Elanex Blog SEO / SEM Tips for Successful Global Marketing: Don't treat it like translation

Successful website marketing professionals know that well-thought-out SEO and SEM campaigns will drive traffic to their sites. When expanding globally, these professionals are eager to apply this experience to their foreign language websites to attract cross-border customers. However, simply applying what they know about high-quality website translation to their well-crafted SEO terms often leaves them wondering why their foreign languages sites are underperforming. Generally speaking, this is because SEO localization is not translation of SEO terms, but rather the generation of equivalent foreign language terms used by people from a specific geographic locale in their online activities. The best way to illustrate this is by example.A popular English search term is "auto insurance." A simple direct French translation is "assurance automobile." However, keyword tools tell us that in France, "assurance auto" or "assurance voiture" are far more commonly searched terms - between 60 and 30 times more per month than the direct translation above. The search for equivalent terms as used online in France yielded better results than simply translating. But wait, going to Canada instead? Then note that "assurance automobile" is as common as "assurance voiture." Vive la différence! And don't rely on simple translation.Even simple, unambiguous translations do no