I want multiple languages on my site, how do I do it?

When a company grows beyond its home country, it often brings along some complications, for many reasons. Payment solutions need to be secured, product offerings and descriptions must be adjusted for other markets, and customer contact methods need to be organized, just to name a few of the hurdles that need to be passed.

When it comes to SEO, the problems aren’t that big, but there are a few things that are important to decide on and think about in order for the process to go as smoothly as possible.

Top-Level Domain (TLD)

The first decision you need to make is whether you should use a generic top-level domain (e.g., .com and similar) for all languages or a country-specific top-level domain (e.g., .se, .no, etc.) for each language. There is no clear right or wrong here, as both options have their pros and cons. Having everything on the same domain makes it a bit easier to share link equity and have more content on the site, while it can be slightly easier to rank with a country-specific domain, and in many countries, it’s a strong trust signal for visitors.

My recommendation is to keep the domain you already have and continue building in that way.

Generic Top-Level Domain – Directory or Subdomain

If you have a generic top-level domain, you need to decide whether you want to place the different language versions in directories (domain.com/se, domain.com/en) or subdomains (se.domain.com, en.domain.com). From an SEO perspective, there’s not much difference between the two options, but I would recommend directories if there’s no technical limitation on your site that makes it more complicated, as there are times when Google sees subdomains as separate sites rather than one.

Hreflang Tags and geographical settings

To make it extra clear for Google which language and country each part of the site is targeted at, there are two tools that are useful. The first is called “hreflang tags.” This is a type of meta-data that Google reads to understand the relationship between different language versions of the same page. In simple terms, it lists all the different versions of the same page, like this:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”sv” href=”http://www.doman.com/se/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”no” href=”http://www.doman.com/no/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fi” href=”http://www.doman.com/fi/” />

or like this:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”sv” href=”http://www.doman.se/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”no” href=”http://www.doman.no/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fi” href=”http://www.doman.fi/” />

This is especially helpful if you’re targeting multiple markets with the same language, such as the UK and the USA, as it also allows you to indicate which market a page is aimed at:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-gb” href=”http://www.doman.com/gb/” />
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-us” href=”http://www.doman.com/us/” />

The second tool can be found in Google Search Console. There, you can set geographic targeting at the domain, subdomain, or folder level. This only applies to generic top-level domains, as the country-specific ones already have this setting locked to their respective countries.

Navigation

The final aspect to consider, and perhaps the most important, is how navigation between the different language versions works. It’s essential that it’s clear how the different sections are connected, and that Google can easily find its way between them, so you can leverage the shared power of the site or sites as effectively as possible.

The main recommendation is to place a clear “language navigation” on each page that links to the corresponding pages in other languages. This is the best method both for Google and your visitors.

If you have a very large number of different languages/countries, however, it can become a bit overwhelming. It’s not ideal to place hundreds of navigation links across the site. In that case, it might be better to place a link on each page that takes your visitors to a dedicated “language selection page.” However, this is not as effective, so if you can avoid it, that’s preferable.

Once these elements are in place, you’ll have a solid foundation for your global expansion. After that, it’s “just” about continuing to work on your search engine optimization for each individual language.