When marketing to global targets, we need to stretch our keyword research skills and work with someone who is a native or expert in the language and customs of the target region. Even within the U.S., keywords change by region in American English. In the global market, language and culture makes keyword research very complex.
Tips for Researching Global Keywords
Although the technique are much the same, considerations for global keywords are expanded:
- Hire an expert in the country or region’s language and customs
- Learn how your product or service impacts people in this part of the world
- Research the local calendar, special days and holidays
- Focus on user experience for your product in that region
- Create personas for each target region that you plan to market to
- Don’t assume anything! That only gets you into trouble
- Dig deeply into the value system of the local area
- Observe how your competitors interact with people in this part of the world
- Compare pricing and how that impacts the value of your product to local consumers
- Use keyword research tools that are made for global search
When doing keyword research for global SEO, it is important to start literally from scratch. While you may think you know people, when in other cultures, your assumptions are likely wrong. Identifying cultural characteristics, how people live in the region and what is important to them will help identify keywords. Knowing their language well enough to understand expressions, jokes and nuances of the language will give you depth into their cultural biases. Study whether there is already traffic coming to your site or your competitor’s sites from that region of the world to determine if it is worth the investment in keyword research.