Posted by russviranteThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
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Posted by tomharariThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

So …

Posted by Zeph Snapp

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

I was grateful for the opportunity to do a Mozinar about foreign language SEO. There were a ton of questions from viewers, and while I was able to get to most of them, there were a few topics that I wasn’t able to cover in the detail they deserved.

There has been a lot of talk lately about what SEO is, and what it will become. One of the main things that SEOs have to think about every day is opportunity cost. We’ve also started looking at the world through a long-term lens rather than just short term wins (although quick wins are always great). Foreign language SEO plays on both sides of the field. You have to think long-term, but there are certainly opportunities for quick wins. Out of the top ten economies in the world today, only two of them are English-dominant. None of the primarily Spanish-speaking countries rank, but if you combine them, the Spanish speaking world would be firmly entrenched in the number five spot.

Online, the tendencies are the same. Spanish is in third place as far as Internet languages, and while English is still in first, other languages are gaining fast. Unfortunately for foreign language SEO, over 50% of the web is in English. This means that foreign language SERP’s are serving inferior results. There are massive opportunities for those brave enough to go after them, and you don’t necessarily have to go overseas… 

 

The Spanish-speaking market in the US is huge. Obviously not all Hispanics prefer Spanish, but there are a fair amount that do. While translating your website is not a cure-all, it is certainly a start.

Now, let’s dive into those Mozinar Q&A questions! 

1. What is the best way to see if your client has a market for Spanish or another language?

I provided a quick explanation of how to do this in the webinar, but let’s break it down again:

• Take your top five converting keywords and drop them into Google Translate.
• Take the translated terms and put them into the Google Keyword Tool.
• Make sure to set up exact match, as well as the language and country settings. I also like to ask that it only return results that are related to my terms. If I don’t get results with searches, I can always run it again without that filter.
• See if the numbers justify going after that market.

If you are looking to further prove your case, you can search Twitter and bios for the top terms using Followerwonk, check the terms on Facebook to see if there are fan pages or groups, and check for related groups on LinkedIn. Because social is a big part of the process, I highly recommend this option. Always over-deliver when building a case!

In-depth foreign language keyword research is no walk in the park, but check out this post for some tips primarilty on Spanish keyword research if you are interested.

2. What patterns do you see that differentiate users in Spanish vs. those in English as it relates to SEO?

This is a HUGE question deserving of its own presentation, but the short answer is that you first have to think about how different Spanish speakers are unique in and of themselves.  As it relates to SEO, these are the main differences that I see:

• We use social for recommendations.
• Searcher intent is different. We see more informational queries than transactional. This is not a universal truth, but simply our experience.
• Brand loyalty is high. If someone has a good experience with a company, they are very likely to be a repeat customer, and in many cases recommend the service or product to friends and family.
• Mobile is growing at a tremendous rate. Make sure that your website is ready for that.

3. Do you recommend a startup company to have a multi-language site right away when it’s building its main site?

That depends on the size of your market and whether or not you have the budget. I usually tell startups to figure out how to serve the market in their own language before trying to get customers from other countries. The exception, of course, is if your native language has few speakers or is not in need of the product. Then it is best to start with English and build from there.

4. If you can’t provide foreign language support, should you target foreign language SEO?

The short answer is no, but that doesn’t mean you can’t scale support slowly. In fact, with these types of customers, we always offer to set up a phone line and answer their calls for the first couple of months. That way the person who translated the website and is familiar with the product is also the one answering emails, chats, and phone calls. Call centers are unfortunately having a tough time right now, so if you need help in languages that are difficult to support, you can get cheap, temporary help while you figure it out.

5. Do you recommend translating as much of your pages as possible, including every product page? Is “literal translation” a good idea?

The plan is always to make your international visitor feel welcome, and if you’ve proven the concept and gotten buy-in, then yes. However, this is for UX reasons just as much as SEO. Can you imagine finding a site that sells stuff you really like, but once you get to their product pages, the descriptions are suddenly in Russian? You would be suspicious, and would probably leave the site. As AJ Kohn once said to me, “If the customer is confused, the answer is always ‘No.’”

Regarding literal translation, I’m not a fan. Even when you have highly technical product specifications, there is something lost. 

The above image is an example of literal translation gone wrong. Skateboard is translated as “knee roofing.” When you do this, you immediately lose the trust of the person browsing your site, not to mention that they will probably make fun of you on social media platforms.

6. Will your translated website get picked up as duplicate content?

Search engines are much smarter than people give them credit for. If the content is translated correctly, enough of the information should change so that most search engines will understand the difference between the two pages. However, the <hreflang> is a good tool for avoiding confusion and giving the search engine a better idea of your intended language.

7. With so many dialects of Spanish, which do you suggest to translate into?

That depends a great deal on your market, and is why keyword research is so important. I always suggest that unless you already have internal data informing your decision, do your research across multiple markets. This will allow you to make the right choice.

8. How do you deal with accents?

This opens up a huge can of worms. Through conducting Spanish keyword research, it is obvious that there are significant differences in keyword volume between terms with and without accents. Generally speaking, keywords without accents receive more traffic. This makes sense because when you are typing in the search bar, you aren’t concerned with how you are addressing someone, and for 99.9% of the queries, the meaning of the word doesn’t change.

This means that searcher intent is the same, but what about the results? We haven’t done extensive tests on this (believe me, we will), but the SERP’s do change:

Now, according to the Google Adwords tool, if you put them in as exact match, the version with the accent has not even 10% the number of searches as when you don’t use the accent. But when you go to broad match, they show up as identical.

The way we deal with this divide is the following:

• Don’t put accents in the URL (for Spanish).  This is a surprisingly difficult rule that we stick to. I’m about to do a study on this subject for Eastern European languages, but if supporting/refuting data already exists, please share it in the comments.
• Don’t use accents in the metadata because of the query. Because the priority is to rank for the keyword phrase without the accent, we want to indicate to the search engine that we are optimized for this phrase. Co-citations notwithstanding, we’ve found this strategy to be effective.
• Use the grammatically correct phrase on the page itself (including the H1 tag).  At this point, we want to make sure that the person arriving on this page knows that we actually have the ability to write well.  We are obviously still concerned about optimization, but once someone is here, we want them to convert.  Writing correctly leads to higher conversions.

9. What is the best way to change an English site to support multiple languages? What framework or technologies can you recommend?

My philosophy is always that where there is a will, there is a way. I’ve never been in a situation where I had to tell a client “do it this way or else.” The most notable exception being that using a CMS makes translation much simpler. 

10. Can you explain best practice related to domain structure if company is in the US, but want to target the Hispanic market? 

For this type of campaign, assuming that you are focusing on Spanish speakers first, you want to go with subdirectories. That means you should structure your pages in the following way:

www.yourwebsite.com/es/spanishproductname

This will pass along some of the authority that you have already built into your site, rather than forcing you to start over from scratch.

11. Can you comment on the usage of separate domain TLDs corresponding to different locales/localizations? Is there some sort of canonicalization process on a domain level? 

Let’s say that you are an international organization that plans on selling widgets in both Mexico and Guatemala. Since they are both in Spanish, and the dialects are pretty similar, chances are that you are going to serve the same content to both. In this case, you would want to use the canonical tag to indicate to Google that while these pages have the same content, they are aimed at different audiences.

12. Can you explain more about registering a domain in a foreign country, and should you set up hosting there?

Buying a domain for another country is easy. Almost any company that you can buy domains from will do it for you. Hosting, however, is a different matter. Finding a reliable hosting company, especially when you are expecting lots of traffic, can be difficult.

The good news is that you don’t have to find a different hosting company in every situation. The location of where a website is hosted is no longer a high priority for Google, as long as you have the correct ccTLD. However, if you are targeting China or Russia, Baidu and Yandex do consider it important that your site be hosted in the targeted country. 

Because I haven’t personally worked in either of those markets (yet), I can’t make a recommendation for providers.

13. What activities will help you promote a Spanish language website?

It’s no different from a site written in English. What I can tell you is that in Latin America, we use social media and mobile technology at a higher rate than in the US. Also, in order for a customer to purchase a product, you will need to establish trust. Because eCommerce is relatively new, do everything you can to show the potential customer that you are the real deal.

14. What about links from websites in other languages and from other countries or regions? How important is relevance in that content, and should the anchor text be in the target language or that of the website that is doing the linking?

Relevance is always important. I’m going to share a little secret about how I select link targets: if it can send qualified traffic to my client’s site, then I want it. If it can’t, then I don’t care. At the end of the day, the goal is not just to increase traffic, it is to increase conversions. 

Of course, there are situations where relevance is less important. If the New York Times wants to link to a client of mine, I’m not going to say, “Don’t link from the Culture page, link from the Business page.” I’m just going to say, “Thanks!”

As far as anchor text language, in most cases the best anchor text is going to be branded, right? At that point, if your links are being built organically, the language that the anchor text is in doesn’t matter. 

15. What tools do you recommend for targeting Hispanics outside the US? What do you use for Link Building?

Your brain. (Credit, @ipullrank)

I know that seems pithy and not particularly helpful, but the fact is that there are very few useful tools that are specific to the Spanish language market. As a result, you end up using many of the same tools as you would in English. I’m a fan of the SEOmoz suite for on page work, I like Buzzstream for keeping track of relationships, and Trello for project management.

For link building, many of the tools aren’t going to be nearly as helpful in other languages as they are in English. This means that you have to be more creative in your approach. I use Rapportive and Boomerang for outreach, but the main thing that helps me is being extremely persistent (sometimes I have to talk to the same person 6-7 times in order to get a link/guest post opportunity).

Finally, I use social media as a way to create a relationship out of thin air. You’d be surprised how easy it is to create ego-bait and figure out what people actually want by following them on Twitter or connecting with them on LinkedIn.

My team has also been building some tools internally, and are thinking about releasing some of them soon. If we were to do, what tools would you find most interesting? Please answer in the comments.

 

Well, Mozzers, there you have it! Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave your thoughts or ideas in the comments below.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Posted by Zeph SnappThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
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Posted by Nathan Latka

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

There are a lot of rumors going around about the proper ways to optimize your Facebook fan page SEO. Some people suggest using keywords in the filenames of your uploads, and others say you need to have every URL you own linked to your fan page. If you’re anything like me, you don’t particularly have time to sit around and search for a tip here and a tip there, only to find out weeks later that it did you no good.

This post provides a few more tips on optimizing your Facebook page for SEO right now, and answers your Q&A questions from my Mozinar with Rand. Enjoy!

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7 Ways to optimize your Facebook fan page SEO right now

1. Choose the best name for your Facebook fan page

This may sound like a no-brainer. However, it’s the most basic step when it comes to optimizing your brand on Facebook, and is also the most important.

There is always the temptation to stuff your fan page name with tons of keywords, like “Bob’s Bakery – Muffins, Bagels, Cookies, Breads – Catering & Events.” In actuality, having a name like this can hurt your viral growth rate inside Facebook. If you appear too spammy, your fans will be less likely to engage with your page, let alone share posts and updates with their friends. In fact, people can even hide your updates from their news feed – imagine the horror!

Don’t be too generic either, though. Facebook’s intent behind fan pages is that they represent real businesses, brands, personalities, etc. By choosing something too generic, like Travel, Sports, Fishing, etc., you run the risk of Facebook shutting down your ability to post updates and reach out to new fans.

Quick Tip: The first word in your fan page title is given the most weight (importance) by Google.

2. Create a custom fan page vanity URL

After your fan page has 25 Likes, Facebook gives your you the ability to create a unique URL (or usernames as Facebook calls them) for the page. Because URLs are heavily weighted by search engines, it is vital that your fan page URL reflects an aspect of your business.

If, by some misalignment in the stars, you find that another fan page has claimed your business’ name already, make sure to include what your business is about in the URL.

You can check out some different username options Facebook offers before selecting your one for your fan page.

3. Use keywords in strategic locations on your fan page

Just like traditional websites, keyword optimization is the most fundamental form of on-site SEO. The most important pieces to pay attention to are the About section, Mission, and Company Description, since these areas are actually pulled from your fan page as SEO elements.

Here is an example of how a search engine would index your page:

SEO Title = Your fan page name
Meta Description = Fan page name + the About section of your page
H1 = Your fan page name

To optimize your page for local searches, it is very important to include your Address, City, State, and Zip. For product-related searches, the Company Overview, Mission, and Products fields should be filled in with your appropriate information.

Quick Tip: Just like your website’s meta data, you may want to consider using a brief, 140- character description for your fan page so your whole message displays in the search engine’s snippet.

4. Include your phone number and address

As surprising as it sounds, there are a good amount of businesses out there that don’t include this type of info on their fan page. As a majority of your sales may be from online traffic, it can appear to be not quite so important for you to include. But remember, indexing your brand for local search results is crucial to growing your Facebook fan page.

In addition, Google places higher importance on pages with specific information like your business’s phone number and address. So, pages that include this type of data can effectively increase your brand’s overall SEO.

5. Backlink to your fan page on existing channels

The more inbound links to your page, the more authoritative your page is according to Google, and you will be ranked higher. That is why it is very important to bloggers when they have their content linked to from other websites, blogs, etc.

This same principle applies to your Facebook fan page. So, where it is appropriate, include a link to your fan page from your other digital channels, like your website, blog, and Twitter profile.

6. Optimize Facebook fan page status updates

When posting updates to your Facebook wall, remember that the first 18 characters of a Facebook post serve as the meta description. So, take advantage of the option when Facebook prompts you to “Write something…” since that text will be considered the SEO title for that update. Including direct links to your small business website in your updates is also a good practice to follow.

Quick Tip: Just like your fan page’s name, Google places a higher importance on the first word of your update, so you may want to consider making that a keyword.

7. SEO for Facebook Notes

Facebook Notes is something that is very under-utilized. When used appropriately, Facebook Notes can provide your fan page with an effective way at increasing your overall SEO. The SEO elements pulled in from Facebook Notes are:

SEO Title = the title of your note
Meta data = Your fan page name wrote a note titled, your note’s title

Facebook Notes gives your page the ability to create multiple “pages” underneath the main fan page. Notes are also a good way to expand on special offers or events that your business is hosting and have them indexed in search engines.

Bottom line for Facebook fan page SEO

Don’t forget that the overarching objective of Facebook SEO is adding to the value of your overall brand. It is important to pay attention to the comparison between raw traffic and engagement level.

While using the methods above can help boost your SERP ranking, the most crucial part is that it coincides with an awesome product and incredible engagement to grow your following.

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Your Mozinar questions answered

#mozinar Tweets:

1. Q: What companies do you recommend for social media software regarding community building (Hootsuite vs SocialSprout, etc)? (@franciscocmeza)

   A: Hootsuite is a very powerful tool for connecting with your Twitter and Facebook audiences. It is very easy to maintain a content schedule as Hootsuite provides you the ability to schedule social media posts. They also have a great analytics tracker and URL shortener.

Mozinar viewer questions:

1. Q: What tools do you suggest for doing competitor/keyword/site analysis? (Michael Cirillo)

   A: Great question. A lot of people might say Alexa.com, but I think there are some more in-depth tools available to you. Some good ones to look into are:
   
   Doubleclick Adplanner - A highly accurate tool from Google Doubleclick that is based on Google’s own data on site popularity.
   SEO Digger - A free tool that will tell you which keyword phrases different websites are ranking for.
   Compete - A very robust web analytics service, with free and paid versions.

   Another option (but usually second to the options above) is to look at the domain appraisal statistics (google “domain appraisal” for a list of free tools such as Estibot). These tools have various metrics that they feel bring a monetary value to your domain. We all like having something of value, right? I like tools that talk about page load time as well, which has bearing on SEO, but is often overlooked.
    

2. Q: What about keyword stuffing penalties? (Mark Hultgren)

   A: Your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index if you’re penalized for keyword stuffing. Stick to your top six keywords at most.  The better you curate your content, the better it will rank. Also, keep in mind that content located three paragraphs into your post won’t rank well on your page unless it directly supports the thesis (typically the first 140 characters) of your page.
    

3. Q: In reality, most Facebook pages appear page 2+ on Google. Is this a sign that Google is getting ready to give preference to G+ pages? (Marcus Lee)

   A:  Yes, and you are smart to make the connection. Many SEO companies ignore G+ because there is nothing they can do (backlinks, internal links, external links, sitemap, meta-content, etc.) that can increase your G+ SEO. This number is strictly enhanced by users sharing, which means it actually represents a fan-base that is theoretically more organic. Google already gives preference to domains and links shared via G+, or so I have found in my experience.
    

4. Q: Are there people having much success with using the iFrame strategy? (Jay Donaldson)

   A: The iFrame is an incredibly powerful tool. If you already have an online ordering page, it takes seconds to pull that in directly to your fan page. Check out this example of a fan page that uses the iFrame widget very well.
    

5. Q: Is it recommended to keep the URL that you are linking visible, as opposed to deleting it after it has downloaded? I usually delete it so that the post gets more visually appealing. (Micheline Bourque)

   A: It isn’t important to keep the actual URL when it comes to SEO purposes, since your post will serve as the meta data for the link you shared. Deleting the full URL also helps out your viral growth rate by making your post a little prettier, and share-friendly.
    

6. Q: I’ve had only 18 likes for about a month now, and I post engaging content all the time. What advice would you give for getting that boost in reach without Facebook ads? (Nick Hiley)

   A: Good question, and you are not alone here. The best starting point is to get your current customers onto your fan page. If you have a physical location, use some in-store signage to promote your page (and offer discount for liking the page). I really enjoy using this free resource for making your own signs.

   Another thing you can do is to include the link to your page in appropriate places. Your website, Twitter bio, and email signature are all places that the link could potentially go. In addition, when you post updates, use a specific call-to-action to share your content, as shares help your viral growth rate more than likes or comments.
    

7. Q: How about using Facebook ads for commercial intent? I’ve heard it’s more for social relationships. (Kareem Rombley)

   A: The important thing to understand here is why people use Facebook. We like to share silly pictures, interesting information, and personal events. Some businesses can fit into this platform very well, like photographers, restaurants, gluten-free muffin shops, non-profits, etc. These businesses can all play a part in our daily lives. The use of a fan page also should serve a specific goal for your business, whether it is lead nurturing, information sharing, sales conversions, or something more.
    

8. Q: How many characters show from the About Section from the main Facebook page? (Emily Fearnley)

   A: About 155 characters will display on your Facebook Fan Page without users having to click the “About:” button.
    

9. Q: I work for a marketing agency. Should our Facebook page be categorized as a “Local Business” or “Companies & Organizations”? Pros and cons? Does it matter? (Julie Barbee)

   A: The Company, Organization, or Institution category is best if customers don’t frequent your physical location, or if you hold events at varying places. A Local Business category is best if your agency deals with any locally owned business in your area. It will optimize the search results for those business owners and managers in your area looking for your marketing expertise.

Well, there you have it, folks! Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave a comment to share your thoughts with us. Have you used any of these SEO tips before? Did they work for you?

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Posted by Nathan LatkaThis post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
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