| International link building differs a great deal from link building in just one region. Some of the obstacles include different languages, cultures, and the difference in search engines around the globe. It's also important to keep in mind that, while you consider your link building to be international, the market that you are targeting will not see it that way. In their eyes, the links are local. Here are some rudimentary steps to international link building.
First, you need to have a clear strategy for targeting your market. This includes deciding not only which markets you want to reach and which search engine radio selector buttons you wish to come up in. So, for example, if you have an Italian-written website and want to target the Italians in Italy, as well as those who speak Italian in Austria, Switzerland, and France, you can choose to sacrifice showing up in the results from the pages located on servers in Italy, and instead to focusing on showing up in the results of any Italian language pages. In this way, you could concentrate on promoting through the language, rather than through the countries themselves, although this might also not be what gets you the best results.
What you would probably still want to do is target Italy as your country, because you'll have more potential traffic and you'll still get visitors from those who speak Italian, and do not live in Italy, but use Google.it anyway to look up information.
You'll also want to take into consideration your website's design and structure. There is some controversy about whether local domains or dot coms are better for international web sites, but either one will do well if done correctly. It's also a good idea to understand your international reputation. If you aren't known outside of your current geographical web presence, then link building will require more time and effort. It your brand is unrecognized elsewhere, start out with combining directory submissions and online public relations before you move on. And, of course, check out the laws in the region that you plan to market in, as they may, and probably will, differ from what you are used to.
Research As with local markets, you will need to do sufficient research. It's important to get a grasp on how competitive the search market is in the area that you are targeting. Do a search of your top keywords within the search engines relative to the particular country, and analyze the websites that come up in those markets. Check out how many links they have, the quality of the links, and where they come from. There are many tools that can help you analyze this information, some of the most popular being those of Yahoo. This analysis will get you as many link prospects as you need to start out. And then you can go from there in your international link building. |