Since customers are now used to using services worldwide and being able to order conveniently from anywhere, the demands on companies and their websites are also growing. However, this development does not only bring the advantage of an extended target group for companies but also the challenge of international search engine optimization. International SEO describes the search engine optimization of a website for different countries and languages. A well-thought-out internationalization strategy is absolutely necessary to ensure that a website performs well in terms of SEO not only in its country of origin but also in all other countries. The adaptation to the respective target market plays a central role because a simple translation of the website is far from sufficient here.

International SEO is mainly relevant for companies where it may make sense to additionally offer their own products or services in other countries. With the right international SEO strategy, different target markets can be addressed, visibility can be increased and in this way traffic on one’s own website, as well as sales can be significantly increased.

The following five factors are particularly important for successful internationalization:

1. A well-planned domain strategy: Here, subdomains, country code top-level domains (ccTLD), and directories are available for selection. Since these domain strategies each have different advantages and disadvantages, a decision for a strategy should always be made taking into account the individual circumstances.
2. The creation of a localized keyword & content strategy: A mere translation is not sufficient for internationalization, since both the use of language and the search behavior of users differ from country to country. Here it is important to take into account linguistic and cultural differences and, in the best case, to have the localization carried out by native speakers.
3. The creation of localized and optimized content: The user experience should also reflect the local expectations of users. Different units of measurement, time zones, payment methods, quality seals, or even the meaning of colors should be taken into account and adapted if necessary. 
4. Linking the international websites with each other: It can be quite helpful to do internal link building and to link the international websites among each other.
5. Linking the respective website out of its target market: It is equally helpful to generate backlinks in the same language and build a good backlink structure. This is because links from the respective target countries can be decisive for search engines in evaluating the GEO relevance of a website.