Multilingual SEO: targeting by country VS by language, which one to choose?

You are wishing to export your business outside Belgium? In this case, it implies developing your visibility on search engines abroad, and therefore, implementing a multilingual SEO strategy that will allow you to offer the right version of your site, in the right country and with the right associated language. Building a multilingual website is a complex project and it is easy to get lost in the multitude of existing approaches: should you opt for a country-specific extension? Which URL structure should you choose? How to be sure my website will be visible in the targeted countries and languages ?

In this article, we help you get a clear idea and pick the best solution   while taking your goas and resources into account.

Language targeting VS country targeting: what are we talking about?

In international SEO, we must distinguish between targeting by language and targeting by country. But what does it mean exactly ?

Let’s imagine that your website is in French. There are two possibilities:

1. You want to target all French-speaking countries, everywhere in the world: in this case, you offer the same services and/or products for all countries and you do not target users geographically. The main focus is on the target language: it is language targeting;
2. You only want to target French speakers in certain countries such as France and/or Canada (Quebec) for instance: in this case, it means that you probably provide exclusive offers to these markets. Your targeting is much more precise and brings a secondary difficulty, since you need both to target a language and one or several specific geographic areas. Here, we are talking about country targeting.

It is not uncommon for sites to target both a country and multiple languages. For example, you could target Belgium or Canada using the local languages of each country; i.e. French, Dutch and German for Belgium, and French and English for Canada. While it may seem ambitious, this is actually easily achievable because Google will naturally try and choose websites depending on the user’s location. On the other hand, language targeting without taking the country into account is more difficult: a local website will get the priority, and as we will see further, the same language can have several regional variations.

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The URL structure

When developing your multilingual SEO strategy, the domain you pick will have a big impact on the results. You have three options: the TLD (Top-Level-Domain), the subdomain, or the subdirectory. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

A domain name with a country extension (Top-Level-Domain)

website.be → Belgium

website.fr → France

website.us → United States

Creating a unique domain for each country you are targeting is the most direct way to tell Google which country your website is targeting.Moreover, the origin of your site will be clearly identifiable and reassuring for the visitors of the targeted country, who will be more inclined to trust you. Finally, if one of your domains is penalized by Google, the others will not be impacted.

However, this solution has some difficulties. The use of the Top-Level-Domain requires developing a very distinct seo strategy for each country. When targeting a new country, you will need to create a domain specific to that country, and you won’t be able to benefit from the authority of your already existing domain. Hosting and maintaining the website will also be more expensive. This solution requires the ability to reserve a domain name in all targeted countries and to ensure regular content updates on each version. In short, using one domain per country will prevent you from taking actions that will improve your SEO globally.

The TLD is often used by large companies where the products and services offered may be different from one market to another, and where each has its own strategy and teams. The TLD is often used for country targeting.

In summary:

Advantages

• Stronger advantage in the targeted country
• Increased user trust (and indirectly, Google's trust)
• Not affected by potential negative impacts from other domains

Disadvantages

• Requires a more complex infrastructure
• More expensive
• Does not benefit from the authority of domains in other countries

One subdomain per language or country (Subdomain)

be.website.com → Belgium

fr.website.com → France

us.website.com → United States

Another solution is to use sub-domains for each country in which you are present. Thanks to subdomains, you have the possibility to indicate the targeted country and the search engines will distinguish them as different websites. But it also means that the authority of these different sub-domains (or entities) will be less than if everything was gathered in one global authority, under one domain.

What is the fundamental difference with the first solution? This solution is easier to implement and less expensive. This is a good solution if your resources are more limited. But you’ll probably take longer to rank using a subdomain rather than a domain extension.

In summary:

Advantages

• Easier to set up than a TLD
• Not affected by potential negative impacts from other domains

Disadvantages

• Domain authority does not transfer to subdomains
• Only one server location is possible

One subdirectory per language or country

website.com/be/ → Belgium

website.com/fr/ → France

website.com/us/ → United States

With the subdirectory method, each language is integrated into a directory such as /be/, as you can see here above. All international versions of the website are attached to the main website and belong to the same domain. Thanks to this, you will save money, but also time, because whatever SEO actions you take will be reflected in each of the subdirectories. However, you will be forced to use a unique geographic server location.

In summary:

Advantages

• Easy to set up
• Cost-effective
• Authority spreads across all subdirectories

Disadvantages

• Limited customization
• Only one server location is possible

Which hosting to choose?

When choosing your hosting, consider the loading speed of your website, especially when you are developing a multilingual SEO strategy and targeting different countries. The further the server is from your user, the longer your web page will take to load, which means a poor user experience.

If you have chosen the domain name solution for each country, we advise you to rent the hosting through a server located in the country you want to target.

In the case of subdomains or subdirectories, the hosting is the same for all of them, so you will not be able to change the hosting per country. Is there a solution? Yes ! You can use CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) to store a static copy of your website in servers located around the world. Thus, a different copy of the site is delivered depending on the user’s country, the loading speed will be higher and the user experience will benefit.

Keyword Translation and Research

Translating your keywords isn't enough; you need to adapt your website content to the target market. For example, if your website sells 'Fries' in the US, you should use 'Chips' in British English. If you work in the legal sector, you must adjust to local regulations, and so on. Forget literal translation—opt for real content adaptation to your audience.

To achieve this, a thorough SEO analysis beforehand is essential to identify the right keywords for the target market.

When researching keywords, take the time to analyze different local SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). A website that performs well in the UK might struggle in the US.

Best Practices for Translation & Localization

• Conduct linguistic and cultural research before expanding internationally
• Adapt URLs to the target language—this reassures users and sends clear language signals to Google (beware of 404 errors!)
• Translate and adapt SEO tags
• Remember to translate metadata
• Obtain backlinks from the target country

Hreflang tags

Hreflang Tags: What They Are and How to Use Them

Hreflang tags are data that indicate to Google that a website has multiple language versions and help determine which version to display based on the user’s language and location. The goal is to provide the best possible content to users.

While implementing hreflang tags may seem straightforward, many errors can occur. Pay close attention when configuring them.

A hreflang tag consists of several elements. Let's take an example from this page:

<link rel="alternate" hrefLang="fr-FR" href="https://semactic.com/fr/blog/seo-multilingue-conseils"/>


• The attribute rel="alternate" indicates that this is an alternative version of a page.
• The tag hreflang="language_code" specifies which audience this version of the page is intended for.
• The attribute href="url" indicates the link to the relevant page.

Best Practices for Implementing Hreflang Tags

There are three main ways to implement hreflang tags:

1. In the <head> section of your site

Each page must include its own URL and its variations:

<link rel="alternate" hrefLang="fr-FR" href="https://semactic.com/fr/blog/seo-multilingue-conseils"/>
<link rel="alternate" hrefLang="en-US" href="https://semactic.com/en/blog/multilingual-seo-targeting-by-country-vs-by-language-which-one-to-choose"/>


Pros:

• Easy to implement
• Readable directly in the code
• Allows fine-grained targeting

Cons:

• Increases HTML file size
• Less practical for websites with many language variations

2. Using dedicated sitemaps for each language/country version

Each sitemap should include a <url> <loc> element for every URL, along with <xhtml:link> listing all variations:

<url>
 <loc>https://semactic.com/en</loc>
 <xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="https://semactic.com/en" hreflang="en-US"/>
 <xhtml:link rel="alternate" href="https://semactic.com/fr" hreflang="fr-FR"/>
</url>


Pros:

• Centralized in a single file
• Easier to manage for large sites with many language variations

Cons:

• Requires regular sitemap updates
• More complex to implement

3. Using HTTP headers for non-HTML resources

For non-HTML files (PDF, DOC, etc.), the HTTP header allows serving equivalent files in different languages:

<https://semactic.com/en/document.pdf>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="en-US"

<https://semactic.com/fr/document.pdf>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="fr-FR"

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Once you have chosen your implementation method, index the original page and its variations. Be very careful not to make any errors in the language or country code...

Here are some examples of variations:

• For French-speaking Belgium: fr-BE
• For German-speaking Belgium: de-BE
• For Dutch-speaking Belgium: nl-BE
• For France: fr-FR
• For the United Kingdom: en-GB
• For the United States: en-US

Country codes alone do not work: you must target either a language or a language + country. For example, "BE" alone would not work.

You can also target people speaking a specific language in a country where it is not a national language. For instance:

• To target English speakers in France: en-FR

To cover all linguistic versions of the site: hreflang tags must be reciprocal. If a page exists in both French and English, the French version must link to the English version, and vice versa. Without this, the tags will be ignored by bots.

What should you do when the user's profile does not match any linguistic version of the site? This is the role of the hreflang "x-default" tag.

Here is an example with this article:

<link rel="alternate" hrefLang="x-default" href="https://semactic.com/en/blog/multilingual-seo-targeting-by-country-vs-by-language-which-one-to-choose"/>


In this case, the hreflang tag indicates "x-default" and provides the default URL version to be shown to the user—the English version—if the site does not have a dedicated linguistic version to offer.

Be careful, hreflang tags should always refer to the current page. You should not mention another page. In the example above, there would be no point in mentioning Semactic's homepage in the hreflang tags of this article page.

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To sum up, which solution should you choose?

From a purely SEO point of view, a domain name with a country extension is the ideal solution. However, its implementation is much more complex.

On the practical side, we advise you to use subdirectories for ease of implementation. This way, you will be able to develop your multilingual SEO strategy more quickly and without too much difficulty.

But beyond this technical aspect, don’t forget that the most important thing is to offer the most appropriate response to your users, wherever they are in the world. So remember to adapt your keywords and translations according to the countries you are in. Queries can be different from one market to another, and you may not be targeting the right keyword if you don’t perform a separate semantic analysis for each of them. To give you a simple example, we use the word 'flat' in the US, but the word 'apartment' in the UK.

Also consider whether the search intent is still the same in each market or not, and adapt your content accordingly. An analysis of the SERP in each market is therefore essential before posting content.

Need advice on developing your multilingual SEO strategy? Contact the Semactic team.

We are always happy to discuss SEO!