Rank in every country your customers are in

International SEO pricing depends on how many markets and languages you are targeting and the size of your existing site. Initial audits and architecture work typically range from £1,200-£3,500. Ongoing monthly retainers start from £800-£2,500 depending on the number of active locales. We offer a free audit so you can see your current international setup and what needs to change before committing to any work.

In established markets where you already have some presence, technical fixes like correcting hreflang errors can improve visibility within 4-8 weeks. Entering entirely new markets typically takes 3-6 months to see meaningful search visibility, as Google needs to crawl, index, and evaluate your new locale pages before surfacing them prominently.

Hreflang is an HTML attribute that tells search engines which language and country each version of your page is intended for. Without it, Google may show the wrong language version to users in the wrong country, or treat your locale pages as duplicate content and suppress them all. Correct hreflang implementation is the single most important technical element of any international site.

Each approach has trade-offs. ccTLDs (kaufast.de, kaufast.fr) give the strongest geo-targeting signal but require building authority on separate domains. Subdirectories (kaufast.com/de/) consolidate all authority on one domain and are easiest to manage. Subdomains (de.kaufast.com) split authority and offer less geo-targeting benefit than ccTLDs. For most growing businesses, subdirectories offer the best balance of authority, manageability, and geo-targeting.

It can — if hreflang is implemented incorrectly or if translated pages share too much identical content. Google's hreflang system is specifically designed to avoid penalising international sites for this, but only when implemented correctly. We audit your setup to ensure hreflang signals are consistent across HTML, sitemaps, and HTTP headers.

Geo-targeting tells search engines which country a particular page or site section is intended for. It can be set via Google Search Console's international targeting tool, through hreflang attributes, through ccTLD choice, and through server IP location. We configure all the relevant signals consistently to maximise the strength of your country targeting.

Ranking locally in multiple countries requires a combination of technically correct locale targeting, content in the local language with locally relevant search terms, and in some cases, local link building in each target market. For businesses with physical locations in multiple countries, local SEO in each location adds a further layer of visibility through Google Maps and local search results.

Translation converts your content from one language to another. Localisation adapts it to the specific market — using the search terms people in that country actually use, reflecting local cultural context, citing locally relevant examples, and adapting calls to action to local conventions. For SEO purposes, localisation consistently outperforms literal translation because it matches the actual search intent of users in each market.

AI translation has improved dramatically and can be a useful starting point, but it rarely produces content that ranks well without further optimisation. AI translations often fail to preserve search term intent, use awkward phrasing that native speakers would not use, and miss culturally specific nuances. We use AI tools as part of a workflow that includes native-language review and SEO-specific adaptation.

The x-default hreflang value identifies which page to show users whose language or country is not specifically targeted by any other locale. It is typically set to your primary or language-selection page. Without x-default, users from non-targeted markets may see an unexpected locale, and some search engines may flag your hreflang implementation as incomplete.

Google Search Console's international targeting report shows you which country or language targeting Google has detected for each section of your site, flags hreflang errors, and allows you to set a target country for subdirectory-based or subdomain-based sites. We use it as one of several validation tools to confirm that your international targeting is working as intended.

You do not need completely separate sitemaps, but your sitemaps do need to include hreflang annotations so search engines can discover all locale versions of each page. We typically structure international sitemaps either as a single annotated sitemap or a sitemap index with per-locale files — whichever is most maintainable given your site architecture.

Countries that share a language still need distinct locale targeting — es-ES for Spain and es-MX for Mexico. Beyond the technical targeting, genuinely different content for each market is important. Identical content across two locales, even with correct hreflang, risks one version being suppressed. We create meaningfully differentiated content for each market to avoid this.

An international migration — particularly moving content to new URLs — requires careful planning to preserve rankings. We handle this with a comprehensive redirect mapping, phased migration approach, and post-migration monitoring. Done well, rankings in existing markets are preserved and new markets begin building visibility from a strong foundation rather than starting from zero.

We identify priority markets by analysing where your site already receives international traffic without specific targeting, which markets have strong search demand for your services, how competitive those markets are, and what the commercial opportunity looks like. This data-driven approach ensures you invest in markets with the highest potential return.