Many web owners want to increase site rankings and traffic from foreign countries through their Webflow sites, but more than multilingual Webflow is required.
The right solution needed to achieve this goal is implementing multilingual Webflow SEO best practices. Implementing SEO strategies on a multilingual website, Webflow can help you achieve top rankings and higher traffic.
In this article, we will discuss in detail a comprehensive exploration of best practices you can do.
Why Multilingual SEO Matters in Webflow?
Multilingual SEO in Webflow is essential because it allows websites to be available in languages that a global audience can understand.
When a site is optimized for multiple languages, it makes it more visible and accessible to people all over the world.
Furthermore, it enhances the user experience by presenting information in the language that the user finds most convenient, thereby increasing engagement and trust.
Businesses, especially those aiming for global expansion, benefit from Multilingual SEO as it allows them to connect with customers in various regions.
Ultimately, by adapting to the linguistic characteristics of internet users, Multilingual SEO in Webflow becomes a strategic tool for success in expanding internationally.
10 Best Practices for Multilingual Webflow SEO
After understanding the importance of SEO on a multilingual website, we will discuss SEO best practices you can apply to your website.
Research Keyword in Different Languages
Identifying keywords in various languages is essential in a multilingual SEO strategy because you will know their needs or what is being searched for in that country.
Some steps to research keywords according to your destination country include.
- Use a keyword research tool that supports multiple languages, such as Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest.
- Choose a target language and analyze keywords to get the most relevant ideas.
- Learn standard search terms used by your local audience.
- Identify synonyms and keyword variations that local users might use there.
- Please pay attention to competitor sites in a particular language and identify their target keywords.
Below is an example of a keyword search using the Ubbersuggest tool. You can choose the target language target country, then enter the keywords whose potential you want to see.
By performing effective keyword research, you can enhance your Webflow site to capture the attention of a multilingual audience and increase visibility in search engines.
Multilingual Content
The next tip is to create multilingual content. Multilingual content means providing content in more than one language to meet the needs of a diverse audience.
However, it’s about more than just translating; further attention is needed to create multilingual content. The following are practical tips that you can do.
- It keeps cultural nuances, preferences, and sensitivities in mind to create content that resonates with every language group.
- Ensure translations are accurate and culturally appropriate and maintain the intent of the original message.
- Adapt visuals, idioms, and cultural references to suit the context of each language and region.
- Ensure brand voice and messaging remain consistent across all language versions.
- Collaborate with professional translators for critical or culturally sensitive content.
Optimize Title and Heading
Optimizing titles and headings is also an SEO strategy to increase the visibility of your content in search engines. In optimizing titles and headings, here are some best practices that can be done.
Make sure titles and headings reflect or summarize the content of the page.
- Use headings to build a hierarchical structure of content on the page. H1 is for the title, H2 is for the subtitle, etc.
- Ensure the title is 8-12 words long, not too short or long.
- Avoid clickbait titles, as this can harm user experience and SEO.
- Insert relevant main keywords in titles and headings.
- Ensure the keyword placement looks natural and not forced so readers can easily understand the page’s topic.
- Use a catchy title and invite readers to explore further.
Optimize Meta Description and Image ALT Text
You must also optimize the title, heading, meta description, and ALT Text. By optimizing meta descriptions, you give users and provide search engines with a transparent understanding of what they can anticipate from the page.
On the other hand, alt text provides alternative text descriptions for images and is essential for users with visual impairments. Therefore, optimizing and translating meta descriptions and ALT text is crucial. Here are some tips that you need to do.
- Input keywords into the meta description and ALT text
- Meta descriptions should be at most 150-160 characters to appear well in search results.
- Ensure the ALT text describes the image’s content in a relevant way.
Below is an example of a meta description with an inserted keyword in the form of “website localization”.
Then below is an example of writing ALT image text in an image. The following image shows how to keyword research, so insert not only the keyword “website localization” but also the words “keyword research”.
Use Keyword in URL Slugs
Using keywords in the URL slug can provide a direct indication of the topic or content of the page. This strategy is important in search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that page URLs reflect the content in a relevant and easy way for search engines and users to understand.
Here’s how to use keywords in URL slugs.
- Enter targeted keywords in the URL.
- Use hyphens (-) to separate keywords in URLs, not underscores (_) or other special characters.
- Make sure URLs are clean, short, and easy for humans to read while supporting efficient indexing by search engines.
- Avoid using special characters or capital letters in URLs, as this can make things difficult for users and search engines.
Below is an example of a suitable URL slug by entering the keywords discussed in the article, namely “how to build a WordPress blog”.
After that, if you update or change a page, edit the content and the URL slug to reflect the changes.
Use Automatic Translation Service
The next tip is to use the help of an automatic translation service. Using a translation service for your website can provide several benefits, especially if your website is significant.
The most important thing is that it can save translation time because users only need a few settings, and then the machine will do the translation automatically.
For Webflow website owners, you can choose Webflow automatic translation to help with translation.
On the internet, various automatic translation services are integrated with Webflow. You only need to choose according to your needs and several considerations.
This automatic translation service fulfills at least the following things.
It provides many language options
- SEO friendly
- High-quality translation
- It has a feature for editing machine translation results
- Has the feature of translation exclusion, etc.
Choose URL Structure
Choosing the URL structure is also important to help your site increase in ranking and traffic. A good URL structure not only makes navigation more accessible for users but also impacts a page’s visibility in search engines.
In general, three types of URL structures are often used on multilingual websites, subdomains, subdirectories, and separate domains, each of which will be explained below.
- Subdomain: a part of the main domain that can function as a separate entity within a website, for example, en.mysite.com.
- Subdirectories: subdirectories fall under the main domain and are accessed via additional URLs after the slash (/). For example, mysite.com/es. These are easy to implement because they provide a clear hierarchical structure and are usually more straightforward to manage.
- Separate Domains: each domain can have a unique website with different content because they are entirely separate. For example, mysite.com is for English, and mysite.fr is for French.
Implement Hreflang Tags
A hreflang tag is an HTML tag that provides search engines with information about the relationship between pages in a particular language or location.
Hreflang tags help search engines understand and serve language- or location-appropriate content so users get the most relevant search results.
Hreflang can be used to specify a language (e.g., “en” for English) or a location (e.g., “en-us” for English in the United States).
The examples below are hreflang tags for English, Dutch, and French.
Use Canonical Tags
Using canonical tags (or canonical tags) is an important SEO strategy to overcome the problem of duplicate content on websites.
These tags give search engines clues to point to a page’s primary or original version, helping to prevent potential SEO issues arising from the same content appearing in different URLs.
An example of a canonical tag is as follows.
| <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.mysite.com/original-page”/> |
Then below is an example of its application on a website.
Submit Multilingual Sitemap
The next step to optimize multilingual Webflow is to submit a sitemap for multiple languages. This XML file lists the URLs of the pages on your website, specifically for different language versions or regions.
Sitemaps help search engines quickly identify and index powerful pages or locate specific locations on your site.
Each entry in a multilingual sitemap includes a URL associated with a particular language version.
Below are multilingual sitemaps from several languages successfully submitted to Google Search Console.
Conclusion
Now, you know what multilingual Webflow SEO tips you can apply to help increase your site’s ranking and bring in traffic from various sources.
If you want to produce good SEO performance, then apart from applying the tips above, make sure you also choose a translation service that is definitely integrated with Webflow and is 100% SEO-friendly.
