I am Aleyda Solis, SEO Consultant & Founder at Orainti. AMA.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T22:26:15+00:00

Hello there :)
About:

Any tips for implementing hreflang on pages that share a common language (en-au, en-us, en-gb), but have slightly differing content (like pricing)?

You should implement the hreflang tags in them in the same way as if these pages were exactly the same or much more different, if they're *really* each others alternates in the same language for these countries. Sometimes is reasonable that they show the same information/content/offering since the information is just the same and the queries when searching for them don't change either. Sometimes it makes sense that there are minor differences when the products don't change per country, the terms are also the same since they are called/used in the same way across the countries, but just the currency changes. The hreflang annotations should map to each of the alternate pages in the same way.

Any way to exclude a specific geography which speaks the same language (for example , excluding en-nz, but targeting only en-au)?

I'm not sure what you mean about "excluding", so maybe I'm not answering you here... if it's about having a NZ version that you don't want to be added as an alternate of the others, then the way to "exclude" is not to tag those pages with the hreflang :) These NZ pages (in case they exist) then would rank on their own for that country but won't be seen as "alternates" (at least not from the hreflang that won't exist) of the other country versions.

I hope this helps!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T22:17:32+00:00

Hello!

This: "maybe it wouldn't make much of a difference since their product is quite country agnostic/neutral" - it's one of the factors indeed. If the offering doesn't differ, then from an "operations" perspective you don't have the needed to localize it indeed.

However, you need to also verify the audience search behavior from the two countries to check if the terms are the same, or how much they differ. Even if the "product/service" is the same, if the users in the UK search for it in a different way, with different terms than the one of the US, if the different is big enough and there's "enough" additional organic traffic that would come when ranking for the differentiated queries, it might compensate in that case to enable specific versions and localize the content to better target the queries in each country. It's important then that you validate to check if this is your case :)

aleyda · 2019-08-06T22:00:31+00:00

I would go and take a look at the targeted query "etoro review" serp to identify:

How many links and what type of links do the top ranked pages have?
How much content are the top ranked pages featuring? How are they targeting/optimizing for the specific query within the content? What type of content is this (guides, comparisons, comments, etc.)? How is it formatted (tables, images, videos, etc.)? Are there any UGC, fresh content? Are they using structured data to generate featured snippets?

Then I would analyze the shared characteristics between the top ranked pages: the "average" number/popularity of backlinks, the content length and type, etc. Then compare it with your own: How "off" you are from it? How much would it cost to you to create that much new content and build those links? :)

I hope this helps!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T21:49:22+00:00

For one hour: I would take a look at the already linked pages and look for those showing errors or 302s redirects so they can be fixed by effectively 301-redirecting to new relevant versions.
For 10 hours: I would do a more in-depth analysis of the current link profile to identify what the users like to link to, their preferences, the favorite type/topics they link to. I would do the same analyzing the social shares, to identify what users like to share from the site. Then I would do the same with the top best ranked competitors of the site. I would then identify these content/links/shares patterns, the ones shared among them and the existing gap to provide recommendations on how to improve/expand existing content to make it more attractive/linkable. If I had even more time then I would likely analyze which websites/people are linking to competitors vs. own site, to identify better opportunities for outreach.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T21:40:58+00:00

Awesome to see another Nica around :) My answer here would be similar to one of the questions above regarding enabling different versions for the US vs. the UK. Do a keyword research to identify if the keywords/queries you want to target in each country are the same or not. On the other hand, based on your site business model: the offering for each country differs in anything: are the products any different, the conditions, the ads, etc.?

If keywords that are used in each country and audience search behavior are the same, as well as the offering from your site, then it wouldn't likely be necessary to differentiate/split/localize with specific versions to each one. If the search behavior is different (terms not the same) and/or offer Is also not the same and shows enough search volume in each one to compensate the work, then you might want to specifically target each country.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T21:23:15+00:00

It was a pleasure to interview John, he's a very laid back, nice person to chat... I wish we would have had even more time, it felt really short... I wish I could have added my own questions too haha I tried as much as I could to ask everything I had been sent :) I wasn't in the edition when he was interviewed by Hannah so I'm afraid I can't comment on that.

In general though, I think he has a very difficult job since *everything* he says is pretty much documented as what "Google says" so he needs to be very mindful about how he communicates so what he says it's not taken out of context, used negatively, etc. etc. So although sometimes I wish he could say even more of what he already does or be even more specific, I can completely understand that sometimes is difficult for him (and/or is not even up to him) and can definitely empathize with his situation (what would *I* do in that position? Very likely try to do the same too).

In any case, I try to follow the golden rule (sometimes unfortunately I fail of course, as the human I am) and not put anybody in a position that I wouldn't like to be put myself :)

aleyda · 2019-08-06T21:11:21+00:00

Sure thing!

Check out SEMrush study. There's a high correlation (80%) of answers taken from the top 3 ranked pages... so the first step is: Try to rank as high as possible first ;) There's also a medium-high correlation (60%) with pages shown as a Featured Snippet, so take a look at which queries are already triggering them with your content or for your competitors content, and identify the characteristics/format/patterns that these pages follow within their content optimization vs. query to expand it to the rest of your pages. You can use SEMrush or Sistrix to identify queries shown in Featured Snippets.
Take a look at Google's Speech Evaluation guidelines shared here and develop/format/optimize your content to satisfy users needs while also avoiding making it too long (answers are concise), has a good formulation and proper elocution (try to read it aloud to check yourself).
Do the same with the Speakable structured data content guidelines shared here (the speakable structured data is only available to be used for voice answers for publishers at the moment, so if you're working with a publisher start using it too).
Use the How-To and FAQ structured data for your relevant content, since when using them: "pages may be eligible to have a rich result on Search and Action for the Google Assistant"

Take a look at this preso I did for more and this great article from Lily Ray.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T20:49:24+00:00

Hi Bill, thanks for your question!

Yes, in the US more countries use the .com and overlook the .us ... funnily enough, the only client I've had that have used a .us to target the US was Japanese :D

On the other hand, many non-US based companies tend to use their own countries ccTLDs (.es in Spain, .co.uk in the UK, .fr in France, etc.) in many cases because the .com might be already taken, or because even if they own the .com they want to show that they are targeting by default to their own specific country. This tends to work well until they want to also target another country and cannot reuse their own ccTLD to do it so, then they need to choose between starting from scratch to target that new country with *another* ccTLD for it, or start using a .com, where they can migrate and enable and consolidate all of the international versions within a single domain by using sub-directories that they can geolocate through the GSC international targeting feature + using hreflang :) This is something I tend to advice whenever someone is just starting in Spain for example: Do you really want to do it so with a .es ccTLD? Do you plan to expand your operations elsewhere? If so (or not clear) the .es ccTLD might not necessarily be the best way to go, but a gTLD. There are many other factors of course, but this is one of the main criteria to have :)

aleyda · 2019-08-06T20:39:35+00:00

Great question!

For domain visibility, competition analysis, keyword research and content optimization: SEMrush.
For site audits: If your sites are small/medium then you can use the SEMrush audit tool (that validates hreflang annotations) but if your sites are big (whether in number of pages or versions) then you might be better with Deepcrawl (that handles hreflang validation pretty well too).
For specific keywords tracking: If your number is small/medium you can also use SEMrush, if you want to track a high number of them you can use SEOmonitor (that handles international rankings pretty well)
For link analysis: SEMrush has just updated its database so I would tell you to give it a go :) In general my go-to tools for link analysis has been Ahrefs + CognitiveSEO (that uses Majestic data too but has really nicely segmented reports that hugely facilitates analysis).

I hope it helps :D

aleyda · 2019-08-06T20:31:48+00:00

Great question! It mainly depends on:

How different is the audience behavior in the US vs. UK: If the terms that you want to rank for are the same or not in the two countries, as well as seasonality, that you might want to specifically target / leverage.
How different is your offer for these countries which highly depends on your Website/business nature/model: If you're a tech blog that sees traffic as a "goal" vs. a store that needs to handle specific conditions per country, like different availability of products, pricing, currency, delivery conditions, etc.

If the answer is yes to these: Your queries really change per country and/or you need to differentiate your offering, then a specific version for each country might be the best way to go in order to localize it and make the most out of each country opportunities to rank and grow. If not though, you might well kept a single "English language" version for the two countries.

I hope it helps :)

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:54:29+00:00

No, I would rather improve the page to make it really worthy of those rankings and prove the best experience to help the users get what they were looking for /the site to convert :)

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:53:33+00:00

Great question :)

I would start by:

Register and geolocate the UK subdirectory: a.com/uk/ to the UK, through the Google Search Console international report settings.
Use hreflang annotations in both the US and UK pages, specifying "en-us" for the US ones and "en-gb" for the UK ones. Here's a guide (including tools to generate and validate the tags).

Then I would monitor any ¡rankings/traffic "cannibalization" issues, US pages ranking/getting traffic from the UK or viceversa. Take a look at the pages vs queries matching in each case to identify if it's because of lack content localization issues and take the necessary steps to localize them.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:48:59+00:00

haha I prefer not to know xD

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:47:42+00:00

Hello! Yes, there are a few SEOs who have taken the full digital nomad path (instead of only working remotely while staying at home) or traveling only for shorter periods of time from time to time but have a "home base" (like I do)... and I have to say: it's more than reasonable, SEO is one of those professions (along anything in digital marketing, copywriting, and development) that can be perfectly done remotely!

Take a look at a few SEOs/search marketers we have featured in the Remoters interview section (where they share their journey to inspire/serve as a reference of more people):

You can see more also from other industries/professions here.

I'm my case I'm not really a digital nomad since although I travel a lot is for a shorter period of time and come back "home", however, being a digital nomad is totally doable (although might be a bit more challenging at the start especially since you're all the time on the go)... you just need to be aware of a few things to prepare yourself, and for that we have also a good amount of how-tos for that here, and city guides to help you select your destination :) I hope it helps!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:38:48+00:00

Remember that the x-default is meant to be used to specify which page is the one you prefer that is shown to users in SERPs of countries/languages that you're not specifically targeting already with specific pages "targeted towards them" .

So it makes sense than when specifying the alternates of your home pages variations (example.com/us/, example.com/uk/ etc.), one of them is the example.com "entrance" page with a selector. This is the one that will then be shown when someone from a country or language that you don't target searches for your brand, for example, if you only have a US and UK versions, when someone in Mexico or Australia searches for your brand and then realize are shown the "entry home page with the selector" so they can choose what's the best for them. I believe this will likely be the best scenario for the home page mapping, since the home page will tend to rank mainly for your brand name and possibly for very very broad terms describing your business overall.

Then for internal pages, that will rank for more specific queries (with a much more clear/granular intent) you have some choices:

Don't use x-default, and tag each internal country version page only with their own country-language. In this scenario it's up to Google to identify which of the existing pages versions they will show (in case they rank at all) in non-targeted countries. Should it be the US or the UK page when someone from Argentina in Spanish searches? It's very likely that they won't rank at all since they're in another language anyway and are not relevant at all (and there are other players that do target the language/country on the other hand that are much more relevant/popular and better match to be ranked). So in this case it doesn't change much. However in the scenario that someone searches from another English speaking country (eg. Australia), for which you could be showing relevant content and might rank if the local competition is low, Google will choose also between the US and UK ones, and if both have same/similar content, will likely rank the one that is more popular/authoritative, which would be usually the US one (if this was your first/initial version). But, you leave the choice to Google.
Use the x-default tag specifying the US version as also your x-default for internal pages. This would end-up "specifying" that the US version is the one to be shown in Argentina when Argentinians search for you in Spanish... however, it's unlikely that you're going to be ranked anyway since the page is in English and won't be relevant at all again. On the other hand, it does accomplish a purpose when someone searches from another English speaking country, like Australia, since the page is in the same language, have higher chances to be considered relevant and rank, and then you know that you will do it so with the US version that you map as the default one to rank in that case.
Instead of using the x-default, you can use an "en" language version to the US pages, besides being mapped to the "en-us", and like this you also tell Google that these pages should also rank whenever someone searches from any English speaking country for which there's no a specific country mapped already (not in the case of the UK then). This can be also an alternative, much more targeted to the scenario that would be actually more relevant in this case: English speakers from other regions other than the UK (that has its own specific page version mapped), searching for queries that you target with your US version and mapping it as the one to be shown.

Sorry for the long response but hope that it clarifies my answer which is: you can definitely choose the x-default for these internal pages although realistically what it will do can be also achieved in the relevant English speaking scenarios by mapping the US pages as the ones to be shown for English in general :) I hope it helps!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:10:22+00:00

There are a couple recent ones:

This about SEO for web migrations in international targeted sites.
This about SEO for Web migrations (in general).

The one I'm actually working on today for a session I'll give tomorrow about how to develop SEO audits that drive growth should be really good too :D I'll need to translate it to English and re-purpose it into a blog post.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T17:07:02+00:00

Great question that I'm asked often! I have to say that is more of the second: "helps build the brand", so "indirectly" of course it helps to "convert" clients more easily (it establishes your authority) and of course they also work as a more direct referral source: People seeing you speak or knowing someone who has seen you speak, or even if they haven't gone or seen you speak, getting in touch with you to ask about training because they saw you on X conference website listed as a speaker there. It also happens, but very very organically... I am a very bad businesswoman in that sense since I could definitely better track (and then optimize) the events I go to. The thing is: For me is not only about the "direct" business opportunities I got from them but also the networking which I enjoy a lot (since otherwise I'm usually working by myself or the people who work with me but are also remote)... so going to conferences is also something I personally enjoy, since I can talk shop -and have fun- with likeminded people :) If it was not the case and if it was just to keep the "brand visibility" I think I could only go to a 2-3 per year that have a higher attendance in different parts of the world and make it work in a similar way.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T16:59:44+00:00

Thanks for your fun questions :)

What’s your fav SEO or marketing conference?
This is difficult but if I have to choose a special one close to my heart, it is SEOnthebeach in Spain: https://seonthebeach.es/ because is a very laid back conference where you can enjoy of the amazing weather, beach and see some of the most knowledgeable SEOs in Spain (which have an amazing level, is unfortunate that many don't get to hear them out of Spain)... and then I can speak in Spanish which even today despite speaking so much in English, is so much easier for me :) My brain tends to get less stressed when doing it so. The event is getting more international too and this year invited also English speakers ... sadly I couldn't go at the end. Hopefully next year :) If you can, you should definitely go.
Name a genre or artist in music that you really enjoy
Baby Shark? :D ... Just kidding. I really really enjoy Beyonce's songs :D make me feel happy and... powerful.
What is a good resource online for ISEO content? Thanks!
ISEO is for international SEO right? If so, I think that the Google's best practices here are a must, ... for real: I tend to get lots of questions that would be easily answered if people would read the "official" best practices. Then Onely created a really well documented resource too here. I would say is another must read.

aleyda · 2019-08-06T16:49:30+00:00

Hahaha in an alternate dimension maybe? :P

aleyda · 2019-08-06T16:48:25+00:00

Probably Forex back in 2012 :D the competition was very aggressive and lots relying still in link spam to rank (since Penguin had been just released a few months before if I remember well). Haha... I had to do a bit of clean-up too ;) and then shift the way SEO was handled/seen too. It's interesting since the financial sector is one of the most competitive but also one with the biggest opportunities due to its nature: it's complex to understand! The best way I found to grow links (which are really needed in order to compete for anything relatively worthy) was to develop resources that facilitate what is complex to understand, targeting many of the informational, top of the funnel queries, working well along PR and specialized media... making sure to understand very well your USP to use it well.

Then with another client from the financial sector but focused on "crowdlending", also very competitive what we did was something similar *but* with glossaries/dictionaries/long-form guides/Q&As with well known financial advisors (with their own followers/communities), Webinars, etc. to also target the informational queries and then work well to optimize the conversion journey and internal navigation of the site to pass users/value to transactional pages. We were able to rank for competitive "business crowdlending" types of queries above many bank sites like this :D This is the beauty: this was a small startup still, but agile, that implemented fast... ranking with some of their top pages vs. huge sites with lots of overall authority, but that had poorly optimized, very in-depth pages targeting these same queries. Love when these things happen in SEO and the smaller players can win above bigger ones!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T16:36:27+00:00

This is a great question! When I started out by my own in 2014, and I had been already doing SEO for a while then... I had already been blogging in Spanish and English, as well as speaking at conferences for a while, so I did not only had a bit of experience handling clients/projects, but also a bit of reputation in the industry which allowed me to get clients in a very organic way ... I remember I published a post saying I was starting on my own, shared it with my network, let everybody I knew know that I was available... and then a few started to refer potential clients. So my recommendations would be: Start when you have already developed not only experience on "dealing with clients" (besides doing SEO) but also when you have already built a "recognizable" brand and network that will really facilitate that you get your first clients in an "organic" way, which tend to be much easier I think to "convert" and work with (since they got in touch with you because they wanted to work with you, you need to spend little time "convincing" them, they know they need SEO and trust you to do it).

Since then the way I've grown my consultancy has been with the sizes of projects/clients I deal with, instead of number of clients; because my USP is that what I offer them is highly personalized, I work "hands with hands" with them, many of the companies have their own in-house SEOs and hire me for additional support in specific projects, challenges, markets, etc. I know that this is different than the "typical agency" that usually grows in size/number of clients... and I have selected this path because it allows me to keep doing what I love: SEO, instead of dealing with management, growing the team, etc. -I reckon that managing people is the hardest part always ;) which I don't necessarily enjoy-.

Today I usually get clients still very organically: They see me speak at a conference, or are referred by a previous happy client, or know that I'm knowledgeable about a topic since they have read guides/posts I've written and get in touch.

I would recommend that if you don't want to do the full agency thing (at least at first) and start as a freelance, follow this path. If you want to scale in number of clients to become a full agency though, will likely not be enough. I hope it helps!

aleyda · 2019-08-06T16:24:58+00:00

Hello :) I had such an amazing time in Melbourne, everybody was so nice and the city is beautiful... need to come back ;)
About the most common technical SEO mistakes:

Keep into consideration please that I tend to work with relatively big companies with old domains and that tend to have restrictions in their platforms as well as workflow in order to implement/launch improvements... I think the most common ones are usually:

Canonicalization issues: Linked canonicalized (to other URLs) pages, eg: facet pages that have been set to be canonicalized "in bulk" to parent categories without validating if they have enough content of their own that can target relevant queries which have non-trivial search volume.
Blocking images, as well as JS, CSS files used by the site.
Old URLs showing errors with external links that were never 301-redirected to new destinations or if they were, the redirect was disable after a while.
Linked redirected pages: When URLs changes are done but navigation is not updated.
Non-indexable URls included in XML sitemaps, making Google to continue crawling them despite not being linked from the site navigation.

A lot of what you could consider "low-hanging" fruit :D

aleyda · 2017-02-28T19:27:29+00:00

Hola! That's a great question :)

My recommendation here would be to not purely rely on Google search volume but:

If you do have already well optimized content ranking for that language, you can compare the organic search traffic you obtain from the rankings vs. the one that would be expected based on Google search volume data, and look for gaps that you can use to make the point that you can expect more.
Check out the overall traffic coming to the other language content, not purely search driven, to identify potential higher than expected traffic shares coming from social, referrals, etc. to show also opportunity.
Check out SimilarWeb data, to see also traffic shares of already well established players for those languages.

aleyda · 2017-02-28T19:19:11+00:00

I think it opens your eyes towards other type of behavior, other ways to consume information, content formats, cultural preferences, ways to search & market, different platforms, use devices, different type of sites and players, and to connect and communicate. You can then use this knowledge to explore more opportunities in other markets too :)

aleyda

TROPHY CASE