3. Living as I do on the conjunction of three countries, that is
Belgium, Holland and Germany, can make search engine
optimisation (SEO) quite a challenge. Just in the
surrounding area of the village I work from are four
spoken languages so if you extrapolate that out to every
possible combination of search terms, browser settings
and computer language settings then you begin to see the
scale of the problem.
4. Leaving aside the differing search terms and therefore
your various sets of keyword targets, each different
language user will have their own set of computer and
browser language and preference settings that will give
completely differing search results.
5. As a quick example try searching - management consulting
Liege - on Google.com and Google.be-fr.
6. OptimaGest Management Consulting is 2nd out of 392,000
on Google.com and 24th out of 291,000 on Google.be-fr.
(Don't worry, I'm still working on the Google.be rankings)
7. So here are a few tips that I have picked up to make your
job a bit easier.
9. Arm yourself with a browser that has configurable
profiles. Firefox springs to mind.
10. Set up a profile for each required language so that your
preference language and search engine preferences can be
configured.
11. For Firefox installed with the installer:Make sure firefox
isn't running.Then open the Windows "Start" menu, click
"Run" (or Windows key + R) and then type:firefox.exe -
profilemanager or firefox.exe -P
12. If that doesn't work (it doesn't on my machine) then you
need to type the full path to the firefox.exe surrounded by
quotes and then the switch in the "Run" box. e.g.
18. The profile manager dialogue will open and I recommend
that you keep the "default" profile as this will preserve all
your current settings. Click on "Create Profile" and follow
the instructions. You should create and name a profile for
each language and then make sure the "Don't ask at
startup" option is unchecked. Now when you start Firefox
normally the profile manager will open and you will be
able to select your required profile.
19. As you start each profile for the first time go to "Tools"
then "Options...", "Advanced" tab and then click the
Languages "Choose..." button. Here set the language that
is required for that particular profile and remove the
default en-us.
20. Then open each search engine e.g. google.be in turn and
specify in the preferences the required language etc so
mirroring as closely as possible the actual setup your
target audience will have.
21. Now you can quickly check your search engine rankings
without having to re-configure your browser settings each
time for each target market.
23. Of course before you can monitor your success you must
first develop your keyword strategy and that is not as
straight forward as it would seem. We must research
carefully our target keywords in each of our target
markets. It is pointless OptimaGest Management
Consulting being number one on Google.be-nl if the
chosen keywords are never actually used in dutch.
24. My native language is english with a passable knowledge
of german and the small beginnings of french so I am
dependent on my translators for french and dutch. But
web designers are not in the business of producing
perfectly grammatical and vocabulary correct sentences
such as translators delight in. We are trying to pack an
optimum number of relevant search terms or keywords
into our copy while keeping it on message and readable.
25. In our native language we can, with a bit of research and
practice, produce web site content that just "glows" with
pertinent keywords and phrases leading on to mega
search results. But where do you start in language 2, 3 or
4?
