Everyone knows how important content is for search engine optimization.
Well-written text, crafted with search engines in mind, has the potential to rank very well. But things quickly become more complex when you’re working in a language you don’t understand.
There are a few actions you can take on a website that tend to deliver quick SEO results. One example is adding more products to your webshop. If you already have strong rankings, chances are the inherent strength of your shop will carry over and help the new products rank well, too. Another powerful move is launching your site in additional languages.
But translating your website is almost always more complex than adding more products.
Unless you’re running a pure affiliate or informational site, going multilingual often comes with real-world demands: you might need customer support in the new language, or you may need to be able to deliver to that market. Even if you set those concerns aside, translation still presents challenges from an SEO perspective. How do you ensure that your translated content actually performs well in search engines?
I’ve worked with SEO across 25–27 different languages, and this issue is something we face constantly. Making sure the keywords are present is one thing — but are they used in the right way?
My solution is twofold.
First, as with any translation, you need someone who speaks the language natively (or at a native level) to handle the translation.
Second, that person needs to have some training in SEO. They don’t need deep SEO knowledge to write effective content, but they do need to understand the basics — especially how to use body text and headings properly.
At Brath, we’ve chosen to work with a translation agency that meets fairly strict requirements. We also know they’re committed to improving their SEO expertise. It took a bit of a ramp-up period, of course, but we now have a seamless collaboration that works very well.
If you’d like an introduction to the agency we use, feel free to reach out — we’d be happy to connect you.
Magnus Bråth
Consultant & Adviser
Magnus is one of the world's most prominent search marketing specialists and primarily works with management and strategy at his agency Brath AB.