Multilingual e-commerce and hreflang
Multilingual e-commerceis a website or online store that allows a company or individual to sell their products or services beyond the Italian borders and expand into the international market.
A multilingual e-commerce needs an important SEO setting such as the hreflang tag because it allows you to specify the different language variants and the geographical target for each page of the website and in this case of an e-commerce.
In this article we discover what a multilingual e-commerce is, how to create it, what the hreflang tag is, why use it and how to implement the hreflang tag.
What is a multilingual e-commerce?
A multilingual e-commerce is an online store that allows you to sell online beyond territorial borders.
To invest in this type of business, it is important to take care of some aspects: graphics, layout and language. A multilingual website or e-commerce allows you to have a wider and more international target, and it is clear that the consequence of having more customers is to have an increase in sales.
In this sense, it is also useful to take care of the User Experience to make the site simple and facilitate the actions that users must perform to stay within thee-commerce and perhaps return to purchase.
Neglecting these aspects and above all not having a website that “speaks” the native language of many countries, could cause you to lose a significant portion of customers within the international market. Furthermore, another benefit is having a competitive advantage over the competition that does not have a multilingual e-commerce.
But how do you create a multilingual e-commerce? Let’s find out in the next paragraph.
How to create a multilingual e-commerce?
To create a multilingual e-commerce you need to install a translation plug-in. The most used for WordPress is WPML. Other best practices that you can implement, to create a multilingual e-commerce, are:
- Different URLs: creating content in different languages and with different URLs is a winning approach for the marketing strategy and user experience but also because it is appreciated by various search engines.
- Icons with flags: set identifying icons to make it easy for the user to identify and switch to a different version of the site in the language of their interest.
- Translations: translate texts both to make them understandable to users of other nationalities but also to implement marketing strategies with the power of words and persuasion.
You should, however, avoid making these mistakes:
- Using an automatic translator because it is counterproductive for SEO and marketing activities.
- Creating multiple translations within the same page because it creates confusion for users and the search engine.
- Automatic redirection based on the user’s language because they could cause SEO errors.
Having arrived here, after this series of tips, we can explain how to create a successful multilingual e-commerce. Here’s how.
Target and competitor analysis
Before creating a multilingual e-commerce it is necessary to do a target and competitor analysis for all the countries in which you intend to bring your e-commerce.
Therefore, analyze the strategies of the competition, what their activities are, their website traffic and in which part of the world they get the most conversions.
Knowing the competitors in your same sector and the relative country in which their market emerges the most will help you understand how to best position yourself and which strategy to implement.
To help you in this analysis of competitors and the target audience, you can use some paid or free tools.
Study of the Serp and keyword research
Starting a multilingual e-commerce means first of all doing an international SEO analysis, because you need to, through the SERP, study the competitors who are positioned best on the different search engines in the countries where you want to position your multilingual e-commerce.
Furthermore, you need to investigate SEO-optimized content and the keywords used to position yourself on the search engine, so make sure you create content that can surpass that of your competitors with the keywords most used by users in the countries of reference.
Finally, it is a good idea to add subdomains with the extension of the country in which you want to sell your products. This is an aspect that is highly appreciated by users who will gladly return to your e-commerce site to purchase your products.
Planning and creating content
In the planning phase of the SEO strategy, a first step to take is the creation of content translated into the various languages planned for your e-commerce.
It is important to rely on a copywriter who is a native speaker or who in any case knows the language and culture of the country you want to reach well through content that can always satisfy your users.
Do not rely on automatic translation tools because content that is not perfectly translated will not allow you to position yourself at your best, in this sense it is useful to use different keywords for each country.
This will allow you to establish a relationship of trust and reciprocity with foreign users, consequently you will obtain greater conversions.
Tag hreflang: what is it?
The hreflang tag is an important SEO setting that must be implemented in multilingual sites. It is an HTML attribute to be inserted in pages that have been translated into different languages and is used to specify the language and geographical target of one or more pages of a website and in this case of an e-commerce.
It therefore tells the search engine what language a given page is in, so that users in a given region can be provided with their language version.
The HTML hreflang tag is composed as follows: <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”lang_code” href=”url_of_page” />. To be more specific, here is an example of how the tag works within the site that has, for example, two pages in different languages:
- https://it.example.com/page.html (Italian page)
- https://fr.example.com/page.html (French page)
In the <head> section the following hreflang tags must be inserted in the code of each page:
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”it” href=”https://it.example.com/page.html”/>
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”fr” href=”https://de.example.com/page.html”/>
This way, you tell Google that the Italian page is in one URL and the French one is in another URL.
Why use the hreflang attribute?
One of the main reasons to use the hreflang attribute is to allow the search engine to direct users to search results that speak their language. But also to prevent duplicate content and decrease the bounce rate.
In the first case, duplicate content can be a risk for SEO because having two identical pages that are different only in language can be interpreted by Google as duplicate content. Instead, using hreflang specifies that these are different pages with a single content.
In the second case, to decrease the bounce rate, the hreflang attribute tells Google which content to show to users based on their language or geographic area, this will allow you to offer relevant content and will keep your audience on the site.
Finally, we can add that there are advantages on the user experience, because an Italian user, for example, can land on an Italian page on a site that is basically located in France.
How to implement the hreflang tag?
To implement the hreflang tag, you need to insert it in the code of all pages that have a different language version. Specifically, there are 3 ways to insert hreflang:
- As an HTML tag: you can add it as an HTML tag in the header of the page to communicate to the search engine all the languages of that page and the geographical areas. The syntax of the hreflang tag: <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”language_code/geographical_area” href=”url_della_pagina”>
- Inside the sitemap: you can use the Sitemap to add an element that can indicate the page itself and each variant of the same in a different language and/or geographical area.
- In the HTTP header: Google is informed of the different languages with the GET response of the page in the HTTP header. This method is generally useful for PDF files.
Conclusion
To summarize, we have spoken in general terms about multilingual e-commerce and the importance of implementing the hreflang Tag to communicate to the search engine which pages are translated into the language of the users to reach.
We have seen that it is an HTML attribute to be inserted in the pages with a precise syntax and that it is used not only to signal the pages that have been translated into different languages but also to prevent duplicate content and reduce the bounce rate. Finally, we have seen how to implement it and which are the most useful methods for this purpose.
Servizi correlati Ottobix
