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07.17.07
Principles Of International Website Marketing
 By
Matt Bailey
I have always fielded questions concerning international strategies, primarily that of US-based companies branching into Spanish-language websites or content. international marketing.
However, the frequency of these questions have increased the past few years, along with the variety of international markets that companies are looking to target.
There are a few levels of international strategies that I have observed and had the pleasure of consulting and analyzing for the campaigns. They range from the planned to the unplanned, and I have some lessons learned from each.
1. The "Hey! We have international traffic!" level.
This is primarily from the website owners that did not set out to target foreign markets, but have had their sites do well in search engines in various regions. This has been particularly interesting when a company ranks well for a term that is well-focused in a specific language, yet does not rank at near the same level in the English language.
International Website Marketing Principle #1
Typically, some of the smaller business websites that are gaining traffic from international users need to be sure that they do the following:
* Create an internationally usable address form. International addresses are much different from US-based contact forms. The US is the only country that uses a 5-digit numerical zip code. Everywhere else uses postal codes.
* If you have an ecommerce site, be sure to show shipping options prior to the sale. Shipping costs can be a deterrent to the sale if Air Cargo is the only option available.
2. The English/Spanish website level. (Or French/English for my friends up North)
I was on a panel discussion in Toronto when the question came up about duplicate content and foreign-language versions of a website. Adam Lasnik from Google confirmed that there is no duplication "penalty" for a having a page in English and a translated page in Spanish/French/etc.
This was not surprising though, as translation is not character for character or word-for word. But it did help assuage many fears in the room.
Read the rest of the article
About the Author:
Matt Bailey is the founder of SiteLogic, a website marketing consulting company. Matt has been in the SEO and website marketing industry since 1996, and instructing others how to do so since 1999. Matt is a regular speaker for the Search Engine Strategies Conferences, both in the US and International Shows, the Direct Marketing Association and the American Advertising Federation.
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