International SEO and search trends: How does it all work?

If your business sells internationally, then your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts need to operate around the world, and international SEO Service can be complicated.
Multiple countries, multiple languages, and often, multiple languages within a given country. It’s easy to get tied up in knots. And even easier to confuse a search engine and create a number of typical SEO issues like duplicate content.

Fortunately, good international SEO is achievable; it just needs a little planning and the right approach for your unique situation.



What is international SEO?

International SEO is the process of organizing and optimizing your webpages to allow search engines to identify the countries you are targeting, the specific content and language for each user in a given location.

In many ways, this is a similar to how we provide SEO for small businesses that target multiple locations, since they often organize by towns, cities, counties or states.
Domain names for international SEO
You may want to consider a few things when choosing a domain name for your international SEO campaigns.

Some domains, known as country code top-level domains (ccTLD), will default to a specific location. Other top-level domains (TLDs) can be geotargeted to point at specific countries.  The sub-folders and subdomains on these TLD domains can be geo-targeted to different countries as well.
The main takeaway here is that you must ensure you have the correct domain for your international SEO requirements.

Just to confuse matters, these rules can sometimes be broken, and one such example is when promoting content with SEO. Even ccTLD domains or geotargeted TLD domains can rank informational content internationally.
This is a little contradictory to international SEO thinking, so let me give you an example.

My company operates out of the United Kingdon (UK), but we have customers all around the world. The majority of our customers find us through articles on our blog, which runs on a UK ccTLD. This proves that in the right situation, informational content can still rank internationally from a ccTLD. Go figure!

This is not to say you should disregard geotargeting; for the majority of industries, this is not the right approach. Ranking internationally is about providing the right content for the right audience, often for specific business reasons.

You want to make sure Google does not get utterly confused with the several versions of your site and bury you in the deepest, darkest depths of the search index.


How to target a specific country

The following is a basic checklist for targeting a specific country with international SEO:

Use a country-specific domain.
Specify the location you are targeting in Google Search Console.
Register your business address with Google My Business.
Include the street address of the business on the website.
Host the website locally (as much for usability as for SEO).
Get links from country-specific websites.
Use local language(s).
What we are trying to do is send a clear signal to Google about where you operate and who this content is for. Multiple signs send a clearer signal, so try to include all items on the checklist.

International SEO strategy

Typically, most international SEO efforts include targeting multiple countries, which means you must scale your approach across all desired locations.

There are a few ways to approach this which may or may not be suitable for your situation. Here are two approaches applicable to the majority of serious international SEO efforts.

 1. Content marketing
As I mentioned earlier, targeted content marketing can help pages rank internationally, even from a ccTLD site. If you can generate leads through content, then promoting your content with SEO can be the simplest option. As an example, Search Engine Land ranks internationally as a content provider, but so does the informational content of my company, which is based in the UK. This is technically easy, but you must also make sure this is a viable business model for your company. For companies that exist online, this is often a good fit, but for more traditional businesses, this is often not the right way to go about things.

2.  Single TLD site
In some industries, you will often see automatic international search results. There is a company in Australia that sells safety harnesses. It is a niche business, and without any specific international SEO, they rank pretty well across English-speaking countries such as Australia, the UK and the United States. If they wanted to focus on international SEO, they’d have little trouble doing so; a more traditional SEO process would likely be all they’d need.

The takeaway here is to do your research before you dive into a complex international setup.

3. Subfolders and geotargeting

If you require country-specific content, one of the easiest options is to create localized sub-directories on your own site. These sub-directories can be geotargeted in Google Search Console and can contain country-specific content and language. Here is an example and the pros and cons of each:

example.com — root site targeting the USA.
example.com/uk/ — UK.
example.com/de/ — Germany.
There are three key benefits to this approach. First, you are only expanding your existing site, so there may be less technical management and overhead, e.g., hosting.

Secondly, the sub-directories will inherit authority from the parent domain.

Lastly, you only have one site to promote, so while you will want country- and language-specific links, this is still simpler and more cost-effective than promoting multiple sites.

As for the cons, users may not recognize geotargeting from the universal resource locator (URL), and you will have a single server location. This can be a relatively easy way to get started with true international SEO, but it is important to understand the limitations of this approach.

4. Country-specific domains

This approach can use country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) or subdomains on a TLD. In a way, they are two slightly different techniques to achieve the same end goal.

Geo-targeted subdomains. These TLD subdomains will need to be geotargeted in Google Search Console:
www.example.com — US.
uk.example.com — UK.
de.example.com — Germany.
Country-specific ccTLD domains. These will automatically target the country associated with the ccTLD:
Amazon.com — US.
Amazon.co.uk — UK.
Amazon.de — Germany.
For businesses with a physical presence, operation or local offline marketing in the target country, this is typically the best approach– although not the most cost-effective approach, as each site must be configured and marketed independently, typically by the local marketing team.

Both of these approaches allow the business to use local web hosting and build clear location signals with country-specific links to the URL. These are strong signals and should be considered when making a decision to enter a competitive international market where you may be competing with companies resident in that country.

If you can use ccTLDs here, I tend to favor that approach over subdomains; but it requires you to own all the international ccTLD versions of your domain. Doing this can confer strong branding benefits where users prefer to click on their own ccTLD.

Folks in the UK are used to .co.uk sites, people in France prefer .fr sites and so on. SEO is just part of a larger conversation, so the right approach should be determined by the wants and needs of the target customer.

Conversely, using subdomains is not as popular, as users may not recognize or understand the domain, which could impact trust and click-through rates.

This is the approach favored by the likes of Amazon and eBay. So, if money is no object and you are playing the long game, this is typically the approach we would recommend for international SEO companies.

An important consideration here is that any problems can be multiplied across your entire portfolio of sites. So, you will want to make sure your initial site is technically perfect before you create international sites.









Referance Link:  https://searchengineland.com/international-seo-and-search-trends-how-does-it-all-work-292140

How to promote to get top rank of Youtube Video??

Marketers were learning that they couldn't just publish a high volume of content -- it also had to be high-quality and optimized in ways that made it as discoverable as possible through search engines.

And once upon a time, that content was largely limited to the written word. Eleven years later, that's no longer the case -- a comprehensive content strategy includes written work like blogs and ebooks, as well as media like podcasts, visual assets, and videos.

That last part -- video -- continues to be on the rise. According to the 2017 State of Inbound, marketers named video as a huge disruptor. "I mostly write content right now," one respondent said, "but I'm afraid it may begin to diminish more and more with video."
Check out our interactive guide to creating high-quality videos for social media here.

And with the rise of other content formats comes the need to optimize them for search. One increasingly important place to do that is on YouTube, which is a video distribution website used by the masses

But how does that work? What are the steps you need to take to optimize your YouTube channel for search? We've outlined some major tips below. And if you're short on time, no problem -- check out the video summary here.


1) Title

When we search for videos, one of the first things that our eyes are drawn to is the title. That's often what determines whether or not the viewer will click to watch your video, so the title should not only be compelling, but also, clear and concise.

It also helps if the title closely matches what the viewer is searching for. Research conducted by Backlinko found that videos with an exact keyword match in the title have a slight advantage over those that don’t. Here's a linear representation of those findings:

So while "using your target keyword in your title may help you rank for that term," report author Brian Dean explains, "the relationship between keyword-rich video titles and rankings is" weak, at best.

Finally, make sure to keep your title fairly short -- HubSpot Content Strategist Alicia Collins recommends limiting it to 60 characters to help keep it from getting cut off in results pages.

2) Description

First things first: According to Google, the official character limit for YouTube video descriptions is 1,000 characters. And while it's okay to use all of that space, remember that your viewer most likely came here to watch a video, not to read a story.

If you do choose to write a longer description, keep in mind that YouTube only displays the first two or three lines of text -- that amounts to about 100 characters. After that point, viewers have to click “show more” to see the full description. That's why we suggest front-loading the description with the most important information, like CTAs or crucial links.

As for optimizing the video itself, it doesn't hurt to add a transcript of the video, especially for those who have to watch it without volume. That said, Backlinko's research also found no correlation between descriptions that were optimized for a certain keyword and the rankings for that term.


Dean is careful not to encourage ditching an optimized description altogether, though. "An optimized description helps you show up in the suggested videos sidebar," he writes, "which is a significant source of views for most channels."

3) Tags

YouTube's official Creator Academy suggests using tags to let viewers know what your video is about. But you're not just informing your viewers -- you're also informing YouTube itself. Dean explains that the platform uses tags "to understand the content and context of your video."

That way, YouTube figures out how to associate your video with similar videos, which can broaden your content's reach. But choose your tags widely. Don't use an irrelevant tag because you think it'll get you more views -- in fact, Google might penalize you for that. And similar to your description, lead with the most important keywords, including a good mix of those that are common and more long-tail (as in, those that answer a question like "how do I?").

4) Category

Once you upload a video, you can categorize it under “Advanced settings.” Choosing a category is another way to group your video with similar content on YouTube.

It might not be as simple as it looks. In fact, YouTube's Creator Academy suggests that marketers go through a comprehensive process to determine which category each video belongs in. It's helpful, the guide writes, "to think about what is working well for each category" you're considering by answering questions like:

Who are the top creators within the category? What are they known for, and what do they do well?
Are there any patterns between the audiences of similar channels within a given category?
Do the videos within a similar category have share qualities like production value, length, or format?

5) Thumbnail

Your video thumbnail is the main image viewers see when scrolling through a list of video results. Along with the video's title, that thumbnail sends a signal to the viewer about the video's content, so it can impact the number of clicks and views your video receives.

While you can always pick one of the thumbnail options auto-generated by YouTube, we highly recommend uploading a custom thumbnail. The Creator Academy reports that “90% of the best performing videos on YouTube have custom thumbnails,” recommending the use of images that are 1280x720 pixels -- representing a 16:9 ratio -- that are saved as 2MB or smaller .jpg, .gif, .bmp, or .png files. If you follow those parameters, it can help to ensure that your thumbnail appears with equally high quality across multiple viewing platforms.

It's important to note that your YouTube account has to be verified in order to upload a custom thumbnail image. To do that, visit youtube.com/verify and follow the instructions listed there.

6) SRT Files (Subtitles & Closed Captions)

Like much of the other text we've discussed here, subtitles and closed captions can boost YouTube search optimization by highlighting important keywords.

In order to add subtitles or closed captions to your video, you'll have to upload a supported text transcript or timed subtitles file. For the former, you can also directly enter transcript text for a video so that it auto-syncs with the video.

Adding subtitles follows a similar process, however, you can limit the amount of text you want displayed. For either, head to your video manager then click on “Videos" under “Video Manager.” Find the video you want to add subtitles or closed captioning to, and click the drop-down arrow next to the edit button. Then, choose “Subtitles/CC.” You can then select how you’d like to add subtitles or closed captioning.

Google has provided great instructions on how to do that here, as well as in the video below.


7) Cards and End Screens 

Cards

When you're watching a video, have you ever seen a small white, circular icon with an "i" in the center appear in the corner, or a translucent bar of text asking you to subscribe? Those are Cards, which Creator Academy describes as "preformatted notifications that appear on desktop and mobile which you can set up to promote your brand and other videos on your channel."

You can add up to five cards to a single video, and there are six types:

Channel cards that direct viewers to another channel.
Donation cards to encourage fundraising on behalf of U.S. nonprofit organizations.
Fan funding to ask your viewers to help support the creation of your video content.
Link cards, which direct viewers to an external site, approved crowdfunding platform, or an approved merchandise selling platform.
Poll cards, which pose a question to viewers and allow them to vote for a response.
Video or playlist cards, which link to other YouTube content of this kind.
For detailed steps on adding a card to your video, follow these official steps from Google, or check out the video below.


End Screens

End screens display similar information as cards, but as you may have guessed, they don't display until a video is over, and are a bit more visually detailed in nature. A good example is the overlay with a book image and a visual link to view more on the video below:

There are a number of detailed instructions for adding end screens depending on what kind of platform you want to design them for, as well as different types of content allowed for them by YouTube. Google outlines the details for how to optimize for all of those considerations here.

It's important to note that YouTube is always testing end screens to try to optimize the viewer experience, so there are times when "your end screen, as designated by you, may not appear." Take these factors into account as you decide between using either cards or end screens.