Optimizing your WordPress blog for international audiences

Optimizing your WordPress blog for international audiences
Darrius Drew
SEO
It takes approx. 4 minutes to read this article

WordPress has become one of the most popular blogging platforms, hosting sites for thousands of bloggers and businesses around the world. If you run your own site, you may have noticed that your site receives more traffic from certain countries than others, and you may be wondering how to extend your reach to these international readers without sacrificing rankings in your home country. In this guide, we’ll look at some international SEO best practices so that you can optimize your WordPress site to attract new readers and grow your business around the world.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system (CMS) that enables you to create a website or blog from scratch, or improve an existing website.  It has been around since 2003 and was built with simplicity in mind. It’s estimated that WordPress powers 40% of the internet, which means there’s a good chance you’re reading this post on a WordPress site!

WordPress is popular because it’s free, open source, highly customizable, and easy to use. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power their website or blog, including many large organizations such as The Guardian, Forbes, and The New York Times. 

Before you start making changes to your site for international SEO, it’s important to do WordPress SEO audit of your existing content and plugins. This will help you identify any areas that need improvement and make sure your site is ready for global audiences. An audit can be as simple as running a Google search for your site’s name and looking at the results. If you see a lot of results from other countries, that’s a good sign!

How to create an international blog?

The first step is conducting an audit to see where your site currently stands. Once you know where your site needs improvement, you can start making changes to optimize your site for global readers. These changes could include anything from adding hreflang tags to your website to changing your site’s content and design to be more internationally friendly. You have to take care of writing in multiple languages, targeting specific countries with your content, and promoting your blog on international social media platforms.

What is international SEO and why do you need it?

If you want your WordPress site to reach a global audience, you need to optimize it for international search engines. That means doing things like localizing your content, choosing the right keywords, and link building. Let’s find more about SEO optimization international.

Tips

Choose a globally compatible host

If you want your WordPress site to be visible to international audiences, it’s important to choose a hosting provider that has data centers in multiple countries. That way, your site will load quickly no matter where in the world your visitors are located. Additionally, look for a host that offers CDN services, which can further improve your site’s speed and performance.

Choose global plugins

If you’re running a WordPress site, there are a few plugins you can install to make sure your site is optimized for global readers. Yoast SEO is a great plugin that helps with on-page optimization, and WPML lets you create a multilingual site. Google Analytics is another essential tool; it allows you to see where your traffic is coming from and what countries your readers are in. By installing these plugins and configuring them properly, you can make sure your WordPress site is ready for global audiences.

Set up metadata in multiple languages

This way, when people from different countries search for your site, they’ll be able to find it. You can do this by installing the WordPress Multilingual Plugin. Once you have the plugin installed, you’ll need to add some code to your header.php file. The code will look something like this

Monitoring your progress by using Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a tool that allows you to monitor your website’s progress in Google search results. You can use it to see how often your site appears in search results, what keywords people are using to find your site, and which countries your site is being shown in. You can also use it to submit your sitemap to Google, and request that Google re-index your site.

Wrapping up

Just remember, when it comes to international SEO for WordPress, the goal is to make your site as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. By following the tips and tricks outlined in this post, you should be well on your way to increasing your global reach and attracting new readers from all over the world. Good luck!

Main photo: WebFactory Ltd/unsplash.com

Add comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Recommended articles
Automated marketing – artificial intelligence behind the counter
Automated marketing – artificial intelligence behind the counter
Interested in news from the new technology, IT, modern marketing and marketing automation industries? Come in and be absorbed by the intriguing world of science.
Latest articles