Domain and URL strategy
ccTLD, subdomain or subdirectory chosen against your resources, not fashion.
Search behaviour does not translate. The word a British buyer uses is not the word an American buyer uses, the German market may search a compound noun that has no direct equivalent, and the intent behind the same phrase can differ entirely by market. On top of that sits the technical layer: which domain structure, which hreflang tags, which market gets which currency and payment option.
We start with the structure decision, because it is expensive to reverse: subdirectories, subdomains or country domains, judged against your resources and market priority. Then per-market keyword research, localised content written by people who use the language commercially, and hreflang implemented and validated rather than assumed.
Search behaviour does not translate
The word a British buyer uses is not the word an American buyer uses. German compounds have no one-to-one English equivalent. In several markets a category is searched in English by professionals and in the local language by consumers. And the same phrase can carry entirely different intent across two countries.
Translating your English keyword list is therefore the most common and most expensive mistake in international SEO. Demand has to be researched natively, market by market, before any content is commissioned.
The structure decision you cannot cheaply reverse
Country domains, subdomains or subdirectories. Country domains signal locality strongly and are sometimes required for trust or law, but each one starts from zero authority and needs its own maintenance. Subdirectories inherit the authority of the main domain and cost far less to run, which makes them the right answer for most businesses.
We make this recommendation against your actual resources (team size, content budget, legal requirements, payment and logistics reality), not against a preference. Getting it wrong is a migration project later.
Hreflang, implemented and then verified
Hreflang is simple in principle and wrong in practice on most sites we audit: missing return tags, incorrect region codes, pages pointing at redirects or at noindexed URLs, or an x-default that does not exist.
We implement it and then validate it after deployment, because an unverified hreflang setup usually means the wrong country version is being served to the wrong market, which is worse than not having one.
Localisation is more than language
Currency, units, date formats, payment methods, delivery expectations, regulatory disclosures, phone number formats and the examples used in copy all signal whether a page was written for that market or merely aimed at it. Buyers notice quickly.
We work with native writers for commercial pages, and we prioritise: two markets done properly outperform six done thinly, in every measurement we have ever taken.