| Part one of a two-part series on multilingual SEO | | | | Note: be wary of using official translations for |
| (search engine optimization). This part deals with | | | | keyword research. Your translator probably used |
| keyword research. | | | | the very best vocabulary and grammar possible, |
| So you've translated your website into German, | | | | including words and conjugations that your target |
| Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French, Arabic, Portuguese | | | | market might never even have heard of, let alone |
| and Chinese. Now what? | | | | be searching for. |
| Now you have to draw traffic to the newly | | | | You can get ideas through free translation |
| translated sites. There are many ways to draw | | | | services - which absolutely butcher the language, |
| traffic, but the search engines are just as | | | | so don't use them for translation, please! - that |
| important in German or Spanish as they are in | | | | can give you some quick ideas to work with. Two |
| English. | | | | such services I use for just such a purpose are |
| Surprisingly, SEO in Spanish, French, English, | | | | FreeTranslation.comand . |
| German...or any Roman alphabet language is not | | | | The next step, of course, is to find out which of |
| that different. In this article, we will be dealing only | | | | the search terms are worth pursuing. Of course, |
| with Roman alphabet languages. | | | | you could try all of them, since it will take almost |
| The main thing is to be able to move around in | | | | no effort to get top rankings for little searched |
| the language...and if you are not fluent, make sure | | | | French or Spanish terms. But you might also miss |
| a translator cleans up any text edits without | | | | out on some related terms that are well-searched. |
| undoing the changes key to your multilingual | | | | Two pay-per-click search engines that offer |
| search engine optimization efforts. | | | | search suggestion tools in a variety of languages |
| Let's assume the original site is in English, the | | | | are Overture and Miva (formerly Espotting). |
| translation into French, for example, is already | | | | The third step is to group the search terms |
| complete and you have a list of English search | | | | together into natural groupings and assign each |
| terms (keywords). | | | | group to a page on the website, just as one |
| The first step is to identify equivalent French | | | | would do in English, so that the terms that |
| search terms. This might not give you the same | | | | complement each other are grouped onto the |
| number of search terms. For instance, if you | | | | same web page. |
| start with the 10 search terms around the word | | | | You see, it's really not that different from English, |
| "socks" (buy socks, buy socks online, | | | | but you do have to be able to move through the |
| glow-in-the-dark socks, etc.), you will most likely | | | | other language. Please note: fluency is not |
| end up with twice as many search terms in | | | | required, but being able to understand what you |
| French, as there are two common words for | | | | read and come up with related search terms is |
| socks in French ("bas" and "chaussettes"). This | | | | required. |
| might mean that you need to create additional | | | | In part 2, we will look at the on-page optimization. |
| landing pages for French search engine surfers. | | | | |