International SEO for eCommerce – Global Websites

I was recently interviewed by Linda Bustos of ElasticPath.com’s blog Get Elastic. The topic of the interview was SEO for Global eCommerce websites and I wanted to share the questions and answer snippets here for SEMInsights awesome readers 🙂

Linda: What are the top SEO concerns for global ecommerce websites?

• Laura: There are a number of challenges facing global ecommerce sites, but 3 high-level issues that seem to be universal include communication, testing, and clear planning and reporting structures and processes…. (Read more)

Linda: A big decision for any webmaster is whether to go with one site for all countries or multiple, localized sites. From an SEO perspective, is one approach “better” than the other?

• Laura: The first thing to consider concerns your resourcing limitations. Many global sites use CMS (content management systems) and are template based. If you are planning on targeting Saudi Arabia and the UK for example, you will need different templates due to user behavior, so different localized sites makes sense… (Read more)

Linda: For a site with, say, 15 localized country sites, would you recommend each site have its own SEO team, or can efforts be centralized?

• Laura: Different countries, even those with the same official language, can have very different culturally driven user habits, expectations and behaviours. It is always possible to achieve economies of scale by sharing data and winning test versions or copy, but those should be tested in-market without preconceived assumptions… (Read more)

Linda: We know nothing can substitute for a local speaker when writing copy, but that can be expensive. What are some ways to get high quality translation/copywriting at a reasonable price?

• Laura: If you’re going global and expect to achieve global returns, you have to speak the language of your users on a country-by-country basis. In fact, in many instances it comes down to dialects. You can go small and use free or minimal cost translation services and you may perhaps get lucky… (Read more)

Linda: What is the number one SEO mistake you see with global ecommerce sites?

• Laura: It’s hard to say what the number 1 mistake is, but I’ll include 3 here that make up a big majority of potential misses and mistakes… (Read more)

Enjoy!

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