The challenges of international websites
Creating a nice-looking multilingual website may seem like a breeze, yet turning it into a powerful tool for international sales, capable of attracting foreign prospects and persuading them to do business with you, requires some serious skills. Your very first step to achieve that is to make sure your website is as easy to find abroad as your car keys when you're running late for an important meeting! Remember, if your website is beautiful but can't be found abroad, it's like throwing a surprise party where nobody shows up – the cake's delicious, but who's gonna eat it?
As explained in our previous newsletter, businesses often mishandle the strategic targeting of their international websites. Interestingly, this issue can be an opportunity for you. How so, you ask? Well, when executed correctly, this strategic targeting can give you a substantial advantage over your international competitors.
Let's consider again the scenario where a French business seeks to expand its online sales in Germany. It can choose from different domain options for its targeting such as www.example.de, www.example.com/de, de.example.com, www.example.fr/de, or fr.example.com/de. But each one of these options can reach a different number of people, as you can see in the next table:
To get as much traffic as possible, you must choose the best option among those in the table above. This will condition the international targeting of your website and its traffic potential. You need to make this decision at the start of your project jointly with four other key parameters: the type of international website (corporate, e-commerce, etc.), its domain structure, the search engines used in the foreign country, and the local vs. international SEO strategy. All that means considering questions such as:
- If your national website is a gTLD (generic Top Level Domain), what is its authority?
- Is your brand attractive overseas as much as it is in your country?
- Is a ccTLD (country-code Top Level Domain) available for your target foreign market, if you need to target by country? or is a gTLD available in the other case?
- Have you validated the business model you will apply abroad, whether B2B, B2C, or B2B2C, etc.?
- Do you know how your foreign prospective clients behave online?
- Have you decided on the domain structure of your international website?
The last one is the most critical for an effective website and its international targeting.
There are three main types of domain structures for an international website:
- With several ccTLDs, one for each foreign country, particularly recommended for targeting by country.
- With one gTLD followed by subdirectories, recommended for targeting by country, by language, or by both.
- With one gTLD preceded by subdomains, recommended for targeting by country, by language, or by both.
Whichever you choose, you must remember that it is not your website that has to adapt to SEO: it is the other way around. You must adapt your SEO to the domain structure and the targeting strategy that you have chosen. The SEO work will be different for each of these three domain structures and each type of targeting. That is the reason why they must be defined at the beginning and remain consistent throughout your project. If you initially chose a domain with a ccTLD for your own country, for example, website.fr for France, you would struggle to target French-speaking people in Canada or Belgium, or people speaking other languages in other countries with the same ccTLD. On the other hand, by adding a ccTLD for Canada, one for Belgium, etc., your targeting will be more effective while maintaining a structure consistent with the SEO work already done on website.fr.
In the following table, you will find a recap of the advantages and drawbacks of each international website structure.
How to effectively target by country and language
If your business needs a website to target a particular country or a specific language, you must deploy different techniques on it. Without them, your website cannot be found easily by your foreign prospective clients in the search engines they use locally. And, even if some of these prospective clients succeed in finding your website, it cannot convey the relevant message it needs to persuade them to stay and buy. Basically, your website will not help your e-export sales! Let’s see how to avoid that.
WEBSITES TARGETING BY COUNTRY
1) With ccTLDs:
Country-code Top Level Domain, or ccTLDs, are the domains like the following:
- www.website.fr for France
- www.website.de for Germany
- www.website.it for Italy
- etc.
They carry the strongest signals telling search engines what country the website targets. It is unambiguous that the .fr tells google.fr, or other search engines and internet users that the website is meant for people in France. The same for the .de for Germany, the .co.uk for the United Kingdom, the .br for Brazil, and so forth. A second advantage of a website using the ccTLD is that it can be easily associated with Google Business Profile, which is another very strong signal to indicate the website’s target country to search engines.
The use of ccTLDs is, therefore, the best choice for a strategy that must target by country. But, in some cases, this can be complicated or impossible, because:
- Some ccTLDs have lost their country power, becoming almost like a generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) after they have been used too often for other reasons than for country targeting. That is the case for .it for Italy or .io for the British Indian Ocean.
- The ccTLD is not available: either it is already online for another business, or it belongs to someone else even if it is not online. The second case would seem less extreme than the first since you can contact the owner to try to retrieve the ccTLD. Either way, a quick fix is not easy.
- The ccTLD domain can only be registered in a foreign country by a company registered in that same country, as is the case in China.
If the ccTLDs are unavailable for the foreign countries you want, you have two options: either change something in the name or use another domain structure.
2) With a gTLD and sub-directories:
A website targeting by country with a domain structure based on a gTLD with sub-directories looks, for example, like this:
- www.website.com/fr for France
- www.website.com/de for Germany
- www.website.com/ca for Canada
- etc.
Unlike ccTLDs, which are specific to each country, here the gTLD does not change: it is unique and always the same for all countries, .com in the example above. Only the subdirectories change per each target foreign country.
WEBSITES TARGETING BY LANGUAGE
1) With ccTLDs:
Deploying a ccTLD domain structure for a website that needs to target by language is not a good idea. By using a ccTLD, your website tells Google and other search engines that it is meant for a specific country, which is not what you should want when your website can sell to people who speak the same language in many different countries.
If you were using a ccTLD domain structure to target, for example, French-speaking people around the world, you would need to use a domain such as www.website.fr for people in France, another domain www.website.be for French-speaking people in Belgium, another www.website.ch for French-speaking people in Switzerland, and so forth for all the other countries where French-speaking people live. That would require a considerable amount of extra work and money compared to the other two options explained below. Unfortunately, you can still find a lot of websites that use a ccTLD to target by language internationally. They often add sub-directories or sub-domains to the country-code domain (as in the example at the beginning), usually one per language, thinking that is what to do. Well, it is not!
2) With a gTLD and sub-directories:
This is the best domain structure for targeting by language. Besides ease of implementation, this structure's great advantage is having a single domain and a single hosting provider because the gTLD doesn’t change. What changes are the sub-directories that are specific to each one of the target languages. This structure with a gTLD and sub-directories also makes it easy to target by language while targeting by country: that is possible when the sub-directories use the language codes and the country codes at the same time, as in these examples.
- www.website.com/de/de for German-speaking people in Germany
- www.website.com/ch/de for German-speaking people in Switzerland
- www.website.com/at/de for German-speaking people in Austria
- etc.
Recommended by LinkedIn
3) With a gTLD and sub-domains:
You have another option for your website to target by language: a gTLD preceded by a language code to create a sub-domain. This domain structure can also be utilized for a website that is targeting by country, although less effective than the previous option.
- fr.website.com/de for German-speaking people in France
- fr.website.com/en for English-speaking people in France
- fr.website.com/es for Spanish-speaking people in France
- etc.
4) Some other techniques to enhance targeting by language
Google’s algorithms, like many other search engines’ algorithms around the world, determine the language of a website simply by looking at the linguistic elements that are visible on its web pages. It is therefore important to keep a good level of clarity for the content of the website. In particular:
- Having only one language per page with a separate URL for each language.
- Not using widgets on internet users’ browsers to translate the texts automatically on the fly. Search engines are not capable of seeing such translations.
- Not automatically redirecting internet users to a language version of the website. That prevents crawlers and internet users from seeing all the language versions of your website.
- Having a language selector to link the language versions of your website.
- Setting the ‘hreflang’ annotations for each URL of a different language.
Enhancing E-Export strategy through the T.O.S.C.A. framework
The website is a critical component of a company's online presence, acting as the primary point of contact for customers and prospects. Therefore, when a company intends to expand its business across multiple countries, its website should effectively engage online users in both local and international markets. And, to accomplish this objective, such a company needs an effective digital e-export strategy. The T.O.S.C.A. methodology offers a straightforward and user-friendly approach to achieving this.
T.O.S.C.A., NOT ONLY FOR OPERA LOVERS!
In 2023, over 64% of people around the world, and up to 99% in the most connected countries, regularly browse websites of any kind at home, at work, in stores, or on the move anywhere there is a working internet connection. But with about two billion websites in the world, trying to make people find a new one can sound like making them find a needle in a haystack. The good news is that the mission of a website is not to be the best among about two billion! Its mission is to achieve a specific objective that compels only a specific audience in a specific country and not everybody around the world.
You must therefore concentrate your resources on the right foreign market, on the right objective, on the right channels, and on the right actions. This is the foundation of an effective digital e-export strategy! Unfortunately, that is too often treated lightly. Here is where the T.O.S.C.A. framework, not the opera, can help you define a good e-export strategy. This methodology is based on asking these simple questions:
- T - Target: in which foreign country do you want to expand your business?
- O - Objectives: what do you want to achieve in this target country?
- S - Segments and Personas: what type of potential customers are you trying to reach? What does your ideal customer look like?
- C - Call-to-action: which actions would you like your segments and personas to take on your digital channels?
- A - Analytics: what is the specific measurement system that you need to use to determine whether your strategy can be considered successful?
These are the key questions for an operational e-export strategy. To integrate financial considerations, you need an additional 'C' question after the Call-to-Action: 'Cost' - what is the required investment to attain your objectives for the designated segments/personas within your target country?
Let's hit the pause button for now. But don’t worry, the secrets of the T.O.S.C.A. framework will unfold in the next newsletter. Stay tuned – the best is yet to come!
Highlights and takeaways
12th-13th January: The OSCI Winter University 2024
On January 12th and 13th, the OSCI - Les Accélérateurs du développement international🌍↗ Winter University 2024 took place in Bordeaux, bringing together about 80 French experts in international trade who are members of the OSCI federation. This year's Winter University was dedicated to digital tools and AI, with a specific focus on those that can help international trade and export consultants in their work. During the first day, I had the pleasure of co-hosting a round table with Sylvain PERRET, MBA, CBI 🇺🇸/🇫🇷 where we presented an array of Generative AI tools that prove incredibly useful for international business. The second day brought another opportunity as I shared the stage with Michelle Lau , the CEO of Alibaba.com France, one of the world's leading B2B marketplaces.
Jan. 18: webinar “E-Export - Accelerate your international business through multichannel sales”
In partnership with Bpifrance , this webinar was the first one under the "Export Academy," one of the initiatives from the "Osez l'Export" plan announced last July by Olivier BECHT, Minister Delegate for International Trade. We had nearly 450 registrations, with almost 2/3 attending in person.
A huge thank you to Bpifrance for this opportunity!
If you have more questions about this webinar or anything related to E-Export, feel free to contact me directly here on LinkedIn - it'll be quicker 😇
8, 15, 22 March 2024: online training on E-Export - How to internationalize an e-commerce with WordPress (in French)
Next month, we partner again with Bpifrance and with France Num for a special training on E-Export. Whether you are a CEO, an export manager, or a digital expert, during this online training you will learn how to internationalize your e-commerce site with WordPress and how to optimize it for E-Export!
Entirely financed by Bpifrance and France Num, this is an excellent opportunity for you to learn the first key steps of E-Export and to start selling online internationally. Want to know more and apply?
Click here and hurry up because places are limited.
Upcoming training sessions!
Follow our page on LinkedIn to receive the latest announcements and dates.
This newsletter takes its name from my new book “Digital E-Export - E-Commerce, Marketplaces, SEO, SEA, Social Selling and E-Marketing”, now available on Amazon worldwide!
Do you want to know more about the possibilities of E-Export for your business? Contact us at contact@towebornottoweb.com or follow our page here!
9-figure Digital Businesses Maker based on technology (Web2, Web3, AI, and noCode) | General Manager MOVE Estrella Galicia Digital & exAmazon
11moLooking forward to reading it! 📚
Business Broker | E2 Visa Specialist & Business Plan Writer | Author | Founder of Integrity International Brokers
11moOn the technical side, I appreciate that you talked about hreflang which is crucial. I would also suggest using a CDN so that the site is delivered with high speed everywhere in the world. Speed is important for SEO, and even more for Ecommerce websites as customer do not want to wait to make their purchase. Cloudflare for example is a good CDN solution, not too expensive.
Marketing | Content | Copywriter
11moNice pictures, by the way 😉
Scaling Growth and Pipeline with Strategic Marketing & Proven Results
11moThe table with the different quantity of people that a website can reach is amazing. Are you sure of it? Because I see so many websites that use country-specific domains I wonder how that is possible!
Marketing Director at RainTech Roofing, Sheet Metal & Gutters
11moGood job, thanks Silvia! 👍