International SEO
Hreflang architecture, ccTLD and subdirectory strategy, and native-language keyword research for companies expanding into two or more markets. We build organic visibility that compounds in each country on its own terms — not your English strategy run through a translator.
Hreflang errors are silent. These five deliverables aren’t.
Most international SEO failures aren’t content problems — they’re architecture problems that hide in plain sight. A missing return tag or a mis-targeted ccTLD can route the wrong market to the wrong content for months before anyone notices the traffic isn’t showing up.
We recommend ccTLD, subdomain, or subdirectory based on your current domain authority, your dev team’s capacity, and how many markets you’re targeting in year one. Subdirectories consolidate link equity and ship fastest; ccTLDs send the strongest geo-signal to Google but mean building authority from zero in every country you add.
We generate and validate a complete hreflang tag set and hand your developers an implementation brief they can ship without a follow-up call. If hreflang is already live, we audit it first — a missing return tag or an absent x-default is usually what’s making Google ignore the whole set and serve searchers the wrong language.
Every target market gets its own keyword research, done in that market’s language by researchers working in it — not your English list run through a translator. Search intent and SERP composition shift enough between neighbouring markets that a shared keyword list under-targets both.
Each market gets an editorial brief built around its own competitor landscape, preferred content formats, and the trust signals that market’s readers and Google expect — plus a cluster map tied to actual local search demand, not extrapolated from your English traffic.
Search Console segmented by country, rankings tracked per market including Baidu and Yandex where either is relevant, and a monthly report that attributes organic revenue to each market separately — so you know which one to fund next, not just how the total moved.
Three phases. Markets launch in sequence, not all at once.
Architecture and audit
We review your current geo-targeting signals, audit hreflang if it’s live, and settle the URL structure decision. Then we build a market-prioritisation matrix ranking your target countries by search demand, competitive gap, and revenue potential — before a single brief gets written.
Research and localisation
Keyword research wraps for every target market, cluster maps get built, and localisation briefs go out to your translation team or the editors we work with. Your dev team gets the technical implementation brief in parallel, so hreflang and content aren’t waiting on each other.
Execution and compounding
Content goes live market by market, hreflang ships, and we track rankings weekly per market rather than as one blended average. New markets get added on a rolling basis once earlier ones reach organic stability — so you’re never running six ramps at once.
Who this is for
- SaaS companies expanding from one English-speaking market into Europe or APAC
- E-commerce brands launching localised storefronts in 2+ new countries
- Businesses with existing translated content that isn’t ranking because of hreflang errors
- Enterprises that have acquired foreign-language domains and need to consolidate or run them independently
- Companies not yet profitable in their home market
- Teams that want machine-translated content published at scale without human editorial review
- Businesses targeting a single additional language market with fewer than 20 pages to localise
Scoped by market count. No cookie-cutter packages.
What teams ask before going multi-market.
ccTLD, subdomain, or subdirectory — which should we use?
We have existing translated pages but they're not ranking. Why?
Do you provide translation?
How do you handle markets like China or Russia, where Google isn't dominant?
How long before we see rankings in new markets?
30 minutes on a call. No pitch deck. We'll tell you if we're a fit.
Come with your domain, top three competitors, and your revenue goal for the year. You leave with a diagnosis and a realistic 12-month outlook.