International SEO: a practical guide
By Antoine Sanières · · Updated September 2026 · 5 min read
At a glance
- Order of play: choose your markets first, then your URL structure, then run keyword research for each country.
- Structure: a subfolder (/de/, /fr/) is the best choice in most cases.
- Hreflang: essential, reciprocal and using the right codes (en-GB, not en-UK).
- Content: localised and edited by native speakers, never a raw translation.
- Measurement: track each language version separately in Search Console.
“We had the website translated into French and German, but we still haven't had a single enquiry from abroad.” If we had a pound for every time we've heard that… Translation is a good start. But international SEO is something else: making sure a French, German or Dutch buyer finds you when they search, in their own language and with their own words.
In this guide we share the method we use at Anton Anton, built on more than 100 projects in French, German, Dutch and English. No jargon, we promise: just the steps, real examples and the mistakes worth avoiding.
1. Choose your markets before your languages
Many companies think in languages (“let's add a French version”) rather than in markets. But a language is not a country. French is spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Quebec. German in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. And British English is not American English.
To decide, we combine three sources:
- Your own data: which countries already send you visitors and enquiries (Search Console, Google Analytics)?
- Real demand: how many monthly searches are there for your products in each country?
- Your capacity: can you deliver, answer the phone, invoice and provide after-sales service in that country?
Better one market done properly than four done by halves. Start with one or two countries, prove it works, then expand.
2. The structure of your multilingual website
The second decision is one you'll live with for years: where do your foreign-language versions sit?
| Structure | Example | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Country domain (ccTLD) | yourbrand.fr | Strong local signal, high trust | Authority starts from zero, more to manage |
| Subfolder | yourbrand.com/fr/ | Benefits from the main domain's authority, easy to maintain | Slightly weaker local signal |
| Subdomain | fr.yourbrand.com | Clean technical separation | Often treated as a separate site |
In most cases we recommend a subfolder: this very site uses /de/, /nl/ and /en/. Translate your URLs too: /fr/prestations/ means far more to a French visitor (and to Google) than /fr/services/.
3. Hreflang, done right
Hreflang tags tell Google which language versions of a page exist, so a Belgian visitor lands on your Belgian page rather than the French one. The mistakes we find in almost every audit:
- Non-reciprocal tags: the English page points to the French one, but the French page doesn't point back. Google then ignores the link.
- Wrong codes: “en-UK” doesn't exist; the correct code is “en-GB”. The same care applies to “fr-BE”, “de-CH” or “nl-BE”.
- Conflicting canonicals: a French page with a canonical tag pointing to the English version.
- Automatic redirects based on IP address: Googlebot mostly crawls from the US and would never see your other versions. Use a clear language switcher instead.
4. Keyword research for each country
This is the heart of it. You don't translate keywords; you research them in each country. An example from our own research on the German market: “übersetzer frankreich deutsch” (French-German translator) gets around 390 searches a month, while “seo frankreich” gets around 110. In other words, many German companies think “translation” long before they think “search visibility”. That insight shapes which pages we build and what they say.
It works the other way too. For Cup Concept, a German maker of reusable tableware, the French keyword research covered around 1,500 terms, and French buyers' vocabulary looked nothing like a translation of the German catalogue (see the Cup Concept case study). Good international keyword research:
- is carried out by a native speaker of the target language;
- gives monthly search volumes and seasonality for each query;
- groups keywords by intent: learn, compare, buy;
- translates directly into a site structure and a content plan.
5. Translate, localise or rewrite?
Machine translation has improved enormously and we use it as a starting point. But publishing raw output means two risks: phrasing that sounds slightly off (and puts buyers off) and pages that miss the keywords people actually search for.
Localising goes well beyond the text:
- Tone: the formal vous in France and Sie in Germany for B2B, a more direct style in the Netherlands.
- Legal pages: a full Impressum in Germany; mentions légales and terms of sale in France.
- Payment: Carte Bancaire in France, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, and paying by invoice (Kauf auf Rechnung) in Germany.
- Trust: Trusted Shops or ProvenExpert in Germany, Avis Vérifiés or Google reviews in France, Kiyoh in the Netherlands.
That is exactly how we work for ABI Profils, whose site runs in French, German, English and Dutch: each version has its own keyword research and content, managed every month (see the ABI Profils case study).
6. Local links and mentions
Links from British sites do little for your French version. Each market needs local mentions: trade press, industry associations, trade fairs, partners, distributors and bilateral chambers of commerce. A handful of good links from the right country and sector are worth far more than a hundred irrelevant directories.
7. What about AI assistants?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude now answer many of the questions your prospects used to type into Google, in every language. To be cited, your business must be easy to understand: the same name and offer everywhere, structured data, factual content and mentions on local sources. That's GEO, Generative Engine Optimization. Find out more about GEO.
8. Measure each market separately
A multilingual site is managed market by market. Set up a Search Console property or filter for each folder (/fr/, /de/, /nl/) and track impressions, clicks, rankings and, above all, enquiries. And be patient: first results usually appear after a few months, solid results after around a year of steady work. For Hotel Beaulac in Neuchâtel, it took three years to grow from 1,700 to 20,000 organic visitors a month, in three languages (see the case study).
In short
International SEO isn't a translation job: it means building, for each market, a version that speaks the language and the codes of its buyers. Choose your markets, pick a clear structure, get your hreflang right, start from native keyword research and localise your content. Links, GEO and Google Ads then accelerate a healthy foundation.
Wondering where to start? We always begin with an audit of your foreign-language versions: what's blocking, what's working, and the three actions with the biggest impact. Have a look at our pages on SEO in France and SEO in Germany.