What international SEO covers
A UK company that starts selling in Germany, the Netherlands or the US faces three questions that domestic SEO never asks:
- Structure: where does each market's content live? A separate country domain, a subdomain or a folder on your main site?
- Signals: how do you tell search engines which version is meant for whom, so a German buyer sees German pages and an American buyer sees US pricing?
- Substance: what does each market actually search for, in which words, and what does it need to see before it buys?
Getting the first two wrong means the wrong version ranks or versions compete. Getting the third wrong is quieter and costlier: a technically perfect site that nobody in the new market searches for. International SEO sits on top of everything in our SEO agency work and multiplies it by the number of markets.
We run a multi-market website ourselves
Kaptein Beacon is based in the Netherlands and serves companies in the Netherlands, Flanders, Canada and the UK from one website. Each market has its own section, its own keyword research and its own pages written for how buyers there search and decide. These UK pages are written for UK companies, not adapted from other versions.
That gives us first-hand experience of the practical questions: which pages need an equivalent in every market and which do not, how to keep hreflang accurate when markets have different page sets, and how to stop versions competing with each other. We test our methods on our own sites before recommending them.
Where UK companies expand, and what changes
Ireland
The same language, but a different currency, different VAT, different delivery terms since Brexit and a buyer who does not want to be treated as part of the UK. A separate Irish version is often worth it once Ireland is a real market.
The EU
Germany, the Netherlands, France and the Nordic countries each need content in their own language, researched by native speakers. Customs, duties and delivery times after Brexit also shape what buyers need to read on product, shipping and returns pages.
The United States
English, but not British English. Spelling, vocabulary (holiday and vacation, trainers and sneakers, VAT and sales tax), prices in dollars and different buying expectations all affect both rankings and conversion. A British page shown to American buyers often reads as foreign.
ccTLD, subdomain or subfolder
Google explains the options and their trade-offs in its documentation on managing multi-regional and multilingual sites. In summary:
| Structure | Example | Advantages | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Country domain (ccTLD) | example.de, example.ie | Clearest country signal; local trust | Each domain builds authority separately; higher cost and admin |
| Subdomain | de.example.com | Easy to host separately | Often treated more like a separate site; weaker shared authority |
| Subfolder | example.com/de/ | Shares the main domain's authority; one site to maintain | Weaker country signal on its own; needs careful hreflang |
| URL parameters | example.com?lang=de | Simple to build | Not recommended by Google; hard to target and to measure |
Which structure suits a UK company?
For most UK companies entering their first few markets, subfolders on a generic domain are the most practical choice. Authority built by the UK site benefits the new versions, there is one platform to maintain, and reporting stays in one place. If your main domain is a .co.uk, moving international content to a .com with folders per market is often worth considering, because a .co.uk domain signals the UK specifically.
Country domains make sense when you have a strong local operation, separate teams or legal entities, or a market where buyers clearly prefer a local domain.
Changing structure later means a migration, with all the risk that brings. That is why we settle it before building, ideally alongside any website redesign.
Hreflang: telling search engines which version is for whom
Hreflang annotations tell Google that a set of pages are equivalents for different languages or regions. Google's guidance on localised versions of your pages sets out the rules. The ones that go wrong most often:
- The UK code is en-GB, not en-UK. Region codes follow the ISO standard, where the United Kingdom is GB. An en-UK annotation is invalid and ignored.
- Every annotation must be returned. If the British page points to the German page, the German page must point back. One-way annotations are ignored.
- Each page references itself as well as its alternatives.
- Only point to indexable pages, not to redirects, noindexed pages or pages whose canonical points elsewhere.
- Use x-default for a language selector or a fallback version for visitors outside your defined markets.
Localise, do not just translate
A translated page answers the questions British buyers asked in the words British buyers used. A localised page starts from fresh keyword research in the target market, uses the terms local buyers search for, reflects local prices, delivery, payment methods and regulations, and shows trust signals that market recognises. Sometimes a market needs pages your UK site does not have, and sometimes it needs fewer.
We set up the keyword research, structure and briefs per market; content in other languages is written by native speakers, either your own or writers we choose together. For English-language markets, our SEO content writing adapts spelling, vocabulary and examples to each audience. Online shops have extra work around product data, currencies and feeds, covered in ecommerce SEO.
Technical pitfalls to avoid
- Automatic redirects by IP address. Google's crawler mostly visits from the US, so forced redirects can stop it from seeing your other versions. Offer a clear language and country selector instead, and remember the choice.
- Canonical tags pointing across languages. A German page should not declare the English page canonical, or it may drop out of the index.
- Mixed-language pages. Navigation in English and content in German confuses buyers and search engines alike.
- Duplicated English versions without differences. Separate UK, Irish and US pages work best when prices, terms and content genuinely differ.
- Relying on retired settings. The country-targeting setting in Search Console has been retired, so structure and hreflang now carry the signal.
How we approach an international SEO project
- Market choice and research: which markets justify their own version, and what buyers there search for.
- Structure decision: domain, folders and the page set per market.
- Technical set-up: hreflang, sitemaps, canonicals, selectors and measurement per market.
- Content: localised pages for each market, starting with the highest-value services or categories.
- Authority: links and mentions from sources in each market.
- Measurement: rankings, traffic and enquiries per country, reviewed separately.
If you are comparing global SEO agencies, ask who researches and writes for each market and how hreflang is maintained as the site grows. We start with a paid strategy session at £225 excluding VAT, followed by a fixed price for a fixed scope if we take the project on.