A Quick Note on Domain Structure Implementation for International SEO

If you are looking to garner a global audience for your website, chances are that some of your time has already been spent thinking about how to optimize it based on the regions you want exposure in. If so, you are on the right track.

Many important considerations figure into staging your SEO content in front of an international audience. One of the first things you will need to get a fix on is the domain structure. It is advisable to adopt from a list of best practices to attain optimal results, particularly if the content is being published in more than one language.

Domain Structure Options

The three main choices you have when setting up the international domain architecture are as follows:

• A country subdirectory following the gTLD: Imagine your domain name for instance as com. You will need to add a folder to this, called example.com/french if you are targeting French speakers. What you are doing is creating a subdirectory directly after the .com, .org, or .net. The latter are called gTLDs or generic top-level domains. You will need to use the vernacular of the country correctly so that search engines can understand the URL. Subdirectories can also be used for notating things other than countries, such as /marketing/.

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  A country sub-domain preceding the gTLD: It is relatively easy to implement a subdirectory, but people will not necessarily understand how you are targeting a location from simply seeing the URL. Sub-domains may be a better bet. One example is example.com, when you are pitching content to a UK audience. You can easily set up a sub-domain, but they, like sub-directories, can make it harder for people to guess at the content that will show up. They are also usually more expensive to set up than folders.

• Replacing the gTLD with a ccTLD: This is probably something, that you have seen a lot. Examples are ca and example.mx, for Canadian and Mexican sites respectively. Among the different architectures, this one is the hardest and most expensive to implement, the reason being that you would need a domain for each focus country. On top of that, while you can get a .com domain for about $10, some TLDs will set you back upwards of $1,000. Yet for that, you would need a local presence in the focus country.

The above are the three choices you have when it comes to domain structure implementation for your website. Read our other posts for tips regarding the best SEO services India has to offer.