If you have got a multi-language web site it will be tough to induce high rankings within the individual countries. This text can assist you to optimize your multi-user web site so your websites can get high rankings within the right countries.
1. Optimize the URL structure of your website
A) Use unique country domains
The best way to show Google that a part of your website is relevant to a particular country is to create an independent website for the country.
For example, Amazon.de is for Germany, Amazon.co.uk is for the United Kingdom. Google recommends dedicated country code top level domains as the preferred options for websites that are available in different languages.
B) Create a unique sub domain for each country
If you don’t want to use country code top level domains, you can create a unique sub domain for each language. For example, you could use en.amazon.com, de.amazon.com, fr.amazon.com, etc.
Technically, a sub domain is totally independent from the main domain and it is relatively easy for search engine crawlers to index the sub domain as a country specific part of your website.
Theoretically, you could use sub directories (amazon.com/en/, amazon.com/de/, etc.) or URL parameters (&lang=de, &lang=en) to direct search engine robots to the different language versions of your website.
This method, however, often confuses search engine robots and it can happen that your web pages get lower rankings than they should.
2. Tell search engine robots that you have different language versions
The rel=’alternate’ attribute allows you to inform search engines that an internet page is out there in several language versions. As an example, you’ll add the subsequent to the top section of an internet page if that page is out there in English, German and French: All other languages can be directed to the default version of your website: When you create different versions of your website for different languages, do not just translate the content of your web pages. Different countries have different cultures. Things that work well in one country might not work in another.