How to Master Ecommerce SEO Localization

Cross-border commerce is a powerful growth strategy for fashion brands. With greater reach comes the potential for revenue growth, a more diverse customer base, and better margins. Expanding into new markets also gives brands the opportunity to maximize profits by selling seasonal collections in both hemispheres. 

But in a fiercely competitive space, fashion brands can struggle to tap into new markets and navigate cross-border commerce, particularly where localization is involved. Apart from having a customized storefront with local pricing, languages, currencies, and sizing charts, brands also need to leverage SEO localization to increase visibility in local search results, and drive traffic to their digital flagship.

There are many strategies that brands can take when it comes to SEO localization. Because of this, SEO and editorial teams can often knock heads when it comes to determining the best approach for impactful, localized SEO.

So what do fashion brands really need to know about SEO localization? We’ve enlisted the expertise of Jonathan Selander, CEO of Made People - an artisan ecommerce agency working with strategy, design, and technical development for brands like Eton Shirts, Asket and Stronger. In this blog, we’ll look at how SEO and UX intersect in ecommerce, and how composable commerce enables brands to look beyond translations to achieve true localization.

Localization is more than translations

While language translation is a crucial part of the localization process, it’s just one piece of a much bigger puzzle. True localization is about adapting the overall user experience by addressing the cultural nuances and preferences of a target market. So having unique content on product description pages (PDPs) that complements the communication style of a particular audience can boost visibility through search, while ensuring a top-notch UX. 

For instance, in Japanese culture, indirect communication is commonplace. If you look at Japanese websites, there’s typically a lot of content to consume, with a focus on high-context. The opposite is true for the Western world - excessive content doesn’t resonate with US or Australian audiences, so it’s better to stick with clear and concise PDPs. These communication preferences need to be factored into a brand's SEO strategy. 

Market-based, country-based, or language-based URLs?

Creating super-niche content for PDPs and editorial is great for providing a UX that builds trust in new markets. But it also causes somewhat of a dilemma for brands when deciding what the best URL structure should be for their site. 

Google is language-based, whereas ecommerce is market-based, and when you throw localization into the mix, URLs can get real complicated, real quick. Jonathan explains the different approaches that brands can take (and the pros and cons for each):

Language-based URLs

The best way to structure URLs for Google is by language (e.g. /en for English, /es for Spanish, /de for German, etc). SEO teams tend to champion language-based URLs, because Google recommends ‘using different URLs for each language version of a page’. However, the challenge with language-based URLs is that brands generally have multiple markets that fall under one language, such as the US, UK, and Australia. These markets all have different sales and promotions, different stock, and different currencies, meaning that a single English store won’t do the job.

Country-based URLs

Another approach is to use country-based URLs. Editors love the country code approach, because it enables them to create very specific, localized content for any country. However, this doesn’t necessarily work best for SEO because Google wants to have as few URLs as possible, and if a brand uses country-based URLs, it could mean having a lot of duplicate content, as well as possible issues with caching. 

Market-based urls

A good compromise for fashion brands is to use market-based URLs. Brands may have two key markets (EU and Rest of World), which could share pricing and stock, but don’t necessarily share content. In this case, brands can use the URL structure where the prefix is the country code, rather than the market, and it’s still possible to create unique content for each country through the front-end. 

While market-based URLs aren’t as efficient for language-based URLs in terms of what Google is looking for, it’s a good trade-off between SEO teams and editors, while keeping UX as a high-priority.

Finding the middle ground with a ‘global-first’ approach

SEO localization is undeniably a huge undertaking - one that can’t be done overnight. That’s why Jonathan recommends that fashion brands take a ‘global-first’ approach to SEO as a way to facilitate localization when expanding into new markets.

“Everything you do from an SEO perspective should be for a global audience. Then, you should be able to drill down to localize for different markets. SEO localization is difficult to achieve without the right technology in place, but it makes you stand out if you do it right. The key is to set global-first as the default for your URLs and content, and from there you can get more specific.”

Applying business logic to SEO localization

In order for fashion brands to display content in the most efficient way, Jonathan recommends automating SEO-specific business logic in the front-end, along with choosing a URL structure that supports scalability. 

For instance, you could have a workflow that requires a certain amount of key content to achieve a baseline level of impact for each new market a brand wants to expand into. This makes SEO localization far more manageable from an editorial perspective - rather than being an enormous task, it’s achievable through smarter workflows. Business logic can also be used to determine how everything is rendered in the front-end.

Compromise is inevitable

While you can apply all of the best practices known to man to SEO localization, the bottom line is that brands need to determine their own priorities between playing to Google’s preferences, and focusing on UX. 

Jonathan says that there’s no ideal way to approach URL structure for ecommerce that ticks all of the boxes. How we send signals to search engines and how ecommerce works are too far apart for brands to actually be able to do everything, everywhere, all of the time. However, composable commerce makes it much easier for fashion brands to narrow the gap:

“Composable commerce enables you to fill in the localization gaps. With a headless approach you can always be creative. Whereas with end to end, and everything is already prebuilt, it’s difficult to localize in a holistic way.”

Achieving true localization with composable commerce

For many fashion brands, localization begins and ends with language translations, due to limitations within their tech stack.

However, the functionality of Centra paired with a headless CMS enables brands to localize SEO with as few compromises as possible. Rather than having to create multiple storefronts for each market, brands can serve a localized experience from one back end.  

Language and currency flexibility

Centra offers unlimited languages and freedom in setting up the experience. You can choose to pre-set market/language/currency combinations and freeze them or allow your customers to freely choose preferred settings. US and UK English can also be handled separately.

Centra automatically creates product pages optimized for Google’s local domain. Each product and category page is available in the shopper’s selected language, with dedicated content and local currencies. Meanwhile, the front-end experience can be molded to suit local markets and their cultural preferences. 

Same language, different markets

Centra allows brands to lean into cultural nuances for different markets that fall under one language without needing to create duplicate site structures. For instance, This is something that you can achieve with a headless approach whereas with traditional platforms, set parameters mean that you are often forced to stick with an old-school approach to localization. 

Localized view on Google

Centra makes sure that Google snippets are localized. International customers looking for your products through the search engine will always see a localized description, price, and reviews.

Want to learn more about cross-border commerce with Centra? Find out how you can tailor your store to every market - book a demo now.