We already talked about website localisation in this blog and it is a topic that I would like to revisit since it is a not very talked about issue in the SEO arena, and it is a huge sticking point for most sites I get to analyse in my daily routine, which seem not to be able to get it right.

Localisation is not translation, involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target market. The fact that some SEOs settle for direct translations when they have to target local markets never ceases to amaze me.  These are the same experts that advocate to use the language of the customer for the English copy, and strongly encourage to make keyword research the cornerstone of the optimisation campaign, and are very sophisticated about it. I even heard from some SEO gurus that using the Google Translate feature will help you target local markets. What the h***? It is a very Anglo-Saxon, narrow minded way of thinking.

More about Website localisation

One of the most important things about last November International Search Summit , was to be able to learn about the special idiosyncrasy of different cultures when it comes down to surfing the Internet. The success on obtaining European rankings might depend on understanding culturally related differences of the country/market targeted.

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In this blog we always welcome any data that could shed light about the current status of European SEO and PPC and the International Search Summit gave us very interesting insight about the European Search landscape.

Alex Burmaster from Nielsen online was talking on topline trends, organic paid an secure, and other interesting statistics.

More about European Search Landscape

The second International Search Summit, held the 20th November in the British Library in London, was mainly focused on Paid Search globally, handling multilingual PPC campaigns internationally, usability for landing pages in different languages, main international agents internationally (quick warning, it is not only Google), and everything related to Multilingual Search Marketing. It was a fantastic way to learn about the European Search sphere, and how the new marketing techniques are starting to permeate the more traditional Marketing scene in Europe and worldwide.

First, Andy Atkins-Kruger, from WebCertain gave a quick lowdown about the windows of opportunities opened when a business want to expand internationally. European Internet statistics were analysed giving specific focus to the countries with more Internet users, FIGS (French, Italian, German and Spanish). Immediately, a throrough review of the main search engines worldwide was undertaken, mentioning Google for the Anglo-Saxon countries, Baidu dominating China, Yandex being predominant in Russia and other minoritary European engines like Seznam, etc.

More on International Paid Search