Do you run a business that sells to several countries? Then multilingual SEO is not an option for you, but a necessity. The problem is that promoting a website in international markets is a completely different ball game than standard SEO. The technical structure of the site looks different, we should approach content differently, and most importantly, Google treats each language version differently.

Technical structure determines success in multilingual SEO

The first decision you need to make concerns how to implement language versions. You have three basic options and each affects your search engine results differently. You can purchase separate country domains, for example company.pl and company.de. This is the most expensive solution, but it delivers the best results in local search results. Each domain is treated by Google as a separate website, which means you’ll more easily build trust among German users with a site ending in .de than .pl.

The second option is subdomains like pl.company.com and de.company.com. A compromise solution – cheaper than separate domains, but less effective in local positioning. The third possibility is directories within one domain, i.e., company.com/de. The cheapest implementation, but also the least effective if you care about a strong presence in a specific country.

Important note: if you choose subdomains or directories, you must use a global domain like .com or .org. Using a country domain, for example company.pl with a /de subdirectory for the German version, is a fundamental mistake. For a German user, a Polish domain doesn’t inspire trust, even if the content is in German.

Translation is just the beginning of the journey in multilingual SEO

Many entrepreneurs think that simply translating the site is enough. This is the biggest mistake in international positioning. Translation must be complete – it applies to every element of the website. Buttons, forms, system messages, navigation – everything must be in the given language. Partial translation leads to content duplication and indexing problems.

Automatic translators like Google Translator are out of the question. The quality of such translations is too low, and Google perfectly recognizes mechanical translations. This negatively affects both the algorithm’s quality assessment of the site and user perception. If English is not your native language, don’t try to translate yourself – hire a native speaker or professional translator. If you want to save money, a better solution than Google Translate would be translation using some AI model.

Another issue is the availability of language versions. Users must be able to choose the language in a visible place on every subpage. Google robots come from the USA, so they see the English version of the site by default. If other language versions are hidden behind automatic redirection based on IP location, Google won’t index them. Present available languages as a text list with names in the appropriate languages – not “German” in Polish, but “Deutsch”. Also avoid flags as the only form of language designation, as this is a usability problem.

Hreflang as the technical foundation of international positioning

The hreflang attribute is an absolute foundation in conducting SEO across multiple markets. It’s code that informs Google what language and region a given version of the page is for. Thanks to this, a user from Germany will see the German version of your site in search results, not the Polish one.

You can implement hreflang in three ways. The most popular is adding code in the head section of each subpage. For a site available in Polish as default and German, the code looks like this: link rel alternate with hreflang x-default pointing to the default version and hreflang de pointing to the German version. Important: you must place the same code on each language version. This is the reciprocity rule – if the Polish page points to the German one, the German must point to the Polish one.

The second method is implementing hreflang in the sitemap.xml site map. More convenient with a large number of subpages, because you edit one file instead of several dozen. The downside is that with changes in the URL structure, you must generate the map from scratch and resubmit it to Google.

The third option is HTTP headers, but these are mainly used for files other than HTML, for example PDFs.

When does region matter as much as language?

We often forget that the same language version may require personalization for a specific market. Take Portuguese – selling to Portugal and Brazil, you must prepare two versions in the same language, but with different currency, prices, delivery conditions. In such a case, hreflang takes the form pt-pt for Portugal and pt-br for Brazil.

The same applies to English, Spanish, or French. A Brit expects prices in pounds, an American in dollars, and a user from Canada may prefer a Francophone version of the site. Regional personalization is not a whim, but a necessity in a professional approach to international positioning.

What mistakes destroy your visibility?

You must avoid certain solutions like the plague. Language versions based on parameters in the URL after the # sign are a disaster – Google doesn’t recognize this as a separate address at all. Adding translations one below the other on the same page is another popular mistake. I’ve seen blogs where the author publishes an article in Polish, and pastes the English version below it. Google then doesn’t know who the page is aimed at and cannot index it properly.

Automatic redirects based on cookies are also a bad idea. Google doesn’t consider cookie information when indexing, so you risk that only one language version will be indexed, while the rest remain invisible. Similarly with automatic redirects based on IP location without the ability to change language – you block robots’ access to other versions.

External linking in international multilingual SEO strategy

In multilingual positioning, you cannot run one universal linking strategy. If you have separate country domains, each requires separate link profile building. Moreover, for the German version of the site, the most valuable will be links from German .de domains, for French – from .fr domains. This means you must conduct parallel linkbuilding activities in each market separately.

In the case of directories in one domain, it’s easier – links pass power to the entire domain, so they indirectly support all language versions. This is one of the few advantages of this solution, although it doesn’t compensate for the weaker effectiveness in local search results.

Is it worth investing in positioning across multiple markets?

It depends on your business model and willingness to bear the costs. Running full-fledged SEO in three markets is three times the budget of positioning one website. Add to this the costs of translations, customer service in foreign languages, adapting the offer to local realities.

However, if your company actually sells abroad and you see growth potential there, multilingual positioning stops being an expense and becomes an investment. You enter markets where your competition from Poland cannot catch up with you. You build brand recognition as an international player, not a local one. And most importantly – you reach customers in their proper language, which directly translates into conversion rates.