SEO slug
URL optimization to go global in 2024
Looking to go global? URL slug optimization for multilingual websites is crucial and requires careful consideration, as there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution worldwide. In fact, the optimal international slug structure depends on various criteria
Region, Country and Language Codes
These codes are widely used in software development, localization, and internationalization on the web to specify country, language and regional language variants.
Country Codes
Here the list of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes :
AF: Afghanistan
AX: Åland Islands
AL: Albania
DZ: Algeria
AS: American Samoa
AD: Andorra
AO: Angola
AI: Anguilla
AQ: Antarctica
AG: Antigua and Barbuda
AR: Argentina
AM: Armenia
AW: Aruba
AU: Australia
AT: Austria
AZ: Azerbaijan
BS: Bahamas
BH: Bahrain
BD: Bangladesh
BB: Barbados
BY: Belarus
BE: Belgium
BZ: Belize
BJ: Benin
BM: Bermuda
BT: Bhutan
BO: Bolivia
BQ: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
BA: Bosnia and Herzegovina
BW: Botswana
BV: Bouvet Island
BR: Brazil
IO: British Indian Ocean Territory
BN: Brunei Darussalam
BG: Bulgaria
BF: Burkina Faso
BI: Burundi
CV: Cabo Verde
KH: Cambodia
CM: Cameroon
CA: Canada
KY: Cayman Islands
CF: Central African Republic
TD: Chad
CL: Chile
CN: China
CX: Christmas Island
CC: Cocos (Keeling) Islands
CO: Colombia
KM: Comoros
CG: Congo
CD: Congo, Democratic Republic of the
CK: Cook Islands
CR: Costa Rica
HR: Croatia
CU: Cuba
CW: Curaçao
CY: Cyprus
CZ: Czech Republic
CI: Côte d’Ivoire
DK: Denmark
DJ: Djibouti
DM: Dominica
DO: Dominican Republic
EC: Ecuador
EG: Egypt
SV: El Salvador
GQ: Equatorial Guinea
ER: Eritrea
EE: Estonia
SZ: Eswatini
ET: Ethiopia
FK: Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
FO: Faroe Islands
FJ: Fiji
FI: Finland
FR: France
GF: French Guiana
PF: French Polynesia
TF: French Southern Territories
GA: Gabon
GM: Gambia
GE: Georgia
DE: Germany
GH: Ghana
GI: Gibraltar
GR: Greece
GL: Greenland
GD: Grenada
GP: Guadeloupe
GU: Guam
GT: Guatemala
GG: Guernsey
GN: Guinea
GW: Guinea-Bissau
GY: Guyana
HT: Haiti
HM: Heard Island and McDonald Islands
VA: Holy See
HN: Honduras
HK: Hong Kong
HU: Hungary
IS: Iceland
IN: India
ID: Indonesia
IR: Iran, Islamic Republic of
IQ: Iraq
IE: Ireland
IM: Isle of Man
IL: Israel
IT: Italy
JM: Jamaica
JP: Japan
JE: Jersey
JO: Jordan
KZ: Kazakhstan
KE: Kenya
KI: Kiribati
KP: Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of
KR: Korea, Republic of
KW: Kuwait
KG: Kyrgyzstan
LA: Lao People’s Democratic Republic
LV: Latvia
LB: Lebanon
LS: Lesotho
LR: Liberia
LY: Libya
LI: Liechtenstein
LT: Lithuania
LU: Luxembourg
MO: Macao
MG: Madagascar
MW: Malawi
MY: Malaysia
MV: Maldives
ML: Mali
MT: Malta
MH: Marshall Islands
MQ: Martinique
MR: Mauritania
MU: Mauritius
YT: Mayotte
MX: Mexico
FM: Micronesia, Federated States of
MD: Moldova, Republic of
MC: Monaco
MN: Mongolia
ME: Montenegro
MS: Montserrat
MA: Morocco
MZ: Mozambique
MM: Myanmar
NA: Namibia
NR: Nauru
NP: Nepal
NL: Netherlands
NC: New Caledonia
NZ: New Zealand
NI: Nicaragua
NE: Niger
NG: Nigeria
NU: Niue
NF: Norfolk Island
MK: North Macedonia
MP: Northern Mariana Islands
NO: Norway
OM: Oman
PK: Pakistan
PW: Palau
PS: Palestine, State of
PA: Panama
PG: Papua New Guinea
PY: Paraguay
PE: Peru
PH: Philippines
PN: Pitcairn
PL: Poland
PT: Portugal
PR: Puerto Rico
QA: Qatar
RO: Romania
RU: Russian Federation
RW: Rwanda
RE: Réunion
BL: Saint Barthélemy
SH: Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
KN: Saint Kitts and Nevis
LC: Saint Lucia
MF: Saint Martin (French part)
PM: Saint Pierre and Miquelon
VC: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
WS: Samoa
SM: San Marino
ST: Sao Tome and Principe
SA: Saudi Arabia
SN: Senegal
RS: Serbia
SC: Seychelles
SL: Sierra Leone
SG: Singapore
SX: Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
SK: Slovakia
SI: Slovenia
SB: Solomon Islands
SO: Somalia
ZA: South Africa
GS: South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
SS: South Sudan
ES: Spain
LK: Sri Lanka
SD: Sudan
SR: Suriname
SJ: Svalbard and Jan Mayen
SE: Sweden
CH: Switzerland
SY: Syrian Arab Republic
TW: Taiwan, Province of China
TJ: Tajikistan
TZ: Tanzania, United Republic of
TH: Thailand
TL: Timor-Leste
TG: Togo
TK: Tokelau
TO: Tonga
TT: Trinidad and Tobago
TN: Tunisia
TR: Turkey
TM: Turkmenistan
TC: Turks and Caicos Islands
TV: Tuvalu
UG: Uganda
UA: Ukraine
AE: United Arab Emirates
GB: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
US: United States of America
UM: United States Minor Outlying Islands
UY: Uruguay
UZ: Uzbekistan
VU: Vanuatu
VE: Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
VN: Viet Nam
VG: Virgin Islands (British)
VI: Virgin Islands (U.S.)
WF: Wallis and Futuna
EH: Western Sahara
YE: Yemen
ZM: Zambia
ZW: Zimbabwe
Language Codes
List of ISO 639 language codes:
aa: Afar
ab: Abkhazian
ae: Avestan
af: Afrikaans
ak: Akan
am: Amharic
an: Aragonese
ar: Arabic
as: Assamese
av: Avaric
ay: Aymara
az: Azerbaijani
ba: Bashkir
be: Belarusian
bg: Bulgarian
bh: Bihari languages
bi: Bislama
bm: Bambara
bn: Bengali
bo: Tibetan
br: Breton
bs: Bosnian
ca: Catalan; Valencian
ce: Chechen
ch: Chamorro
co: Corsican
cr: Cree
cs: Czech
cu: Church Slavic; Old Slavonic; Church Slavonic; Old Bulgarian; Old Church Slavonic
cv: Chuvash
cy: Welsh
da: Danish
de: German
dv: Divehi; Dhivehi; Maldivian
dz: Dzongkha
ee: Ewe
el: Greek, Modern (1453-)
en: English
eo: Esperanto
es: Spanish; Castilian
et: Estonian
eu: Basque
fa: Persian
ff: Fulah
fi: Finnish
fj: Fijian
fo: Faroese
fr: French
fy: Western Frisian
ga: Irish
gd: Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic
gl: Galician
gn: Guarani
gu: Gujarati
gv: Manx
ha: Hausa
he: Hebrew
hi: Hindi
ho: Hiri Motu
hr: Croatian
ht: Haitian; Haitian Creole
hu: Hungarian
hy: Armenian
hz: Herero
ia: Interlingua (International Auxiliary Language Association)
id: Indonesian
ie: Interlingue; Occidental
ig: Igbo
ii: Sichuan Yi; Nuosu
ik: Inupiaq
io: Ido
is: Icelandic
it: Italian
iu: Inuktitut
ja: Japanese
jv: Javanese
ka: Georgian
kg: Kongo
ki: Kikuyu; Gikuyu
kj: Kuanyama; Kwanyama
kk: Kazakh
kl: Kalaallisut; Greenlandic
km: Central Khmer
kn: Kannada
ko: Korean
kr: Kanuri
ks: Kashmiri
ku: Kurdish
kv: Komi
kw: Cornish
ky: Kirghiz; Kyrgyz
la: Latin
lb: Luxembourgish; Letzeburgesch
lg: Ganda
li: Limburgan; Limburger; Limburgish
ln: Lingala
lo: Lao
lt: Lithuanian
lu: Luba-Katanga
lv: Latvian
mg: Malagasy
mh: Marshallese
mi: Maori
mk: Macedonian
ml: Malayalam
mn: Mongolian
mr: Marathi
ms: Malay
mt: Maltese
my: Burmese
na: Nauru
nb: Bokmål, Norwegian; Norwegian Bokmål
nd: Ndebele, North; North Ndebele
ne: Nepali
ng: Ndonga
nl: Dutch; Flemish
nn: Nynorsk, Norwegian; Norwegian Nynorsk
no: Norwegian
nr: Ndebele, South; South Ndebele
nv: Navajo; Navaho
ny: Chichewa; Chewa; Nyanja
oc: Occitan (post 1500)
oj: Ojibwa
om: Oromo
or: Oriya
os: Ossetian; Ossetic
pa: Panjabi; Punjabi
pi: Pali
pl: Polish
ps: Pashto; Pushto
pt: Portuguese
qu: Quechua
rm: Romansh
rn: Rundi
ro: Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan
ru: Russian
rw: Kinyarwanda
sa: Sanskrit
sc: Sardinian
sd: Sindhi
se: Northern Sami
sg: Sango
si: Sinhala; Sinhalese
sk: Slovak
sl: Slovenian
sm: Samoan
sn: Shona
so: Somali
sq: Albanian
sr: Serbian
ss: Swati
st: Sotho, Southern
su: Sundanese
sv: Swedish
sw: Swahili
ta: Tamil
te: Telugu
tg: Tajik
th: Thai
ti: Tigrinya
tk: Turkmen
tl: Tagalog
tn: Tswana
to: Tonga (Tonga Islands)
tr: Turkish
ts: Tsonga
tt: Tatar
tw: Twi
ty: Tahitian
ug: Uighur; Uyghur
uk: Ukrainian
ur: Urdu
uz: Uzbek
ve: Venda
vi: Vietnamese
vo: Volapük
wa: Walloon
wo: Wolof
xh: Xhosa
yi: Yiddish
yo: Yoruba
za: Zhuang; Chuang
zh: Chinese
zu: Zulu
Language-Country Codes (or Locale Codes)
List of local codes:
af-ZA: Afrikaans (South Africa)
am-ET: Amharic (Ethiopia)
ar-AE: Arabic (United Arab Emirates)
ar-BH: Arabic (Bahrain)
ar-DZ: Arabic (Algeria)
ar-EG: Arabic (Egypt)
ar-IQ: Arabic (Iraq)
ar-JO: Arabic (Jordan)
ar-KW: Arabic (Kuwait)
ar-LB: Arabic (Lebanon)
ar-LY: Arabic (Libya)
ar-MA: Arabic (Morocco)
ar-OM: Arabic (Oman)
ar-QA: Arabic (Qatar)
ar-SA: Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
ar-SY: Arabic (Syria)
ar-TN: Arabic (Tunisia)
ar-YE: Arabic (Yemen)
az-AZ: Azerbaijani (Azerbaijan)
be-BY: Belarusian (Belarus)
bg-BG: Bulgarian (Bulgaria)
bn-BD: Bengali (Bangladesh)
bn-IN: Bengali (India)
bs-BA: Bosnian (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
ca-ES: Catalan (Spain)
cs-CZ: Czech (Czech Republic)
cy-GB: Welsh (United Kingdom)
da-DK: Danish (Denmark)
de-AT: German (Austria)
de-CH: German (Switzerland)
de-DE: German (Germany)
de-LU: German (Luxembourg)
el-GR: Greek (Greece)
en-AU: English (Australia)
en-CA: English (Canada)
en-GB: English (United Kingdom)
en-IE: English (Ireland)
en-IN: English (India)
en-NZ: English (New Zealand)
en-US: English (United States)
en-ZA: English (South Africa)
es-AR: Spanish (Argentina)
es-BO: Spanish (Bolivia)
es-CL: Spanish (Chile)
es-CO: Spanish (Colombia)
es-CR: Spanish (Costa Rica)
es-DO: Spanish (Dominican Republic)
es-EC: Spanish (Ecuador)
es-ES: Spanish (Spain)
es-GT: Spanish (Guatemala)
es-HN: Spanish (Honduras)
es-MX: Spanish (Mexico)
es-NI: Spanish (Nicaragua)
es-PA: Spanish (Panama)
es-PE: Spanish (Peru)
es-PR: Spanish (Puerto Rico)
es-PY: Spanish (Paraguay)
es-SV: Spanish (El Salvador)
es-US: Spanish (United States)
es-UY: Spanish (Uruguay)
es-VE: Spanish (Venezuela)
et-EE: Estonian (Estonia)
eu-ES: Basque (Spain)
fa-IR: Persian (Iran)
fi-FI: Finnish (Finland)
fil-PH: Filipino (Philippines)
fr-BE: French (Belgium)
fr-CA: French (Canada)
fr-CH: French (Switzerland)
fr-FR: French (France)
fr-LU: French (Luxembourg)
ga-IE: Irish (Ireland)
gl-ES: Galician (Spain)
gu-IN: Gujarati (India)
he-IL: Hebrew (Israel)
hi-IN: Hindi (India)
hr-HR: Croatian (Croatia)
hu-HU: Hungarian (Hungary)
hy-AM: Armenian (Armenia)
id-ID: Indonesian (Indonesia)
is-IS: Icelandic (Iceland)
it-CH: Italian (Switzerland)
it-IT: Italian (Italy)
ja-JP: Japanese (Japan)
ka-GE: Georgian (Georgia)
kk-KZ: Kazakh (Kazakhstan)
km-KH: Khmer (Cambodia)
kn-IN: Kannada (India)
ko-KR: Korean (South Korea)
ky-KG: Kyrgyz (Kyrgyzstan)
lo-LA: Lao (Laos)
lt-LT: Lithuanian (Lithuania)
lv-LV: Latvian (Latvia)
mk-MK: Macedonian (North Macedonia)
ml-IN: Malayalam (India)
mn-MN: Mongolian (Mongolia)
mr-IN: Marathi (India)
ms-MY: Malay (Malaysia)
mt-MT: Maltese (Malta)
nb-NO: Norwegian Bokmål (Norway)
ne-NP: Nepali (Nepal)
nl-BE: Dutch (Belgium)
nl-NL: Dutch (Netherlands)
nn-NO: Norwegian Nynorsk (Norway)
or-IN: Odia (India)
pa-IN: Punjabi (India)
pl-PL: Polish (Poland)
pt-BR: Portuguese (Brazil)
pt-PT: Portuguese (Portugal)
ro-RO: Romanian (Romania)
ru-RU: Russian (Russia)
si-LK: Sinhala (Sri Lanka)
sk-SK: Slovak (Slovakia)
sl-SI: Slovenian (Slovenia)
sq-AL: Albanian (Albania)
sr-RS: Serbian (Serbia)
sv-SE: Swedish (Sweden)
sw-KE: Swahili (Kenya)
ta-IN: Tamil (India)
te-IN: Telugu (India)
th-TH: Thai (Thailand)
tr-TR: Turkish (Turkey)
uk-UA: Ukrainian (Ukraine)
ur-PK: Urdu (Pakistan)
uz-UZ: Uzbek (Uzbekistan)
vi-VN: Vietnamese (Vietnam)
zh-CN: Chinese (China)
zh-HK: Chinese (Hong Kong)
zh-TW: Chinese (Taiwan)
zu-ZA: Zulu (South Africa)
PATTERN:
fr: Language code for French (ISO 639-1)
-XX: Country-specific code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2), where XX represents the country code.
PS. In URLs, country-specific codes are also often written in lowercase letters.
Global Region Codes (UN M.49)
The UN M.49 standard provides a geographical classification system for the world’s countries and regions. Here are some commonly used UN M.49 codes on the internet:
001: World
002: Africa
003: North America
005: South America
009: Oceania
011: Western Africa
013: Central America
014: Eastern Africa
015: Northern Africa
017: Middle Africa
018: Southern Africa
019: Americas
021: Northern America
029: Caribbean
030: Eastern Asia
034: Southern Asia
035: South-Eastern Asia
039: Southern Europe
053: Australia and New Zealand
054: Melanesia
057: Micronesia
061: Polynesia
142: Asia
143: Central Asia
145: Western Asia
150: Europe
151: Eastern Europe
154: Northern Europe
155: Western Europe
419: Latin America and the Caribbean
Multilingual-Multinational Codes
Codes used to specify regional variations, especially in multilingual and multinational contexts:
es-419_ar: Spanish (Latin America, Argentina)
es-419_bo: Spanish (Latin America, Bolivia)
es-419_cl: Spanish (Latin America, Chile)
es-419_co: Spanish (Latin America, Colombia)
es-419_cr: Spanish (Latin America, Costa Rica)
es-419_cu: Spanish (Latin America, Cuba)
es-419_do: Spanish (Latin America, Dominican Republic)
es-419_ec: Spanish (Latin America, Ecuador)
es-419_gt: Spanish (Latin America, Guatemala)
es-419_hn: Spanish (Latin America, Honduras)
es-419_mx: Spanish (Latin America, Mexico)
es-419_ni: Spanish (Latin America, Nicaragua)
es-419_pa: Spanish (Latin America, Panama)
es-419_pe: Spanish (Latin America, Peru)
es-419_pr: Spanish (Latin America, Puerto Rico)
es-419_py: Spanish (Latin America, Paraguay)
es-419_sv: Spanish (Latin America, El Salvador)
es-419_uy: Spanish (Latin America, Uruguay)
es-419_ve: Spanish (Latin America, Venezuela)
PATTERN:
es: Language code for Spanish (ISO 639-1)
419: Region code for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN M.49)
_XX: Country-specific code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2), where XX represents the country code.
The use of underscores and hyphens in SEO URLs
While Google uses underscores for geotargeting purposes, as seen in:
- https://ads.google.com/intl/en_th/home/
- https://ads.google.com/intl/es-419_ar/home/ (for Latin American Spanish spoken in Argentina)
- https://ads.google.com/intl/fr_fr/home/,
many marketers (if not most) use hyphens (-) in geotargeted URLs.
Accents and other non-English characters in URLs
✅ Recommended: Use UTF-8 encoding as necessary. For example, the following example uses UTF-8 encoding for Arabic characters in the URL: https://www.example.com/%D9%86%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B9/%D8%A8%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9. The following example uses UTF-8 encoding for Chinese characters in the URL: https://example.com/%E6%9D%82%E8%B4%A7/%E8%96%84%E8%8D%B7. The following example uses UTF-8 encoding for the umlaut in the URL: https://www.example.com/gem%C3%BCse. The following example uses UTF-8 encoding for emojis in the URL: https://example.com/%F0%9F%A6%99%E2%9C%A8
❌ Not recommended: Using non-ASCII characters in the URL: https://www.example.com/نعناع or https://www.example.com/杂货/薄荷 or https://www.example.com/gemüse or https://www.example.com/🦙✨
URLs and Character Encoding
It’s sadly not possible to create an exhaustive list of all UTF-8 encodings for non-ASCII characters due to the Massive Character Set and Variable Length Encoding. Luckily, there are other ways:
- Online URL Encoders/Decoders: Websites allow you to enter a character and see its URL encoding: https://smalldev.tools/url-encoder-online
- Unicode Character Table. The Unicode Consortium provides a searchable character table where you can find characters and their corresponding UTF-8 encodings: https://www.unicode.org/charts/
Resources
- Google’s ‘Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites’
- Google’ URL structure best practices for Google’
- Google Search Central’s ‘Should my web page show multiple languages?’
- Google Search Central’s ‘Expanding your site to more languages’
- Google Search Central’s ‘ Should I use ccTLDs for sites not targeted to those countries?’
- Google Search Central’s ‘Should I use a separate IP address for each country-specific site?’
- Google Search Central’s ‘How should I handle localized content?’
- Google Search Central’s ‘ How serving works, hreflang, and more!’
- Effect of non-English URLs on SEO and ranking
FAQ
ABOUT SEO SLUGS, URLs & INTERNATIONAL SEO STRUCTURE
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a reference or address that specifies the location of a resource on the internet. It typically includes the protocol used to access the resource (e.g., HTTP, HTTPS), the domain name or IP address where the resource is hosted, and the specific path to the resource. In simpler terms, a URL is what you type into a browser’s address bar to access a specific webpage or resource on the web.
For instance, https://nemred.com is the English URL of Nemred — its online web address so to speak.
In the context of web development and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), a slug refers to the part of a URL that identifies a particular page or resource in a human-readable form. It is typically a simplified version of the page’s title or content, often containing only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens, without spaces or special characters. Slugs make URLs more user-friendly and easier to understand, aiding in SEO by improving readability and relevance to search engines.
For instance, /learn/ is the slug used in the URL https://nemred.com/learn/ as the internet address of the SEO blog.
An SEO slug refers to the part of a URL that is specifically optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It typically consists of keywords relevant to the content of the page, formatted to be readable by both users and search engines. SEO slugs are crafted to be concise, descriptive, and include relevant keywords to enhance the page’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
International SEO (Search Engine Optimization aka ISEO) refers to the process of optimizing a website so that search engines can easily identify which countries and languages the site is targeting. It involves strategies and techniques aimed at improving a website’s visibility and performance in global search engine results pages (SERPs) across different countries and languages. International SEO focuses on adapting content, keywords, and technical aspects of a website to effectively reach and engage international audiences, thereby increasing traffic, conversions, and overall global presence.
International SEO is crucial because it enables businesses to effectively reach and engage with global audiences. By optimizing for international search engines, websites can:
- Expand Reach. Reach potential customers in different countries who search in various languages.
- Increase Visibility. Improve visibility in global search engine results, driving more international traffic to the website.
- Enhance Relevance. Tailor content and keywords to match cultural nuances and local search behaviors.
- Boost Conversions. Increase the likelihood of converting international visitors into customers or leads.
- Compete Globally. Stay competitive in global markets by establishing a strong online presence across different regions.
Here are some of the most important international SEO best practices:
- Target Audience Research. Identify the specific countries or regions you want to reach. Consider the languages spoken in those areas.
- Keyword Research. Don’t just translate keywords – conduct proper keyword research for each target market to understand how users search for your products or services in those locations.
- URL Structure. Decide on a URL structure that works for your international strategy. Common options include country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) or subdirectories.
- Hreflang Tags. Implement hreflang tags correctly to indicate to search engines which language version of your page is most relevant for specific users.
- Content Language & Quality. Create high-quality content in the target language of your audience. Avoid relying solely on machine translation.
- Technical SEO. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and has fast loading speeds, especially important for users on slower internet connections.
The best URL structure for your international, or not, SEO strategy depends on your specific goals and resources.
International subdomains are parts of your main domain name that you use to target specific regions or languages. They appear before the main domain name, separated by a dot. For instance, a website targeting the UK market might use the subdomain “gb.companyname.com” (and not “uk.companyname.com”).
Country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) are special suffixes added to website addresses to indicate the website’s association with a specific country or region. They are the two-letter codes you see at the very end of some web addresses, like “.fr” for France or “.de” for Germany.
Here’s a breakdown of the key differences between international SEO and local SEO:
Target Audience
- International SEO: Targets a global audience, potentially across multiple countries and languages.
- Local SEO: Focuses on attracting customers within a specific geographic location, like a city, region, or state.
Keywords
- International SEO: Uses keywords relevant to a broader audience, considering search behavior and language variations across different regions.
- Local SEO: Utilizes location-specific keywords, often incorporating city or neighborhood names to target local searches.
Content
- International SEO: Content might be broader in scope, potentially needing translation or localization for different markets.
- Local SEO: Content is hyper-focused on the local area, often mentioning the city, addressing local needs, and using local references.
Backlinks
- International SEO: Backlinks can come from websites with a global reach, but targeting websites with some regional relevance can also be beneficial.
- Local SEO: Backlinks from local websites, online directories, and community pages hold more weight for local SEO.
Examples
- International SEO: A clothing company aiming to sell worldwide would use international SEO strategies.
- Local SEO: A bakery with a single location would benefit from local SEO to attract customers in their area.
In short
- Think global: International SEO expands your reach to a worldwide audience.
- Think local: Local SEO puts your business on the map for customers in your immediate vicinity.
WordPress multisites allow users to create and manage separate WordPress installations easily. This feature is particularly useful in a multilingual environment where subdirectories such as www.yoursite.com/en/ and www.yoursite.com/fr/ and other languages coexist.
And fortunately, it is indeed possible to connect different WordPress websites even after they have been created.
Setting up dual directories with gTLDs for your multilingual website, such as www.yoursite.com/ch/fr/, can be appealing for geotargeting purposes. But what should the configuration look like? Well, the best practice seen online involves adding a 301 redirect from the country code directory URL (e.g., www.yoursite.com/ch/) to the language code directory (e.g., www.yoursite.com/ch/fr/).