Furthermore, during the first seven months of that year, exports amounted to 215.6 billion euros, another historic high. Both figures are a clear example of the capacity and strength of Spanish exports, which have become a new business model that allows for increasing the client portfolio and diversifying markets and products, and therefore improving the strength and profitability of a business. But how do we implement a successful international strategy?
Keys to a good internationalization strategy
Considering that internationalization is key to the physician phone number list growth of companies in an increasingly globalized world, opening up new markets and opportunities is essential to generate more business. But, when it comes to getting down to work, there are two aspects to take into account:
1. The importance of digitalization
Innovation , technology, branding and digitalisation are key when it comes to internationalising a company abroad. This is stated in the manifesto of the Strategy for the Internationalisation of the Spanish Economy 2017-2027 , prepared by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness.
In this sense, as the strategy states: “in order to successfully face the internationalization of companies, it is also essential to make a disruptive turn to enter the digital world , not only because opportunities to create new businesses are opening up, but also because traditional, more mature businesses are also forced to reformulate themselves . ” Thus, new technologies are the driving force that must guide the opening of new markets.
2. Search engine positioning
Organic traffic from search engines is considered one of the main sources of visits to the website, so it is essential in a good internationalization strategy. Getting new clients in new countries is possible thanks to international SEO positioning , which has (if done well) great potential to open new markets. In addition, it is a scalable strategy, which adapts to the efforts already being made in organic positioning at a local level and which has a positive cost-result ratio, with a high return on investment (ROI).
A good international SEO strategy must combine three key ingredients to be successful: strategy, planning and attention to detail . Of course, we must keep in mind that it does not offer results overnight, but rather it is a job that requires continuous and prolonged effort over time.
3. Deep knowledge of the market
We must bear in mind that it is not useful to replicate the strategy that we are carrying out in our country in other countries and languages, since each territory has considerations and specifications that make it unique. Therefore, we must pay special attention to:
1. Defining target languages and countries. At a digital level, we must ask ourselves the following questions: am I getting visits from other countries, languages and even conversions? Which countries are more profitable? And which are the most feasible for expanding my business? In this sense, we must determine, before starting, whether we are targeting languages (regardless of the countries in which they are spoken) or a language-country combination, since our strategy may vary. To do this, we must ask ourselves if our product is the same in all countries, since this can guide us in the answer. For example, if I sell some products in the United States and others in Great Britain, the strategy should be language-country, with differentiated content and products even if the searches are in English.
2. Act locally. Each market, country, region, city, etc., is different and therefore we must fully understand the idiosyncrasies that surround them. In this way, at a digital level, navigation, content, headers, meta descriptions, titles and a long etcetera must always be thought out, designed and developed to meet the needs of each market. In this sense, it is vital to carry out detailed research on the keywords used for your product or service, since thanks to the correct vocabulary, we will be able to target and reach those new users and potential customers.
3. Consider the search engine. You need to consider which country you are targeting and which search engine it uses, as Google does not have a monopoly on the entire world. Countries like China and Russia use other ones, and if you are targeting them, it is vital to know these search engines and how they manage their positioning.
4. Know your competition. Just as you study the competition at a local level, when it comes to investing in the internationalisation of a business, you must know and study the local competition very closely, since you will want to position yourself above them in order to get new clients.
4. Have a well-defined strategy for each country
Once we have developed the entire market study and have that in-depth knowledge of the language, searches, competition, etc., it is key to develop a specific strategy for content and promotion of the same. Our objective is to increase and grow our relevance and notoriety in that country, so that the search engines take us into account and we appear in the top positions, so that we manage to generate more and better business.
Of course, as with any other strategy, it is very necessary to always monitor the results and see if the company and our service/product are positioning themselves correctly in order to continue working towards improving and facing local competition.
5 Benefits of having an internationalization strategy
1. Increased sales . Obviously, one of the main advantages is that by opening new markets, the client portfolio is expanded and, consequently, the possibilities of having more income and turnover increase.
2. Greater competitiveness. As a general rule, internationalized companies are more competitive, as they have higher productivity rates and greater business volume.
3. Risk reduction. By investing in internationalisation, the company's risk is diversified, as it does not depend directly on a single market.
4. Greater experience. You gain more experience from your customers and competitors, giving you an advantage over your competitors, both local and foreign. As the saying goes, “experience is a degree.”
5. Greater prestige. Finally, we cannot forget that international companies tend to have more prestige as they are associated with positive values such as determination, strength or courage.
In short, the internationalization of a business must be approached from two different but closely linked SEO perspectives, since the success of the project will depend on correctly addressing both.
On the one hand, we have the strategic vision . Some of the most important decisions to make here are: which markets to prioritize based on the profitability of my current business, what potential exists in other countries, what is the web structure that best meets the needs of my project, how to focus the content on the web, good keyword research, etc. Likewise, in this first phase of analysis it is our obligation as consultants to be aware of the total resources available to make these decisions.
On the other hand, the more technical part . This involves implementations such as the Alternate/Hreflangs tag market, HTML Lang or language/country change suggestions to the user, but also good “local work” in optimizing on-page SEO factors and actions to obtain geolocalized links for each market.
