blog / redesign & migration / 12 min read
International SEO Checklist: How to Rank in More Than One Country
short answer
The short answer
02 · redesign & migration
Why an international SEO checklist beats "just translate it"
Going international is three problems wearing one trench coat. There's a technical problem (can Google find each version and understand who it's for?), a content problem (does each version answer what people in that market actually search?), and an authority problem (does anyone in that market link to you or talk about you?). Most sites solve the first halfway, ignore the second, and never notice the third.
An international SEO checklist forces the order. You don't argue about translation vendors before deciding whether the French site lives at .fr or /fr/, and you don't write hreflang before you know which pages exist in which markets.
Four questions before you touch a single tag
Is there demand?
Check that people in the market search for what you sell, in their language, before you build for them.
Can you serve them?
Shipping, currency, support hours, legal pages. Ranking somewhere you can't deliver just creates disappointed leads.
Language, country or both?
"Spanish speakers everywhere" and "customers in Spain" need different URL and hreflang setups.
Who maintains it?
Every extra version is a site you update forever. Budget for upkeep, not just launch.
03 · redesign & migration
Step 1 of the international SEO checklist: choose your URL structure
This is the decision that's most painful to reverse. Change it later and you're into migration territory, so keep my website migration SEO checklist handy if you're restructuring an existing site.
04 · redesign & migration
International SEO keyword research: translate intent, not words
This is where translated sites quietly die. Your best English keyword translated literally into German might be a phrase nobody uses. Even within English, the US, UK and Australia search differently: "apartment" vs "flat," "attorney" vs "solicitor," "tire" vs "tyre." Same product, different query.
Good international SEO keyword research treats every market as a fresh project that happens to share a product list.
- 01
Start from your seed list — Your proven core keywords at home: services, products, problems you solve.
- 02
Find the local phrase, not the dictionary one — Ask a native speaker how they'd search for it, then check that phrase in a keyword tool set to the target country.
- 03
Cover spelling variants — "Optimization" and "optimisation" can be different keyword sets.
- 04
Check intent in local results — If the top results in that country are marketplaces or directories, your service page may not fit the query.
- 05
Map one primary keyword per URL per market — The UK page doesn't automatically target the same phrase as the US page.
- 06
Note local seasonality — Seasons flip in the southern hemisphere, and holidays and tax years differ.
If I rank in the US, Google will rank the same page in the UK and Australia.
Sometimes it will, especially where local competition is thin. But you're up against local businesses with local spelling, prices and links. "Sometimes, by accident" isn't a strategy.
05 · redesign & migration
Hreflang: the tag everyone gets slightly wrong
Hreflang tells Google "this page has equivalents for other languages or regions, and here they are." It doesn't boost rankings on its own. It helps Google swap in the right version for each searcher, which protects clicks you'd otherwise lose to the wrong page.
The rules that matter:
- Language is required (ISO 639-1:
en,fr,ar). Region is optional (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2:GB,US,AU). - It's
en-GB, noten-UK. I find this in audits constantly. - Every page lists itself plus all its alternates.
- Tags must be reciprocal. If A points to B, B must point back to A.
- Targets must be absolute URLs that return 200, are indexable and match the canonical.
- Add
x-defaultfor visitors who don't match any listed locale. - Pick one delivery method: HTML head tags, HTTP headers or the XML sitemap. Mixing them breeds conflicts.
Hreflang examples you can copy
Three hreflang examples covering the setups I see most. First, one English site with country versions and a fallback:
<!-- Same block goes on every URL listed -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-US" href="https://example.com/us/pricing/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-GB" href="https://example.com/uk/pricing/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-AU" href="https://example.com/au/pricing/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/pricing/" />Second, a bilingual website in English and Spanish, targeting language rather than country:
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/services/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://example.com/es/services/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/en/services/" />Third, the same pair in an XML sitemap, which is tidier at scale:
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/en/services/</loc>
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/services/" />
<xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://example.com/es/services/" />
</url>
<!-- Add a matching <url> block for the /es/ page -->Hreflang tag builder and checker
This tool needs JavaScript to run.
06 · redesign & migration
Multilingual website SEO: localize, don't just translate
A multilingual website that's simply translated reads like a translated website, and visitors notice. A localized page uses local currency, units, phone formats, spelling and examples. If your reviews and case studies all come from one market, say so honestly and add local proof as you earn it.
Multilingual website SEO adds a few technical jobs on top:
Translate the parts people don't see
Title tags, meta descriptions, alt text, URL slugs, form labels and schema markup all need localizing. A French page with an English title tag is half finished.
Don't auto-redirect by IP
Forcing visitors to a version based on location can hide versions from Google, because Googlebot often crawls from US IP addresses. Suggest a version with a banner and let people choose.
Keep canonicals local
Each language version should canonicalize to itself. Canonicalizing the German page to the English one tells Google to ignore the German page.
Set the lang attribute
Add <html lang="fr"> per version. Google says it works out language from the content itself, but screen readers rely on the attribute and Bing has said it uses language signals like this. It's one line.
Translation gets you a page in another language. Localization gets you a page someone in that country would actually buy from.
07 · redesign & migration
The bilingual website layer
A bilingual website has extra traps beyond hreflang. Translating the page copy is the easy part; the SEO problems that hurt most are usually design and build problems in disguise.
On WordPress, how you add languages matters. Translation plugins differ in how they create URLs and output hreflang, and their tags are still worth verifying by hand. If you need something custom, like a language switcher tied to your own post types or a theme that handles both languages cleanly, that's a job for custom WordPress development. For an example of my work, see the QZ Infomatics project.
08 · redesign & migration
Build local authority (the step nobody budgets for)
Technical setup makes pages eligible. Authority gets them chosen. A new market version starts with little local trust, even on a strong domain.
- Earn links and mentions in the target country: associations, partners, suppliers, local press, events.
- Show local contact details only where they're real. A fake local address is a liability.
- Publish genuinely local content where you have real knowledge, like regulations or market-specific comparisons.
Red flags I see on international sites
- Unreviewed machine translation — Wrong terminology, awkward phrasing, promises you never meant to make.
- en-UK in hreflang — Not a valid region code, so the tags may be ignored.
- One-way hreflang — Without the return tag, Google can't confirm the relationship.
- Hreflang pointing to redirects or noindexed pages — Every target must be live and canonical.
- Every version canonicalized to English — You've told Google to ignore your translations.
- Flags as the language switcher — Flags are countries, not languages. Which flag means Spanish?
09 · redesign & migration
The international SEO audit
Already live in several markets? Run this international SEO audit. Tick what's true and the page keeps score; anything unticked is your to-do list.
International SEO audit
For monitoring, a crawler that reports hreflang errors catches technical breakage, and Google Search Console lets you filter performance by country to see whether UK clicks land on UK pages. These checks slot neatly into a broader technical SEO audit checklist, so run them together.
Prefer someone else to run it? I'll check your site against this international SEO checklist in a free website and SEO audit and tell you which fixes matter first. Ongoing hreflang and indexing work sits under technical SEO. Market-by-market strategy sits under international SEO.
10 · redesign & migration
What going international costs
There's no single number. Cost scales with markets, languages and depth: translation and localization, build work for language switching and localized templates, keyword research per market, ongoing content and links per market, and maintaining every version. My website cost guide covers the build side; my own international SEO starts from $2,500 for setup, then from $1,200 a month.
What should an international SEO checklist include?
Market selection, a URL structure decision, keyword research per market, correct and reciprocal hreflang, localized content and metadata, self-referencing canonicals, sitemaps covering every version, local authority building, and country-level monitoring in Search Console. Order matters: settle structure before you translate anything or write a single tag.
Is a subfolder or ccTLD better for international SEO?
For most growing businesses, subfolders, because every market shares one domain's authority and you maintain one site. ccTLDs send the strongest local signal, but each builds authority from scratch and costs more to run. They make sense when you have local teams, budgets and a reason to look fully local.
How do I do international SEO keyword research?
Treat each market as its own project. Start from your core keywords, ask native speakers how they'd search, check volumes in a tool set to the target country, and confirm intent by viewing local results. Watch for spelling and vocabulary differences even within English, and map one primary keyword per localized URL.
Does hreflang improve rankings?
Not directly. It helps Google show the right language or regional version to each searcher. That protects traffic and conversions, because a UK visitor landing on a UK page with UK pricing is more likely to stay, and it reduces the chance of your own versions being treated as duplicates.
What's the difference between a bilingual website and a multilingual website?
A bilingual website has two languages; a multilingual website has more. The SEO principles are identical: separate URLs per language, hreflang, localized metadata. Both also need every template tested in each language, including menus, forms, dates and currency.
How often should I run an international SEO audit?
After any launch, redesign or migration, and whenever you add a market or language. Between those, a quarterly check of hreflang errors, indexing and country-level performance in Search Console catches most problems early. Sites publishing heavily in several languages benefit from automated monthly crawls.
free audit
Want a second pair of eyes on your international SEO?
Send me your site and the markets you're targeting. I'll run it against this international SEO checklist, check your hreflang, structure and indexing, and tell you plainly what to fix first and what can wait. No ranking promises, just a clear plan.
Free audit · No obligation · Reply within one business day
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