When expanding into international markets, many businesses overlook the crucial role of Technical SEO. While content and backlinks are important, your site’s technical foundation determines how easily search engines can crawl, understand, and rank your content across multiple regions and languages.
As international SEO consultants, we’ve seen firsthand how small technical improvements can unlock huge visibility gains. Below are key Technical SEO tips to strengthen your site’s performance worldwide.
1. Use Hreflang Tags Properly
One of the most common issues in international SEO is the incorrect implementation of hreflang tags. These tags help Google understand which version of a page to show to users in different countries or language preferences.
- Always match language-country codes correctly (e.g.,
en-gb,es-mx) - Use canonical tags alongside hreflang to avoid duplicate content
- Include a self-referencing hreflang tag on each page
- Ensure consistency across all language versions
2. Choose the Right URL Structure
A clear and region-specific URL structure helps both users and search engines. There are three common approaches:
- ccTLDs (e.g.,
example.fr) – Strong localisation but more difficult to manage - Subdirectories (e.g.,
example.com/fr/) – Easier to maintain, SEO-friendly - Subdomains (e.g.,
fr.example.com) – Acceptable, but less preferred for SEO
Whichever you choose, be consistent and make sure each version is geo-targeted correctly in Google Search Console.
3. Optimise Site Speed Globally
Page speed is a ranking factor, and slow sites lose traffic—especially in markets with slower mobile networks. To improve speed internationally:
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to serve content closer to your users
- Optimise images and use modern formats like WebP
- Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML
- Enable browser caching and compression
Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or WebPageTest can help you identify location-specific performance issues.
4. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness
Many countries are mobile-first, with the majority of users accessing sites from smartphones. Your site must be responsive, lightweight, and easy to navigate on all devices.
Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to check for usability issues. Prioritise content layout, button sizes, and font readability—especially in right-to-left languages or non-Latin scripts.
5. Handle Redirects and Canonicals Carefully
In multi-language and multi-region setups, incorrect redirects or canonical tags can confuse search engines and harm rankings. Make sure to:
- Use 301 redirects (not 302) for permanent moves
- Avoid redirect loops between versions
- Use language-specific canonicals to maintain relevance
- Keep your sitemap updated and segmented per language or region
6. Monitor Crawl Errors Regularly
Google Search Console is your best friend. Set up individual properties for each country/language version and monitor crawl stats, indexing issues, and page experience insights.
If your site is large or multilingual, also use log file analysis tools to understand how search engines interact with your content at scale.
Final Thought
Technical SEO is often invisible to users—but not to search engines. A technically sound website ensures that your content is indexed correctly and ranks where it should, especially when targeting multiple languages and markets.
At the international level, precision matters. Every tag, redirect, and URL structure sends a signal. If you’re serious about scaling globally, technical SEO should be one of your top priorities.
Need help optimising your website for global performance? Contact us and discover how we help businesses grow through expert-led international SEO strategies.