About the service
International SEO: why it isn't 'translating your site'
Every other business that comes to us for international SEO opens the conversation the same way: ‘We have a site, let’s translate it into English and launch it in Google US’. That’s a path to failure. A year later the site brings no traffic, the budget is spent, and the impression forms that ‘SEO doesn’t work in America’.
In reality, SEO in the US, UK and EU works very well — often more easily than in many home markets, because the markets are organized, the tools are better, and competition in many verticals is less aggressive. But entering a market takes a different approach. Simply translating an existing site is the worst of strategies.
Why translation doesn’t work
Users in different countries phrase queries differently. One market searches ‘built-in wardrobes’, another ‘custom closets near me’, a third ‘szafy wnękowe Warszawa’. These aren’t the same thing in three languages — they’re three different queries with different grammar, different search volume and different competition. A page optimized for one market’s phrasing will never reach the top in another, even if it’s translated perfectly.
The same goes for the product offer. A 30-day guarantee is great in some markets. In the US it’s the bare minimum, and serious brands give 90 days. In Poland consumer protection requires a 2-year guarantee on electronics. If you simply translated the original text, your US site will say ’30-day guarantee’ — and Google won’t consider you relevant for ‘best quality wardrobes’.
Where we begin
The first step is market analysis, not ‘technical setup’. We look at:
- Demand volume. How many people actually search for your products / services in this market.
- Competition. Who’s there, the budget level in the top 10, how realistic it is to break through.
- Margins. How much you can realistically earn per client in this country.
- Logistics and operations. Whether you can even sell and deliver the product in that market.
Sometimes this stage ends with us saying: ‘This market isn’t worth entering — it won’t pay off here’. That’s an honest answer, and we give it before the client has spent money.
Technical localization
If a market passes the analysis, we move to the technical solution. The key question is the domain. The options:
- Separate national domains (yoursite.us, yoursite.co.uk, yoursite.pl). The best local signals, but each domain starts from zero authority. A good option for a long-term strategy.
- Subfolders on the main domain (yoursite.com/us/, yoursite.com/uk/). They inherit the main site’s weight. The fastest start. For most of our clients.
- Subdomains (us.yoursite.com). A compromise between the two. A less popular option.
Whatever you choose, you need to correctly set up hreflang tags, geo-targeting in Google Search Console, and a server architecture with different CDN points. Mistakes here can destroy the whole strategy — for example, a wrong hreflang can make Google show the English version of your site to the wrong audience and the wrong language to another.
Local content
We create content for each market with native speakers. Not ‘with copywriters who know English well’ — you can hear that in every sentence, even when the grammar is perfect. A native speaker knows the cultural references, the humor, the current trends, the way the industry talks. All of it affects how readers perceive the site and whether they trust the brand.
For technical and highly specialized niches we work with native speakers who have a professional background in the industry: lawyers for legal topics, doctors for medical, engineers for technical. A cheap copywriter from UpWork can’t write about the specifics of international tax law.
International link building
Local links are the main currency of international SEO. Google assigns a site local authority not only based on the domain or hreflang, but also on where the links come from. If the English version of your site only has links from sources in one country, Google will think the site is for that country’s audience interested in English. You won’t reach the US top with such a profile.
Over 8 years we’ve built our own databases of niche sites in the US, UK and EU. This lets us start link building from day one rather than spending months ‘researching the donor market’.
Budgets and timelines
Launching SEO in a new market is at least a 6-month investment. The first organic sales in the US/UK usually come in months 4–6, in the EU in months 6–9. A starter budget from USD 12,000 per market (including semantics, localization, content and link building for the first 6 months). It’s not ‘cheap’ — but compared with PPC, where you pay for every click and traffic stops the moment you turn off the ad account, SEO gives a longer-lasting effect and a better ROI over a 1–2 year horizon.
