International SEO: Rank in Any Country, in Any Language

Search results change from country to country. The same search in Toronto, Munich and Mumbai shows different sites, because search engines favour pages that are clearly made for local people. Here's how to show you're one of them.

Pick your structure

For most businesses, subfolders on one domain are the right call.

Use hreflang correctly

hreflang tells search engines which version of a page is for which language and region, for example en-GB, de-DE or pt-BR. The rules people get wrong:

• Every version must link to every other version, and to itself.
• Add an x-default for visitors who match none of them.
• Use real language codes. en-UK is wrong; it's en-GB.

Speak like a local

• Translate properly, not word for word. People search in their own phrases.
• Show local prices in the local currency, and put the currency in your Product structured data.
• Write phone numbers in international format, like +49 30 1234567.
• Show the payment methods people expect: iDEAL in the Netherlands, Pix in Brazil, UPI in India, BLIK in Poland.
• Add a local address with LocalBusiness structured data if you serve people in person.

Know your search engines

Google leads almost everywhere, but not alone. Naver matters in South Korea, Yahoo! JAPAN in Japan, Seznam in Czechia and Bing across many markets. Bing also feeds several AI assistants.

We have a free guide for each market in our country guides, and our checker tests your language tags and hreflang on every page.

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