Everyone who has been involved in running an online business or website knows, if you don't get the right keywords to correctly indicate your site, you won't get any traffic diverting to your corner of the web. Figuring out the right keywords to optimize your site is a tricky thing, involving a balance between putting yourself in the shoes of your potential consumer to figure out what phrases they're likely to use to search for your products, and researching the frequency of keyword usage with tools like Google Keyword to see which are best to push through the competition to the top of the rankings.
But when it comes to deciding on the best keywords in other languages, the whole game changes. Different languages and cultures will approach the expression of their desires in different ways. Simply taking your English keywords and then looking up their dictionary translations in each of your target languages won't yield effective results. Indeed, the most effective keyword for a product or service could be anything from a direct translation of the term into the target language, to a colloquialism, a synonym, or an adopted term from English or another language.
As an example, let's say that you're selling weekend holidays and want to start a French language website. The direct dictionary translation of your keyword "weekend holiday," as Google Translate would have it, is "week-end de vacance," but this doesn't show up on a keyword search in Google Keyword. However, "holiday rental" (a.k.a., "location vacance") gets more than 4 million hits, while other high ranking keywords for the French market include "maison vacance," "séjour," "sejour" (without the accent) and "vacance piscine."
Keyword Research:
You need a three-pronged approach when working out your keywords for foreign markets.
Translate
The first step is to get your English keywords translated into their target language -- but don't just use a dictionary or Google Translate. To really get the proper literal translation of a term in the particular idiom of your market, you'll need the assistance of a professional translator who lives in the country you're targeting, who'll be up to date with the shifts in language and cultural references.
Brainstorm
This same translator can then help with stage two, and use their specific in-country knowledge to brainstorm other terms that their fellow citizens would be likely to use to search for your product. For instance, sticking with the "weekend holiday" example, a French company employing a British translator to brainstorm synonyms for "location vacance" into English would be told that "city-break" and "weekend getaway" is another two popular terms that express the same idea.
Research
The last stage is to thoroughly research your new list of keywords with a detailed data analysis of search trends in your target market. This should involve analyzing the keywords being used by your competitors -- which ones are working and which ones aren't -- as well as checking the data on usage for all your keywords and their variants.
Points to Consider:
1. Using cookie base language selector: Since Google can’t read cookies so it is advised not to use an onsite language selector that relies on cookies, it will be difficult for Google to understand what country/language your site is indicating.
2. Failing to implement multi-lingual mark-ups: Complex even for seasoned SEOs – sites should be implementing the Google multilingual mark-up. The new rel=“alternate” hreflang link element helps Google understand content specifically produced for multiple geographic regions. It’s essential.
3. Not Updating Webmaster Tools: Most site owners forget to use Google Webmaster tool effectively for Multilingual SEO .Webmaster tools help Google to understand which territories your website is targeting. 4. Ignoring Search Engines Other than Google: It can be easy to ignore search engines that are only popular in certain territories. Depending on which countries you wish to target, Google may not be the dominant search engine. Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China and Naver (or Daum) in South Korea are all major search engines you should aware yourself before planning for global SEO.
Each search engine has its own indexing policy and applies its own weightings to things like content, links and social sharing. It’s important to consult an expert if you are unsure on the best approach.
5. Gain link authority in local market: Only getting a lot of links to your .com (or any registered domain) website `will not be enough to help you rank on competitive terms in international markets. High quality content rich links need to be built in country.
6. Maintain Deep page linking Structure: Many webmasters make the mistake of allowing their onsite language selector to redirect their visitors to the homepage for their chosen country.
Instead, you should ensure your deep pages link to like-for-like pages when visitors switch between languages. This is important, not only for the flow of link juice and authority but also for usability.
So consider these things while going for multilingual SEO keyword research and keep in mind these points to get targeted result. We at SEOTrish provide you best option for multilingual SEO, for more details become our fan at facebook and follow us in twitter.