they will see you as their go-to source of information.

But how do you increase brand authority in various markets on an international scale? Let’s see some examples.

Navigational Keyword Research

Navigational keywords are used when a user searches specifically for a brand name or a website.

Doing a navigational search intent study of the main brands and products in each region is essential to identify the most authoritative sites. This will allow you to identify the competitors in each market and perform an in-depth analysis.

What strategies are being pursued by them in that country? What factors contribute to their recognition as the most authoritative sites? How well-established are they in the region? What can you do better or differently?

Screenshot from search for [christmas trees for sale], Google, December 2023

Get Mentions From Local Influencers Or Sector Leaders

To increase awareness in your potential markets, it’s important to establish yourself as the go-to source and expert in each one.

Through keyword research, analysis of the SERPs, and competitor analysis, you can uncover new opportunities for content sharing from the most influential voices in each country.

Ask questions like: When did influencers in that country share your product or service? Do they use videos or images found through search engines? When do they typically talk about it?

Monitoring social media conversations is key. Seize the opportunity to become a trend.

Screenshot from author, December 2023

Get Featured On Local Relevant Websites

To establish your brand as the go-to source of information in your field, it’s essential to be seen as an authority. One way to achieve this is by creating resourceful content like guides, tutorials, and how-to articles.

This content increases the likelihood of being shared across various languages. You can also conduct studies on industry trends to further build your authority.

Being active in different markets gives you the unique advantage of accessing data that others might not have. Using this data effectively can enhance your position in your respective markets.

These efforts can significantly boost your chances of being featured in local magazines or media, as well as on government or association websites, even on Wikipedia, establishing you as the leading expert in your field.

Screenshot from Wikipedia, December 2023

Local Business Profile

Last but not least, another one of the key factors to demonstrate your authority is the definition of your local profiles, whether on Google Business Profile, social profiles, or directories.

Accurately including information in multiple listings regarding your name, address, and contact methods is key to transmitting authority and brand reputation to users in other countries who cannot verify this information in person.

Expanding Expertise And Brand Authority Internationally

If you aim to sell on an international scale, effectively communicating your brand’s expertise in relation to the product or service, as well as establishing brand authority to become the go-to source for each region, are key aspects for increasing the product’s visibility and success.

However, within the E-E-A-T framework, there are additional digital strategies you can implement in your international approaches to enhance your outcomes in experience and trust.

We’ll provide a more in-depth analysis of these strategies in our next articles.

More resources: 

• How To Use Market-Specific Conversion Tracking To Drive International SEO Success
• How Do I Rank Better Internationally In One Or Many Countries?
• Getting Started In International SEO: A Quick Reference Guide

Featured Image: Yellow duck/Shutterstock

“Experience” is the latest (but not the least relevant) addition to “E-E-A-T,” which stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness – a component of Google’s search quality rater guidelines. This concept is a mix of factors that help Google determine if the content is relevant and helpful enough for users, thereby prioritizing it in search results.

E-E-A-T plays an important role in “your money or your life” (YMYL) topics.

But what happens when you want to create international strategies? How can you leverage E-E-A-T to boost your international expansion?

In my previous article, I discussed how to demonstrate expertise and authority on an international scale, using a case study on selling a local product from Barcelona.

Now, let’s will explore how to leverage experience to boost your international expansion.

How To Show Experience

As Google defines, “experience” is the extent to which the content creator has the necessary first-hand or life experience for the topic.

In this case, there will be two main ways of demonstrating experience with a product or in relation to a topic.

One is through your own experience as a creator of the product; the other is through the experience of consumers.

So, how can an international ecommerce company leverage its experience to differentiate itself from others and compete internationally?

Which actions that demonstrate experience are more likely to influence users’ purchase decisions on international websites? Let’s explore some actions you can take.

Demonstrate Your Experience Through Your Consumer: Product Reviews

Whether locally or internationally, getting product reviews from consumers is a key factor in demonstrating the experience of using the product or service.

Providing a good experience during the purchase process, as well as a quality product or service, will help boost reviews with better ratings from users – whether within the website, in directories, or Google Business Profile.

Include A Testimonial Page

One option to make it easier for potential new consumers to find user review content is to create a “testimonial page.”

On this page, the web creator can collect users’ experience and opinions regarding the product in different formats, such as text, image, or video.

Screenshot from www.tiodenadal.online, February 2024

Here’s an example of a testimonial page.

In international ecommerce, providing and sharing cross-border user experience is also key to conveying confidence to users from other countries, regarding the veracity of the store.

Which Reviews Influence The Users’ Purchase Decisions On International Websites?

To create product review pages and show users the ratings, you must achieve a certain number of reviews demonstrating the user’s experience with the product.

On an international scale, there will be reviews that help not only demonstrate the users’ experience during the purchase process but also encourage new users to do the same.

Which reviews carry more weight in influencing users’ purchase decisions on international websites? And what specific actions should international businesses prioritize as a result?

Reviews For International Ecommerce Sites

When venturing into global markets, consider the user shopping experience ratings that tend to predominate and significantly impact purchasing decisions.

Case in point: high shipping costs and long delivery times.

The most common reason online U.S. shoppers abandon their carts is additional costs like shipping, taxes, and fees (47%). Also, 24% of consumers drop out of an online shopping session because shipping is too slow.

Changing the cost of shipping or delivery time from one country to another is usually not in the hands of the business but of external factors.

However, you can take these actions to get positive reviews related to shipping or delivery time – or at least prevent damaging reviews related to these factors.

• Include actual shipping times and explain them to buyers. Don’t try to risk getting more sales.
• Watch out for high-demand seasons (like Christmas and Black Friday).
• Stay up-to-date on the global international logistics situation.
• Follow up on carrier and logistics situations in your potential countries.
• Be aware of customs borders in each country.

Screenshot from author, February 2024

Reviews For International B2B Or Saas Sites

While long delivery times and high shipping costs impact international sales across the board, B2B, industrial, and SaaS companies face unique challenges in achieving global competitiveness.

Factors that influence purchase decisions on international B2B/SaaS websites:

• Platform language: Lack of local language support can make it difficult for consumers to use the product.
• Price: Service or platform prices not adjusted for regional purchasing power can hurt market penetration.
• Customer support: The absence of local customer support or a contact person may impact the buying process.
• Customer service hours: Adapting to local schedules and holidays in each country is key for a good experience.
• Localization: Tailoring the product or platform to each country’s cultural characteristics or preferences helps enhance user experience.

Screenshot from author, February 2024

Screenshot from author, February 2024

Screenshot from author, February 2024

How To Create Content That Demonstrates Your Experience

You can go beyond encouraging users to share their experiences with the products on your website.

By creating content, you can actively showcase your experience during product development or using the product itself.

Here are some ways to achieve this:

• How-to guides: Develop step-by-step guides or tutorials that show how to use the product effectively.
• Expert pages: Create engaging content (consider using photos and videos) that show how the product has been produced.
• Influencer content: Partner with relevant influencers or bloggers to share content on how they use the product.
• Forums and discussions: Build a vibrant community where users are allowed to share their experiences, ask questions, and learn from other customers about how they enjoy your product.

Image from outsideonline.com, February 2024

Avoid creating search engine-first content and prioritize creating people-first content to increase the probability of success with Google search.

How To Generate Content Ideas To Showcase Experience Internationally

Developing content that reflects your product or service’s international reach depends on the type of project, audience, and potential markets.

However, there are key strategies to assist you in coming up with ideas and focusing on creating content that highlights your global experience.

Use Commercial Keywords For Your International Content Strategy

Including commercial keywords in your content strategy shows your experience with the product. Some of these keywords are important when the potential customer is interested in the product and wants to investigate more.

These keywords often include search terms for your product or service that combine concepts like:

• Free.
• Difference/vs.
• Reviews.
• Opinions.

Screenshot from Semrush, February 2024

Get Inspired By Marketplaces And Directories

Ecommerce marketplaces and B2B/SaaS directories are the go-to sites for inspiration and ideas. These sites offer insights to inform your content strategy and help demonstrate the product experience.

By analyzing marketplaces, such as Etsy and Amazon, you can learn what people think and say about you, and see how your product is perceived globally.

What are the most highly rated factors? What do they complain about the most? What can you differentiate yourself with?

Identify Key Purchase Decision-Making Factors

Analyze the top-rated and worst-rated reviews of your competitors and understand why. This will help you identify key purchase decision-making factors for your target consumers.

Screenshot from author, February 2024

Use Other Channels

Today, static content isn’t enough. You can’t just create text or image content to convey a product experience to potential consumers.

Utilize other channels, such as TikTok or YouTube, to create engaging content that showcases your experience – and expertise – with your product.

Leveraging Experience In The AI Era

Showing experience will enable you to differentiate from AI-generated content within the AI era.

You can see it with the same Search Generative Experience (SGE), where demonstrating first-hand experience will play an essential role in creating useful, quality, and helpful content.

However, as of writing, it is still not very clear what the final model will look like.

Expanding Experience Internationally

Experience, expertise, and authority are key factors that will help you achieve success in your international SEO strategies.

But Google emphasizes another key element within the E-E-A-T framework: trustworthiness, which the search engine defines as the most important member of the E-E-A-T family.

We’ll delve deeper into this element in our next article.

More resources: 

• 21 Must-Have Features For Ecommerce Sites
• How To Use Market-Specific Conversion Tracking To Drive International SEO Success
• Ecommerce Marketing: The Definitive Guide

Featured Image: William Potter/Shutterstock