How to Develop an International SEO Strategy

If your website is already bringing in customers in one country, you may see an opportunity to reach customers abroad. Translate your pages, add another language to the menu, and start reaching a new audience. At least, that is how straightforward it can appear.

But international SEO involves more than translating pages. You need to understand what customers in each country are searching for and help search engines identify the relevant version of your content. Is an English page intended for customers in the UK or the US? Does your Dutch content serve customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, or both?

The offer needs to suit those customers too. If you sell products, that means checking currencies, shipping costs, delivery times, and return policies. You also need to assess whether your offer is competitive. Local competitors may charge less, labor costs may affect your margins, and the climate may influence which products people need and when they buy them. If you provide services, check what you can realistically deliver in that country. Demand, search intent, and the terms people use can also differ between markets.

When developing an international SEO strategy, I assess search demand through preliminary keyword research and compare it with the business’s ability to serve those customers profitably. Once the priority markets are clear, I develop the detailed plan for keywords, content, website structure, and technical implementation. The result should explain which markets you will target, which pages you need, who will do the work, and how you will measure progress.

On this page, I explain how to make those decisions and turn them into a practical plan. I also cover something that is easy to overlook in international SEO guides: how to make the strategy work with the website you already have. For the hands-on implementation, from hreflang to indexing checks, see my step-by-step guide to international SEO.

What Is an International SEO Strategy?

An international SEO strategy is a plan for attracting relevant organic search traffic from other countries and turning that traffic into business. It connects your expansion goals to the work required on your website and in each target market.

It should answer a few concrete questions:

• Which countries and audiences will you target first?
• What are people in those markets searching for?
• Which products or services will you offer them?
• Which pages and language versions do you need?
• How will you organize and maintain those pages?
• What will the work cost, and how will you judge the results?

Installing a translation plugin or adding hreflang tags can be part of implementing that plan. Those actions alone do not explain why a particular market is worth entering or how you intend to win customers there.

International SEO and Multilingual SEO: What Is the Difference?

International SEO involves reaching audiences in different countries. Multilingual SEO involves reaching audiences in different languages. Your strategy may involve both.

For example, expanding from the US to the UK involves another country, but you may continue using English. Serving English- and French-speaking customers in Canada involves multiple languages within one country. Google makes the same distinction between multiregional and multilingual websites.

I therefore treat country and language as separate decisions. A country does not automatically equal one language, and a language does not automatically equal one market.

1. Decide Whether the Business Is Ready to Expand

Alongside an initial assessment of search demand, I want to understand what will happen if the website attracts a customer from another country.

Can you deliver the product? Can someone answer their questions? Can they pay in a way they are comfortable with? Does the service you describe actually apply to their situation?

These questions affect whether SEO traffic has any commercial value.

Check What You Can Offer in Each Country

For an ecommerce business, I would investigate delivery coverage, shipping costs, returns, product availability, payment options, and customer support. Any country-specific product or legal requirements also need checking with the appropriate specialist.

For a service business, the questions may be different. Can you provide the service remotely, or do you need people on the ground? Can you support the customer's language and working hours? Are your qualifications, examples, and service conditions relevant to that market?

Be specific about the offer. You may be able to sell some products internationally while others are too expensive to ship. You might provide consulting abroad while keeping installation or maintenance services within your home market.

That means you do not necessarily need an international version of everything you currently offer.

Define What You Want SEO to Achieve

“Get more international traffic” is too broad to guide the work.

A more useful objective might be to generate qualified inquiries for one service in Germany or acquire profitable customers for one product category in the UK.

Write down the audience, offer, desired action, and commercial result. You can set more reliable numerical targets once you have researched demand, costs, and your starting position.

2. Choose Which Countries to Target First

I would usually start with a manageable number of markets. That gives you room to research them properly, produce useful content, and learn from the results.

The right starting point depends on your resources. One well-supported market may be a better investment than five versions of the website that nobody has time to maintain.

Look for Existing Signs of Demand

Start with information you already have:

• Inquiries and sales from customers abroad.
• Countries generating relevant search impressions and clicks.
• Overseas visitors reaching important product or service pages.
• Questions your sales or support team receives from potential international customers.
• Existing relationships with distributors, partners, or clients in another country.

Google Search Console lets you examine search performance by country and page. I would use that to investigate where demand may already exist, then compare it with analytics and actual inquiries.

Existing traffic is only one signal. A country with little traffic today may still offer an opportunity because your current website does not address its language or needs.

Use Preliminary Keyword Research to Assess Search Demand

I use preliminary keyword research to compare potential markets. Are people searching for the products or services you offer? Which terms do they use, how often are those terms searched, and are people looking for information or a supplier?

At this stage, I focus on the main products or services rather than map every possible query. I compare relevant search terms and inspect the local results to judge whether the searches represent a useful opportunity.

This helps establish search demand, which is part of the SEO work. It does not establish whether entering the country will be profitable. Search volume is an estimate, and searches do not automatically become customers. I therefore compare the findings with pricing, margins, delivery, and support requirements.

Compare Demand With the Work Required

Use a simple table to make the tradeoffs visible.

For example, imagine a business comparing the UK with Germany. Germany might appear more attractive based on demand, but the business may already have UK customers, English support, and a workable delivery process. The UK could then be the more practical first step.

That is an illustrative decision, not a rule about either country. The point is to compare potential with the investment needed to pursue it.

3. Research How People Search in Each Market

The preliminary research helps you choose which markets to prioritize. I then carry out more detailed keyword research for each important country and language combination to decide which pages to create, adapt, and prioritize.

You can use Semrush with the relevant country database, Search Console data from your existing website, and direct inspection of local search results. If you do not speak the language well enough to judge meaning and tone, involve someone who does.

Use Translations as a Starting Point

Translating your existing keywords can help you discover possible terms. I would then check whether people actually use those terms, what they mean in context, and whether the search results match what you intend to offer.

Even within English, vocabulary can differ. Someone might search for an “apartment” in one market and a “flat” in another. But terminology is only part of the research: you also need to understand what the person expects to find.

Check Search Intent and Page Types

Search intent means the purpose behind the query. Is someone trying to understand a topic, compare options, find a supplier, or buy something?

Look at the results for your important queries. Are they mainly product pages, service pages, category pages, comparison articles, or informational guides?

If the results consistently show product categories, I would investigate a category page before assuming a blog article is the right format. If people are researching a problem, an explanation may be more useful than sending them straight to a sales page.

Also check which search engines and discovery channels matter to your actual audience. I would not automatically copy a Google-only research process into every country without investigating how customers find suppliers there.

Identify Your Search Competitors

Your search competitors may differ from the businesses your sales team considers competitors.

For each priority topic, record the websites that appear repeatedly. Review what they offer, how their pages are organized, what questions they answer, and what evidence they provide.

I use this research to understand what a useful, competitive page needs to do. Copying the headings from the first result is not a strategy.

Turn the Research Into a Page Map

Group queries that belong on the same page. Then decide whether to adapt an existing page or create a new one.

This is an illustrative map. The actual topics and page types should come from your research.

4. Check What Your Existing Website Can Support

Before choosing the final structure, I would review the website you are expanding. This is where a strategy starts to become an implementation plan.

Check how the website currently manages pages, templates, navigation, translations, and SEO settings. Identify what can be reused and what needs development work.

What I Have Learned: The Theory Is Straightforward, the Website Often Isn't

The theory behind international SEO is fairly straightforward. In practice, I have learned that the existing website and the way teams work can make implementation more complicated.

Many clients already have WordPress websites, sometimes a separate one for each country, with different themes and plugins. Local marketing teams publish independently. A useful guide on the UK website may never reach the German team, while the German website has pages with no UK equivalent.

You cannot simply connect two matching sets of pages. First, you need to decide which content to share, what needs local adaptation, and who will maintain it. Then you need to check whether the existing plugins support the setup.

That is why I review these details early. They determine whether the strategy needs a small adjustment, development work, or a more focused initial scope.

Test a Small Example Before Committing

On a WordPress website, I would test a representative page and its translated or regional alternative before rolling out the full setup.

Check the page content, titles, descriptions, URL, menus, forms, templates, and SEO output. If you run a shop, include the relevant product and checkout steps too.

Use a staging environment—a separate copy of the website for testing—where appropriate. This gives the developer and content team something concrete to assess before changes affect the live site.

5. Choose Your International URL Structure

You need a consistent place for each website version. The main options are country domains, subdomains, and subdirectories.

For a business expanding an existing website, I would normally assess subdirectories first. Separate domains can also make sense, particularly where markets already operate independently. I would make the choice based on the business, existing infrastructure, and maintenance requirements, rather than rebuild a working website because another company uses a different structure.

The strategy should also state whether you need language versions or regional versions. A general English section might be sufficient if the same offer serves customers across countries. Separate US and UK versions are useful when customers need different products, prices, delivery information, or service details. Write down what each version is for, and avoid creating versions without a clear purpose.

I explain the options in more detail in my guide to international SEO.

6. Decide Which Content to Translate, Adapt, or Create

You do not have to translate the entire website to begin expanding internationally.

I would prioritize the pages needed to explain the relevant offer, answer important buying questions, establish credibility, and let someone become a customer.

Depending on the business, that might include a market homepage, selected service or category pages, contact details, relevant case studies, and information about delivery, pricing, or support.

Assess Each Page Individually

A general explanation of how a product works may need relatively little adaptation. A page about costs, buying conditions, or a locally delivered service may need much more.

Localize More Than the Main Text

Review titles, descriptions, navigation, calls to action, forms, confirmation messages, images, and customer communications. Check whether the prices, units, examples, and service information make sense for the audience.

If a visitor completes a German form and receives instructions they cannot understand, you have left a gap in the experience.

I would use a fluent local reviewer for important pages. AI translation can help produce a draft, but someone still needs to check accuracy, terminology, tone, and whether the offer makes sense in the market.

Build Relevant Internal Links

Make it easy to move between related pages within the intended language experience. An informational article should link to a relevant service or product where that helps the reader take the next step.

Check these links during localization. Do not assume a translated article automatically points to the correct version of the service page.

If a useful resource is only available in another language, you can still link to it. I would make that clear so the visitor knows what to expect.

7. Specify the Technical Requirements

Your strategy should specify what the technical setup needs to achieve, even if a developer handles the code. I would record at least these requirements:

• Separate URLs for each language version. As Google recommends, visitors and search engines should be able to open the intended version directly, without changing a setting first.
• No forced redirects based on location or browser language. Google warns that locale-adaptive content may not all be crawled or indexed, so give visitors a visible way to choose another version.
• Hreflang between corresponding pages. A German product page should point to its English product equivalent, not to an unrelated homepage, with self-references and reciprocal links. Choose an implementation method your website can maintain reliably.
• Canonical tags that match the setup. A translated page intended to be indexed separately usually needs a canonical pointing to its own URL, not to the original-language page.
• A pre-launch check. Crawl representative pages, inspect important URLs in Search Console, and test the conversion journey on desktop and mobile. If existing URLs change, prepare a redirect map.

Hreflang and canonicals explain how your pages relate to each other. They do not replace relevant content, a usable website, or a reason for customers to choose your business. I explain how they work together in my article on hreflang and canonical tags.

8. Plan How to Build Recognition in the New Market

Publishing pages gives you something to promote. I would also plan how relevant people and organizations will discover the business.

Start with existing connections: customers, suppliers, distributors, professional associations, and partners. Consider which local publications cover your field and what useful information you could contribute.

For a service business, a relevant case study or a practical local resource could support outreach. For ecommerce, partnerships and genuinely useful product coverage may be more appropriate.

The aim is to earn attention and relevant links through something worth sharing. I would assess opportunities by audience relevance and credibility, rather than choosing websites simply because they use the target country's domain extension.

Adapt the outreach as well as the content. Find out who covers the subject, what they publish, and how best to approach them. A campaign that worked at home still needs local research.

9. Set the Budget, Responsibilities, and Rollout

At this point, you should know enough to turn the strategy into a realistic work plan.

Separate the initial investment from the ongoing work.

Assign an owner to each task. Someone needs to approve the local offer, someone needs to check the language, and someone needs to maintain the technical implementation. On a smaller project, one person may cover several responsibilities, but they still need to be explicit.

I would also decide what happens when the original content changes. Who checks the other versions? Which changes require immediate updates? Without that process, maintaining the website becomes increasingly difficult as more markets are added.

Launch in Stages

A practical rollout might look like this:

1. Use preliminary keyword research and a commercial assessment to validate one priority market and its offer.
2. Research the main topics and prepare the page map.
3. Test a representative page and technical setup.
4. Produce and review the priority content.
5. Check tracking, navigation, and conversion paths.
6. Launch, monitor, and resolve problems.
7. Expand the content or market coverage when the evidence supports it.

The schedule depends on the scope, website, and available people. I would agree a timeline after the initial review, rather than promise the same launch date for every project.

10. Measure Whether the Strategy Is Generating Business

After launch, I would separate three questions: can search engines access the pages, are relevant people finding them, and are those visitors becoming customers?

Avoid reporting only a global traffic total. You need to see whether the new market and relevant page groups are improving.

Search Console country data describes the location associated with the search; it does not directly tell you the searcher's language. Some queries are also omitted for privacy, so the visible query table is not a complete list of every search.

Use the Results to Decide What to Change

If pages are not appearing in search, investigate discovery, indexing, relevance, and competition. If relevant visitors arrive but do not inquire or buy, review the offer, explanation, trust, and conversion process.

If inquiries are coming in but the business cannot serve them profitably, revisit the commercial assumptions.

I would use these findings to decide whether to improve the current setup, add more relevant pages, or invest in another market.

Where Does AI Search Fit?

If AI search is relevant to how your customers research suppliers, include it as an additional measurement activity. Test realistic questions in the target language and record the platform, date, cited pages, and how the business is described.

The language matters. In my study of the sources AI cites in the Netherlands, the language of the question changed which sources were cited, even when the question itself stayed the same.

I would use locally researched questions rather than simply translate a domestic prompt list. A mention is useful to track, but I would still want to understand whether that visibility contributes to relevant visits, inquiries, or sales.

What Should Your Finished International SEO Strategy Contain?

You do not need a long presentation to make the strategy useful. You need enough detail for the people involved to understand the decisions and carry out the work.

I would expect the finished plan to contain:

• A prioritized market shortlist and the reasons for the choices.
• A defined audience, language, and offer for each initial market.
• Local keyword research and a page map.
• The URL structure and technical requirements.
• Content priorities and a localization process.
• A plan for relevant outreach and recognition.
• Named owners, costs, dependencies, and a rollout schedule.
• A measurement plan and agreed review points.

For example, a UK service business entering Germany might begin with one service it can deliver remotely. The plan could specify a German service page, supporting explanations based on local research, relevant proof, a German inquiry process, and an owner for reviewing the content. Other services and countries can remain outside the initial scope.

That gives the business a clear investment to evaluate and the team a concrete plan to implement.

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