If you’re a small or medium sized business, the thought of taking your brand internationally can be daunting to say the least.
From the language barrier to the unknown of the new market, many businesses are put off expanding for many different reasons. But what can you do to give yourself the best chance of success?
First things first – get your website in order
Whether you sell physical products or offer services, your website is the ultimate digital shop front. Something that can be seen across the globe, it’s important to get it right to attract new customers and clients.
When you expand internationally, you may need to create new content to target users in that country, and if you do, you may look to enlist the help of a specialist international SEO agency who can help you get it right the first time.
You’ll need to ensure that everything from the language and links to content and backend technical elements are all working in harmony before you go live. Having a well optimised website is one of the fundamental things a business needs, especially when launching in a completely new territory.
Your agency can help you to create engaging, keyword optimised and E-A-T compliant content to make sure you’ve a good chance of ranking highly on search engines. After all, what’s the point in having a shiny new website if no one can find it?
“Often brands don’t know where to start when it comes to expanding internationally” says Chris, Head of International SEO at Ingenuity Digital. “With the right on site SEO, content, technical knowledge and off site marketing tactics, you can give you brand the opportunity to reach its key audience in whichever country you’re targeting.”
Reach out to people with a digital platform
Another great marketing tactic often used by SEO agencies is outreach. They’ll collate a list of bloggers and influential people to either send your physical products to, or develop relationships with to help with exposure for your website.
As these people know the market and already have a fan base in the country you’re launching in, it’s a great way to get people talking about your brand. And, if they have social media platforms then even better. Ask your agency if they have a social media or influencer team that could help you launch some Facebook and Instagram campaigns. Depending on your product or service, it’s the perfect way to target certain demographics.
Don’t stress about the language barrier
Language is a funny thing. Although you might like to hope that many countries would simply translate your website via their browser, to perform well in SEO, its essential to have a correctly targeted, country specific online presence.
It’s wise to speak to your agency or a local consultant to see how they can help. They may be able to do things such as write content in the native language, create blog posts to sit on other local websites and news outlets and liaise with local influencers, should you be using them.
Hiring an agency or consultant can help relieve the potential headache of trying to hire someone to sit over in that country, or someone who is UK based that may have to work unfavourable hours!
Don’t forget to report and analyse
One of the fundamentals of any marketing activity is to report and review your findings. The benefit of hiring an international SEO agency is that they can collate all the information for you! Gone are the days of manually importing everything to an excel spreadsheet and messing about with charts and graphics. Many of these businesses have nifty tools to do all of the leg work.
They’ll be able to talk you through the results, from how well you are ranking in that specific country, what marketing tactics have worked and what they think you should do moving forwards. You’d be surprised at how invaluable reports and analytics are for your business.
