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International SEO presents a more unique set of challenges to an SEO specialist than local SEO. The biggest of these challenges is creating landing pages for each market. What are the key elements marketing managers should use to ensure value is gained from every landing page?
Varied Landing Pages
Working across various countries means creating a variety of landing pages.
Within each landing page marketers should consider the cultural elements which will impact as well as the different approach to buying – both will help shape the layout of the landing page. This also applies to landing pages on a website aimed at one demographic. In this case website managers should always ask the following question: why will this landing page inspire users to convert?
Carrying SEO services will be able to tell which page needs a page title, meta description, H1, H2 and H3 tags, a sizeable level of content and calls to action. The placement of each will benefit a search engine, but should also benefit the user in each region.
For example, if buyers (or converters) in a chosen region are more likely to click calls to action higher up the page, then digital marketers should consider different options. Beyond this, research into each target destination allows a web owner to have different content, based on different keyword targets, in the page title and Heading tags.
The Real Value of a Decent Landing Page
The content of a landing page is what will offer true value to a user and to an industry, resulting in rankings and conversion performance.
Landing pages which are shared naturally are more likely to rank; for an international E-commerce company this could come from product information and buying pages in multiple languages, with clothing (where sizing changes per region) pages seeing particular benefits.
Search engines attribute value based on the key elements on the page (outlined above), and over time algorithms have learned to understand words or phrases that naturally sit alongside keywords, and the ones they expect to make up in heading tags or page titles.
For example, if a website owner was to be selling ‘oranges’ online and targeting ‘buy oranges’ as a keyword, a search engine would understand that fruit, food, citrus, vitamin C etc. were all attributed words and should be expected to show in the content/tagging as well. Understanding associated words and phrases alongside keywords allows for target phrases to be used in context – improving the value of the word within the page.
Key Points To Consider For Landing Pages
- Content: must be informative and relevant
- Tags: completes the content and targets keywords
- Meta Data: provides users with more information
- Schema: marks page elements
- Calls to Action: encourages conversions
Think About Conversions
Ultimately landing pages created by an SEO agency or by a webmaster are there for conversion.
Marketers should always consider which element on the landing page will push a user to convert, and think about why they wouldn’t convert. Viewing the page objectively will allow for freshening up the landing page.
Tools such as Crazy Egg and video user testing allow digital managers to get a clear understanding why users are (or are not) converting on any given page.
Understanding the use of these pages gives insight to their true value: is a ranking page purely just ranking and getting traffic, or is it driving sales and conversions?
POLARIS a London SEO agency providing international SEO services to clients in multiple industries.
