Marketing Your Blog

How To Market Your Blog Internationally

Your blog can have worldwide appeal and attract readers from around the globe. As a result, there are numerous considerations and strategies that a blog author should consider when marketing their posts. However, the majority of bloggers do not to take into account the various factors that are involved with marketing internationally. This piece will go over three crucial tips that every blog writer should factor into their online marketing strategy.

Tip #1 – Understand How People Find Your Blog (Search Engines?)

Most people find your blog posts and articles using search engines. This is not always the case and it is important for a webmaster to first look at analytics to determine how people are actually locating their blog and its posts. However, for most bloggers, since the majority of traffic does result from search engines it is vital to understand the different ones used by international audiences.

Marketing Your BlogBlog marketers and authors in the United States face a more difficult challenge than in other English speaking nations. This is illustrated in a post outlining the different global maket shares of search engines that breakdowns percentages by country. Looking at these numbers it is clear that a blog marketer in the United States should not ignore Yahoo or Bing since the two search engines combined account for almost 30% of search traffic. Google is still the main player, but its market share in the U.S. is only 65%. Bloggers targeting audiences in the United States must thus consider three search engines in order to maximize traffic.

Marketers targeting Australia face a simpler landscape. Australians search using Google 93% of the time. Thus, a blogger targeting individuals in this country deals with fewer components. Bloggers focused on this audiencecan are fortunate in the respect that they can mostly ignore Yahoo and Bing. Conversely, bloggers promoting to regions that do not speak English are likely to face even more challenges. For example, Baidu dominates the Chinese marketplace and uses an algorithm much different than other search engines. Thus a blogger must develop content in another language and also adjust such factoring into account the different algorithm used by China's leading search engine.  Such large differences amongst regions illustrate the importance of knowing your audience. Suddenly, marketing seems much simpler when only reaching out to residents in one nation.

Tip #2 – Realise that Different English Speaking Audiences Spell Differently

Depending upon the country and region your blog targets it is important to realise that different English speaking audiences spell words differently. Notice how ‘z’ is often replaced with ‘s’ as with the word ‘realised’ above.

A small spelling change to a rather insignificant word may not make much of a difference with the initial marketing efforts, but improper spelling can alienate visitors once they reach your blog. However, words more fundamental to the subject can result in material impacts. The SEO industry, in which I work, serves as a perfect example. When residing in the United States SEO companies often market around the phrase search engine optimization. Now that I am in Australia, the same type of businesses must use the phrase search engine optimisation (with the ‘s’ instead of the ‘z'). Should I accidentally blog about optimization it is much less likely to receive the same attention and positive publicity since far fewer individuals in Australia use this spelling.

Tip #3 – Other Avenues of Marketing Your Blog Besides Search Engines

Despite the fact that most blogs derive the majority of visitors from search engine traffic, it is crucial not to focus solely on SEO. Ironically, SEOMoz which is leading website for online marketers, claims to receive most of its traffic via links from other websites rather than traffic from the search engines. Furthermore, there are many other marketing techniques that other guest bloggers on Ileane’s blog point out in various posts. A couple I found particularly interesting are Kharim’s post on how to increase the flow of traffic coming from your blog and James’ post about blog traffic strategies. Basic Blog Tips contains a wealth of other strategies worth implementing.

An important question to ask yourself is, ‘How can I apply this strategy internationally?’. A suggestion referenced in both posts above is to use forum marketing. A smart idea with that strategy is to conduct research on the various forums in each country. Individual forums with the largest market shares will likely vary even more wildly based upon region and industry than those of search engines. Therefore selecting the appropriate forums to invest your marketing efforts is crucial. That is why understanding how people currently find your blog is vital, but more important is learning new ways that people can discover your blog.

Obviously, there are many more than three tips that bloggers can apply to market their content internationally. Please share your advice in the comments section below! Also, I welcome feedback on the tips provided in this post. Do you agree with them or am I misguided? Can you provide me with additional insights? I am eager to hear more about other bloggers’ experiences with international markets and how you're marketing your blog.

61 thoughts on “How To Market Your Blog Internationally”

  1. Hi Brent,

    You certainly mentioned essential points which should be considered if you’re looking to target international market as well. But I’ve a question here hope you would resolve it.

    #2 point, you mentioned the example of “optimization” for US and “optimisation” for Australia.. but how can I target both countries with same keyword. Any suggestion???

    1. Hi Aasama,

      That is an excellent question with no simple answer. A simple way to is to create to landing pages and/or sections on the website that target the different spellings of the words the phrases. Each section should contain unique text.

      However, an ideal ideal implementation for targeting ‘search engine optimisation’ and search engine optimization’ requires much more time, but is worth the effort if the keyword phrase is valuable. The steps for such would include:

      1. Register a TLD for each of the appropriate countries. .com for ‘optmization’ and .com.au for ‘optimisation’
      2. Modify the text to contain the appropriate spelling for each country. You do not need to make this text unique, but rather use country specific language distinctions.
      3. Follow appropriate markup from schema.org
      4. In the HTML section of domain.com, add a link element pointing to the Australian version of that webpage at domain.com.au/, like this:

      Note: Australia generally uses Great Britain variations of English
      5. Do the converse for the domain.com.au
      6. You can apply all the same steps above without different TLD’s for each region to simplify the process, but that implementation is not ideal.

      There are other ways to implement this, but those are the two I suggest. However, if you are only targeting for one language then of course your job is much simpler. You could simply create a domain.com.au site focusing on search engine optimisation without ever needing to consider the spelling distinction.

      Thank you again for the excellent question. I hope this answer helps.

      1. Hi Brent,

        I always though about optimising content for other countries.
        But I just need refine which country is most profitable to target.

        I wonder..

        Would be viable to translate blog posts aswell?

        Cracking plan for reaching a new audience…

        1. Hi Simmeon,

          Economically viable? The answer to that depends on numerous factors such as the reach of your present audience and/or any investments intended to increase the reach. Will your content appeal to another culture as well? My first suggestion ensure you already maximized growth of the country you reside. After that when looking for additional areas to expand then look into international markets. However, expanding internationally before first mastering your home audience is akin to putting the cart before the horse. Afterwards, I suggest performing the research to see if it makes sense to optimise for an international market. Upon completion of these steps only then does is it prudent to explore the investment required to optimise content for an international audience. Of course if you are multi-lingual than this could lower your investment costs and therfore focusing on an international market may make more sense.

    2. Actually I don’t think we should be worried that much about different English spelling, especially when you target search engines like Google. Search engines often have a set of synonyms for each keyword, so even when you search for ‘optimization’, you can still get ‘optimisation’ results on top.

      1. Hi Tuan,

        Please post new comments in the appropriate section to keep the dialogue clean.

        You are correct that Google does understand synonyms. However, at least according to Google, you are patently wrong about that it does not care about the different spellings for different regions. I am not stating you should ‘worry’, but there are clearly search engine factors to take into account when optimising a blog for an international audience. Please see the following page from Google’s Webmaster Tools as one example: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077

        You are correct that a website can appear at the top for ‘optimization’ and ‘optimisation’. However, this is in spite of not following Google’s guidelines and makes the uphill climb to obtain top search results that much more difficult.

  2. For me niche is the biggest matter of question for any blog as well as to market it? Well, it also matters that would people of all kinds be interested to work that out? Well, would that enhance the chance to make the things appropriate?

  3. Hi Brent!

    I agree with you on the point of forum postings and I think in it proper research matters a lot because about forums finding there are lots way to find them out but I never found the right ones to post and secondly, I think your social media channels are really crucial in this internationally market your blogs if you shared your post in them than people from different places will get some chance to get on to your post. I like to do it with facebook ads as I am running it on my 1 website and that’s working really great finding the targeted readers.

    At the end of the day I think proper strategy works well in terms of marketing but it can only be made after some experience. Thanks for sharing great post

    1. Hi Aqaz,

      I appreciate your thoughtful feedback. I could not agree more with your point that there is not substitute for proper research. Social media channels are certainly valuable in international markets. However, as you pointed out proper research before any marketing investment is crucial. Regarding forums, most of us on here learned the hard way that blindly posting accomplishes little. Hence, your suggestions of thorough research is critical here as well.

      Cheers,
      Brent

  4. I am doing an online business right now, I think that I can use this tips and advises that you have shared for me to become successful in my endeavor, so true that we can gain reputation if we sell our blog internationally.

  5. Thank you for the post. Marketing the blog internationally has become very important and equally tough too. It is important not only to get visitors by search engines but it will be great that if your 50 percent visitor comes from other sources like from blog comments, guests posts, social media share. I completely agree with all the points you have mentioned. Thank you!

    1. Thank you for taking the time to read the post and the positive commentary. Ironically, as a search engine optimisation consultant, I advise that companies and individuals do not rely on such as their primary means of traffic. Visitors that arrive from other links on the web oftentimes convert at a higher rate and it exposes a websites to fewer risks each time Google updates its algorithm.

  6. Nice post. Lets face it, most of the audience of any website are going to be from all over the world. Hence marketing your blog internationally makes sense. The use of spelling makes sense too; both American and British formats. I stick with the British one but often use the American versions as well once in a while. I have been reading Kharim’s blog and he has good tips.

    1. Hi Shalu,

      Thank you for the compliment and feedback. I agree that if you must select one of the version of English and you are targeting an international audience than the British vernacular is typically best since it encompasses a wider audience. Sprinkling in American English is a nice way to avoid the hassles of the many ‘search engine optimisation’ techniques I pointed out in an earlier response, but to still attract audiences in different regions of the globe. You are certainly correct that reputable websites receive readers from all over the world, which is one reason that focuses on international audiences is increasingly important the larger a blog’s readership grows.

  7. Brent,

    Very good article… I’ve found that Guest Blogging in communities that have a International mix of regular readers definitely helps to attract International eyes to your content.

    Thanks,

    Ryan H.

    1. Thank you and using blogging communities with a range of visitors from international regions is an excellent idea. Are there any particular ones you might suggest to readers of this post?

    1. What tips did you find most useful? I ask to make certain that future posts contain information others on this site find valuable. Obviously, I am interested in search engine optimisation, but I understand that certain bloggers might not even care. I appreciate any feedback you can provide.

  8. Cool tips that you willfully shared or is it wilfully?

    What about talking about trending political events that cannot be ignored like SPAN/GREEK bank RUNS, etc?

    1. Lol and thank you!

      I would tend to use the native language for politics since most individuals do not bother translating these properly. Furthermore, if an American audience is looking for news on international politcs then you would want to cater to them anyways. Excellent question and nice play on words at the start of the comment

  9. Hello Brent,

    The biggest source of traffic in my blog is the links on other websites and I get most of my traffic by commenting on other blogs and from social media, I don’t get much traffic from search engines. I agree with all the tips you shared in this post to market the blog internationally.
    And thanks for sharing the Kharim’s post on Ileane’s blog, I think I’ve missed that post.:P

    Ehsan

    1. Hi Eshan,

      My pleasure to share the post; Kharim’s post is well written and meritted the mention! Please see my comment earlier that I ironically agree that a blogger should not use search engine optimisation as the main source of traffic.

      1. Hi again Brent, First of all my name is Ehsan no Eshan.
        I don’t get much traffic from search engine because I’m not with it and I’m don’t have much experience in SEO. I will try my best to learn it.
        Thanks for your reply.

        1. Hi ‘Ehsan’,

          Please do not take offense to a typo. I am attempting not only to assist you but everyone reading this post with intentional search engine optimisation for their blogs. Everyone is here to learn (myself included). Thank you for all you comments, I wish you all the best, and please let me know of further questions.

          Cheers,
          Brent

  10. These are some good ideas Brent. Many American bloggers are not familiar with to market overseas including me.

    I love your methods. I get a lot of overseas traffic so I put up Google translate to show I appreciate them and I want them to feel welcomed.

    It may not be much but I am trying.

    1. Hi Michael,

      Thank you for the accolade. Illustrating to your international visitors that you appreciate their visits via a translate button is an intelligent idea that is quick to implement.

  11. Great post Brent. I don’t think a lot of bloggers consider their international opportunities when it comes to blogging. Thanks for bringing up the idea and the helpful tips.

    1. Hi Brad,

      Thank you. You correctly pointed out many people do not factor in the international opportuinties with blogging. I hope the post adds value to your blogging strategies.

  12. We are getting traffic from some non english speaking countries and its tough to handle them. Most probably they might be using translate.

    1. Hi Bishwajeet,

      That is a nice problem to possess if they actually engage upon reaching your website :). Depending, upon where the traffic is coming from, how people are reaching your blog, and if you actually want the international exposure will likely determine your next steps.

      Side Note: Search engine may automatically translate pages for uncompetitive phrases in smaller countries that do not possess much unique original content relating to the topic.

      1. Do you want to retain and attract visitors from this region? Skip the next questions if the answer is ‘No’
      2. How long do your analytics indicate these people are staying on the site and where do they drop off?
      3. After examining this data determine the need for a professional translator.
      4. Engage an entity qualified in international search engine optimisation if you desire to increase your reach in these regions. Sometimes a local firm from the targeted region is a smart candidate. Oftentimes, coordinating a local person with an entity that know how to manage the intricacies is a better solution.

      Maybe these tips will steer you in the right direction. I do imagine that there are possibly a few bloggers on here jealous of your challenge. 😉

  13. Very interesting. I get some traffic from other countries even though my site is pretty small. I try to SEO as best as possible and depend on technical bloggers, who write great articles to help bloggers like me. Thanks for the article. Sally

    1. I am happy you found the article interesting. Please feel free to share it with your friends. Do not hesitate to ask me questions in the comment field below regarding any items in the post or specific items about international search engine optimisation for blogs.

  14. All I can say is “wow!” This post is very handy as I am going to start promoting my blogger’s block book to bloggers all over the world.

  15. Thanks for this lovely post. You have highlighted a very important point about variations in spellings. Especially since it relates to a very important word “optimization” of search engine optimization.

  16. Every blogger dreams of having thousands of followers and daily blog visitors. For most people it’s just a dream, but for others it’s reality.

    Growing a community is the biggest thing you can do for your blog to take it to the international level. After all, a community is what every blogger wants right? People commenting, sharing and raving about their content etc. Anyway, there are a couple of ways to grow a community around your blog.

    The first is to attract the RIGHT readers. Random visitors coming from the search engines are a lot harder to convert into loyal subscribers than from other sources. The best source of traffic for community building is guest blogging and blog commenting. As by blogging on elder established blogs in your niche, you can steal or borrow some of their community. The big blogs in most niches have a huge following.

    Great article
    Cheers

    1. Hi Amrik,

      I simply wanted to reach out and thank you for taking the time to add your insightful and detailed commentary to my post. Your suggestions are excellent and I encourage readers to pay them well deserved respect. Anyone who does will likely do a much better job marketing their blog.

  17. I truly agree with the second point specified by you. People in different countries spell in different ways. Like the Britishers will spell “realise” and Americans will spell it in this way “realize”. So at times you need to cater to which group of people you are blogging for.

  18. Hi Brent,

    You draw my attention to very important point and that is different spellings for different countries. Now if my blog has audience all over the world than what should i do.

    1. Few blogs cater to every language, but if such is the case with your blog than there is an enormous amount of work to do and much more then I can detail in this reply. Looking at this from a usability and search engine optimisation standpoint, adecent place to start is following schama.org markup, appropriate usage of sitemaps, along with other attributes to ensure the blog content developed for each language is not viewed as duplicated copy.

  19. Hello,
    Internationalization is indeed an important part of the marketing of any blog…most of the world is focus on the traffic coming from United State but one thing that the marketers must understand is that there is a considerable amount of population that is residing outside US and they can be potential users for your blog….therefore stress must be made on the serving your blog in different international languages…
    Thanks
    Aditya

  20. Wow!!thanks for sharing your idea..Now we have an idea on how to market our blog internationally and your post serve as a guide to us..

  21. The blogs are always should be more concise and concrete in writings as keeping my the readers interest therefore, the keywords are always important to be more accurate and important.

  22. Very worth points you have shared specially i learn a lot of things from your post because i am getting traffic and have search engine visibility for my blog just in my own country. So to introduce my blog in all over the world or internationally your shared points are very helpful and effective.

    1. Hi Jessica,

      Thank you for the kind words. SEO for blogs is difficult enough without adding the international component. Please feel free to ask me specific questions (if desired) in the comments section.

  23. The biggest source of traffic in my blog is the links on other websites and I get most of my traffic by commenting on other blogs and from social media, I don’t get much traffic from search engines. what should i do?

  24. Using search engines majority of majority of the people find your blog posts and articles. This is not at all times the case and it is significant for a webmaster to first appear at analytics to reconcile on how people are essentially placing their blog and its posts.

  25. Hi John,

    I am glad it is of help. I attempt to foster a nice and valuable comment string 😉 and appreciate your contribution. Please let everyone know of you stumble upon any particular items that you notice create meaningful impact, whether mentioned here already or are new ideas.

  26. This is a great article. I lived in the US for some time growing up, now reside in Pretoria South Africa. They have a mixed language set up here (about 11 official for a start) but they also get influence from UK and USA in their spelling.

    In most cases they take from the UK spelling, but you can come across hybrids. It really pays to seek out your market, understand who your marketing to and for. If you work for clients and they are in YOUR country, then using your native tongue from that region will be fine, but start spreading your wings and you will need to define the correct target market BEFORE you start posting.

    Love this blog and will be recommending this to others to read, I picked up some great content on here, thank you very much.

    Dave
    Freelance Writer and Web Master – Pretoria, South Africa

    1. Hi Dave,

      Thank you for the praise and glad it helped.

      You touch upon an extremely difficult aspect of international search engine optimisation with the mention of multiple hybrids and/or dialects. The landscape is already difficult, but catering to Pretoria visitors sounds exponentially mroe complex.

      Since it is unlikely worthwhile to target all languages, my best suggestion is to go after the ones that account for the largest percentage of the ‘web’ population. I am unfimaliar with the specifics of this region, but hoefully the above suggestion can narrorow your focus.

  27. Using simple words can really help increase your blog’s visitors locally and internationally. Even though English is used all over the world, people living in countries where English is not the first language differ comprehension levels. Keeping your words simple makes it easier for them to understand your blog posts.

  28. Hello Brent..
    Ya marketing a business is very important for all type of business.For international marketing , the strategy must be changed according country to country. Thanks for the nice tips you shared above.These are really helpful in marketing.

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