Multilingual keyword research

[Jseddon92]

Does anyone have any experience in multilingual SEO? We are looking for software that conducts research for GEO Locations such as UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan & India. Writing content for each of these countries is difficult unless we speak their language, we could look at outsourcing the translation but conducting keyword research for each location is almost impossible.

[ClaytonJ]

I have done it for an ecommerce site and I found there was no simple solution.  Be great to hear if there is one.

I chose or knew the keywords then went to google translate. Then put those keywords into various tools to see how they extrapolated out.  ie Adwords keyword tool.  I also used semrush.  Also put some onus on keywords on the client.

Because I was also terrified that the translate and then "my combination" might not means what I hope it to mean I then got it reviewed by a native speaker.  Great learning curve.  That was where I learnt the most from speaking to a local. There is heightened risk not speaking to a someone fluent - so I would not recommend publishing without doing that.

After that it is a process - move back to the re-fining the standard and arduous practices we already know about in keyword research. I was chasing simple clothing keywords and then fortunately the retailer was opening shops which made the job easy.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I would look into the following:
SEMRush - You can check out competitors in different regions / countries, how they rank, and what content of theirs in performing best. You can break this down by Google properties in different countries.
Majestic - See what kinds of links competitors are getting in different regions / countries, and what their top linked to content is. This will help you prioritize what content is working best and least for others in different regions.
International Keyword Research - A great webinar from Moz that discusses different tactics and processes for international keyword research. Lots of good information here.

Understand the basics of international SEO:
International SEO - Get the basic understanding of international SEO and how to approach your efforts.
International SEO Checklist - A great checklist with everything from strategy to measurement of your efforts.
Establishing Your International SEO Strategy - A great resource from SEER Interactive discussing different tips and ideas to have a successful internation SEO strategy. Includes content and understanding your audience.

Telling search engines regional targets:
Country Targeting (Google) - Target your region specific URLs for Google.
Geo-Targeting (Bing) - Target your region specific URLs for Bing.
Hreflang (Google) - Helps Google understand your alternate region website variants and how they relate to your main site.
Language Tags (Bing) - Helps Bing understand your alternate region website variants and how they relate to your main site.

Hope this all helps you! Good luck!

[Daniel_Morgan]

Hi Joshua,

I think I have the hassle-free solution for you!

If you're asking this question with regards to the site listed on your profile (which is in English), as a first step I would not get into translating your content at all.

The products on your site are relatively high-end which are more suited to the more affluent consumers in India who will commonly be searching in English, rather than Hindi, Urdu or one of the many other languages spoken there. Also, approximately 80% of the population in the UAE are expats (of which many are British or American) so again, no need to translate for the moment.

If you start to see good results in these countries with the English versions, that's the time to think about investing in the local languages. Particularly as it's not just the associated cost of translating the website; you should also have native speaker customer service reps for example.

Use the Google Keyword Planner to see how many searches there are in English in these countries. Testing like this is a crucial part of international SEO so you don't waste money on translation and localization which can be expensive.

My suggestions above are based on the assumption that you will have local domains for each country eg, example.co.in (for India). If you want to target these countries with your main .co.uk domain, start some Google AdWords campaigns (in English) targeted to those countries and see how they go; if it works, then you can look further into the big international SEO question of wheather to use local domains, subdomains or folders to target those countries and languages.

Hope that helps

[BlueprintMarketing]

The regions you're talking about our actually in alignment with a project we are doing right now.  If you have a lot of translation needed we could possibly help each other.

for keyword research in "UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan & India."

I do everything Patrick talked about but in addition I utilize this tool for finding keywords in areas

https://kwfinder.com/

What I have found is that data is very tough to get however we have resources that can translate this properly.

You may find this interesting as well

https://moz.com/blog/estimate-total-volume-value-of-keywords-in-niche-whiteboard-friday

I'm interested in what you're doing if you'd like to chat about it let me know

Tom