Specialist SEO
International SEO Services That Give Each Market Rankings of Its Own
Selling into a second country or language multiplies every SEO decision you have already made. I set the structure, hreflang and market research so each country's pages build their own signals instead of fighting each other for the same searches.
- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- person doing the work
- 1
Why international SEO stalls for sites that win at home
International SEO is the structure, hreflang and per-market research that let each country and language version of your site rank for the people searching there. A site that ranks well in its home country often does far worse in the next one, even with good translations, because search engines cannot tell which version belongs to which audience. The UK page outranks the Irish one in Dublin, the Spanish page for Spain shows up in Mexico, and the German page sits unindexed because a script sends every visitor, crawlers included, back to the English homepage.
International search is won on structure, and it is where I see the most expensive mistakes. A broken hreflang setup does not trigger an error anyone notices. It quietly caps every market at once, and the loss shows up months later as "the French site never took off".
Key takeaways
- Most international sites I review are held back by structure, not content: hreflang that does not validate, canonicals that point every language at one version, and automatic redirects that hide pages from crawlers.
- The choice between country domains, subdomains and subfolders is a business decision about budget, teams and authority, and it is expensive to reverse later.
- Translated keywords are not localised keywords. Each market gets its own research, in its own language, checked against its own results pages.
- I start with the markets that already show demand in your Search Console and analytics data, not the ones on a wish list.
- Visitors from another country convert on local currency, delivery terms, payment methods and contact details, so those belong in the plan from day one.
What's included in my international SEO services
Six parts, in the order they usually happen. Fixing an existing setup may only need structure, hreflang and monitoring; entering a new market needs all six.
Market prioritisation built on the demand you already have
I start with Search Console and analytics by country, plus enquiry or order data, to see which markets already find you without localised pages. Search demand, competition, margins and your ability to deliver and support customers there then decide the order. A market you cannot serve well is a cost, whatever a tool says.
- Demand by country from your own data
- Competition and search volume per market
- A recommended order of entry, with reasons
Country domain, subfolder or subdomain - a structure decision you can defend
The recommendation weighs your budget, teams and existing authority, and comes with URL patterns for each language and region and a language selector that suggests rather than forces. The trade-offs are in the table below. If you already run one model successfully, I usually fix it in place.
- Structure recommendation with the reasoning written down
- URL patterns per language and region
- Selector behaviour without forced redirects
Keyword research in each market's own language, checked by native speakers
Translated keywords are not localised keywords. Research is done per market with a native speaker and checked against the live results there, using the same method as my keyword research. The output is a keyword-to-URL map per country that your translators and writers work from.
- Native-language research per priority market
- Live results review in each country
- A keyword-to-URL map for every market
Hreflang and canonical specification your developers can build and test
A page-by-page mapping generated from one source of truth, so every annotation set is reciprocal, plus a developer specification covering the delivery method, x-default, self-referencing canonicals and the html lang attribute. It is tested on staging before release. The errors I find most often are listed further down.
- Page-by-page hreflang mapping
- One delivery method: page head, HTTP header or sitemap
- A validated test on staging before release
Localisation briefs covering currency, delivery, contact routes and local proof
I do not translate copy. I brief your translators per page type on the terms to use and avoid, and on what a foreign visitor checks before anything else: can I pay in my currency, can you serve me here, and is there someone I can contact in my time zone?
- Terms to use and avoid in each market
- Local prices, tax display and payment methods
- Delivery or service coverage and local contact routes
- Proof that means something locally
Post-launch validation and monitoring for every language version
After release I crawl every version, validate hreflang and check index coverage per market, then keep checking so a template change does not quietly break the setup. Each market is judged on its own Search Console numbers and enquiries, never on a blended global total.
- Crawl and hreflang validation after each release
- Index coverage per language version
- Clicks, rankings and enquiries reviewed per country
Experience
International SEO from someone who has done it many times
You work with me from the first call to the last report. No account managers, no hand-offs to a junior team.
Book a free call- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- documented case studies
- 35
Signs your international setup is costing you
These are the symptoms that usually bring people to me. One of them is enough to justify a proper look.
The wrong country's page ranks
Search Console shows your US pages collecting impressions in the UK or Australia, while the local versions get almost none. Searchers land on the wrong prices, spelling and delivery promises, then leave.
New language versions never get indexed
Pages exist, sitemaps list them, but Search Console reports them as crawled and not indexed, or as duplicates where Google chose a different canonical.
Visibility dips in one market after a change in another
A template update or plugin swap for one country disturbs rankings elsewhere, because the versions are tied together in ways nobody documented.
Expansion plans with no search data behind them
The business wants to launch in three new countries next year, and nobody has checked what people there search or which competitors own those results.
Country domains, subdomains or subfolders
This is the first structural decision, and the hardest to undo. There is no universally right answer, only a right answer for your budget, team and markets.
| Structure | Example | What it does well | What it costs you | When I recommend it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country-code domain | example.de, example.fr | The strongest local signal; easy to host locally and run as a separate business | Each domain builds authority from scratch; more domains to renew, secure, monitor and link-build for | Large brands with in-country teams and budget for separate marketing per market |
| Subfolder | example.com/de/, example.com/en-gb/ | Shares the authority of one domain; one platform, one crawl, one set of tools | Weaker local signal on its own, so content, links and hreflang must carry it | Most businesses entering their first few markets, especially with one central team |
| Subdomain | de.example.com | Can sit on separate infrastructure or a separate platform when the tech stack forces it | Often treated more like a separate site, so authority sharing is less predictable | When a technical constraint rules out subfolders and country domains are not justified |
| Parameters | example.com/?lang=de | Quick for developers to bolt on | Hard for search engines and users to read; easy to break with caching and canonicals | Almost never - I plan a move away from it |
Changing structure later means redirecting every international URL. If you are already committed to one model, I usually fix it in place rather than recommend a move.
Free review
Get a free International SEO review
Send me your site. Before the call I look at your rankings and pages, then tell you what I would fix first and what it is likely worth.
Translating a site versus localising for a market
Most international underperformance traces back to the column on the left. The work on the right costs more up front and is the part that produces enquiries.
Translated
- English keyword list run through a translation tool
- Same page set in every language, whether the market needs it or not
- Prices in one currency, delivery terms written for the home country
- Hreflang added by a plugin with default settings nobody checked
- Case studies, reviews and certifications only from the home market
- No links or mentions from websites in the target country
Localised
- Research done in the target language, checked by a native speaker against live results
- Pages built for the services and products that market actually buys
- Local currency, tax display, delivery times and payment methods
- Hreflang mapped page by page, validated and monitored after launch
- Proof that means something locally: local clients, standards and accreditations
- Local citations, partners and press so the version has its own authority
Hreflang errors I find most often
Hreflang tells search engines which language and country each page is for, and which pages are equivalents. Simple in principle, fragile in practice.
| Error | What it does | How I fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Missing return links | Page A points to page B, but B does not point back, so the pair can be ignored | Generate annotations from one source of truth so every set is reciprocal |
| Invalid codes, such as en-UK | The annotation is ignored because the region code for the United Kingdom is GB | ISO language codes with optional ISO region codes, checked automatically |
| Pointing to redirected, noindexed or non-canonical URLs | Search engines receive contradictory signals and may drop the annotation | Every hreflang target must be the final, indexable, self-canonical URL |
| All languages canonicalised to the English page | The other versions are treated as duplicates and drop out of the index | Self-referencing canonicals on each language version |
| No fallback for unlisted countries | Visitors from markets you do not target land on an arbitrary version | An x-default pointing to a global page or a country selector |
Hreflang can live in the page head, in HTTP headers or in the XML sitemap. I choose the method your platform can keep accurate at scale, and use only one.
What this is not
Not local SEO, and not a translation service
International SEO is about countries and languages. If you serve one country and want to win in towns and cities, that is local SEO, where the map pack and Business Profile matter more than hreflang. I also do not translate copy: I brief your translators or agency on the keywords, page purpose and terminology each market needs, and review the output for search. If the work involves moving domains or restructuring URLs across markets, the redirect planning and launch checks sit under SEO migration.
How an international SEO engagement runs
A first market review and structure plan usually takes three to five weeks. Implementation support then runs alongside your developers and translators.
- 1
Read the demand you already have
Week one. Your own country-level data comes before any tool, because it shows where demand already exists and where the wrong version ranks.
- 2
Prioritise markets by opportunity
Agreed with you before any structural work, so effort goes to the countries that can actually pay back.
- 3
Decide the structure
Settled early and in writing, because every later step depends on it and reversing it means redirecting every international URL.
- 4
Research each market in its own language
Runs market by market in priority order, so translators can start on the first country while research continues on the next.
- 5
Specify hreflang and canonicals
Handed to developers together with the structure plan, then tested on staging before anything goes live.
- 6
Launch, validate and monitor
Validation within days of each release, then monitoring for as long as templates keep changing.
Timelines, what I need from you, and what goes wrong
I need access to Search Console, analytics and your CMS or a staging copy, the countries you sell into and plan to enter, and a developer contact. If you work with translators, I want to talk to them early.
Fixes to an existing setup, such as broken hreflang or wrong canonicals, often show in Search Console within weeks of being recrawled. A new market built from scratch takes longer, typically several months before rankings settle, because the new version has to earn its own authority and local links.
Other common mistakes: launching ten markets at once with thin pages in each, and letting one country team change shared templates unannounced. Not every search engine reads hreflang the same way, so each page also states its language in its markup, and where Baidu or Naver dominates a market, the plan follows that engine's rules.
Where international SEO connects to the rest
Structure and hreflang are technical work, and anything beyond the international layer, such as rendering, crawl budget or site speed, belongs to technical SEO. The per-market research uses the same method as my keyword research, and the editorial plan for each country follows my content strategy process.
If you are not sure whether international issues are your biggest problem, an SEO audit covers them alongside everything else and ranks them against other fixes. For businesses whose international growth depends on being quoted in AI answers in several languages, see AI search optimisation. Single-country location work is covered under local SEO services.
Growth from real projects
Learn more about international seo
International SEO Services FAQs
Should we use country domains or subfolders for international SEO?
For most businesses entering their first few markets, subfolders on one strong domain are the better starting point, because every market shares one domain's authority and one platform. Country domains make sense when you have separate teams and budgets per country and can build each domain's authority on its own. If you already run one model successfully, I usually fix it in place rather than move.
Do we need hreflang if each country has its own domain?
Usually yes, if the domains share a language or have equivalent pages. A UK site and an Irish site in English, or a Spanish site and a Mexican one, look like near-duplicates without hreflang, and search engines may show the wrong one. Hreflang tells them which version suits which searcher. It does not help a page rank higher, it helps the right page rank in the right place.
Can we just machine-translate our existing pages?
Machine translation can be a useful first draft, but publishing it unedited at scale tends to produce pages with unnatural terms, untranslated elements and keywords nobody searches. Search engines and buyers both notice. I recommend native-speaker editing at minimum, and research-led localisation for the pages that matter most commercially, such as main service, category and product pages.
Should we redirect visitors to their country's site automatically?
I advise against forced redirects based on IP address or browser language. Crawlers may not be able to reach some versions, and real users such as travellers, expats and people on corporate networks get sent to the wrong place. A banner or selector that suggests the local version, while letting people stay where they are, usually works better for both search and users.
Which markets should we expand into first?
Start with the evidence. Search Console and analytics often show countries where you already get impressions or orders without any localised pages, which is a strong sign of demand. I combine that with search volume, competition, your margins and your ability to deliver and support customers there, then recommend an order. The market with the biggest search numbers is not always the right first move.
How do you measure success in each market?
Every market gets its own view in Search Console and analytics: impressions and clicks from that country, whether the right language version is the one ranking, indexed pages per version, and enquiries or revenue per market. Blended global numbers hide the problem, because one strong country can mask three that are failing, so I never report international SEO as a single total.
Find out which markets your international SEO is losing
Tell me which countries you sell into now and which are next. On a free 30-minute call I will look at how your versions perform by country, check your hreflang for the errors I see most, and tell you whether I would fix your setup in place or change it.