Localizing carried out proper can ship critical worth. Executed incorrect, it turns into a black gap of assets with little to point out for it.
That will help you get it proper, I turned to somebody who’s been deep within the trenches of localization: Erik Sarissky, Head of Worldwide Advertising and Product Localization at Ahrefs.
Erik has quadrupled natural site visitors to Ahrefs’ Spanish weblog in 18 months, going from 5.4k visits to over 22k visits. Along with worldwide advertising and marketing actions, he oversees localization efforts throughout 14 languages and continually evaluates new potential languages.
Certainly one of his most eye-opening wins? After switching from Continental Portuguese to Brazilian Portuguese, Ahrefs noticed an explosion in site visitors to its native content material and touchdown pages.
So I requested Erik if he’d be prepared to share how he did it—and what he’s discovered alongside the method.
Whether or not you’re contemplating increasing into neighboring markets or exploring development far-off, this information breaks down what really strikes the needle in localization search engine marketing and what’s simply noise.
Translation is a step. Localization is a system. Let’s break it down.
- Translation is about changing phrases from one language to a different, preserving that means and construction. Consider it like Google Translate, however carried out by a human. It’s correct, however literal.
- Localization adapts examples, references, idioms, visuals, and even the technique to really feel pure within the goal market. It’s the distinction between being a vacationer who memorized a phrasebook and somebody who really grew up there.
- Transcreation takes issues additional. It adapts the tone, emotion, and intent of a message so it hits residence in a special tradition. A intelligent English tagline may want fully totally different wording to really feel intelligent in Spanish. It’s much less about constancy, extra about resonance.
In search engine marketing, this distinction issues. You’re not simply translating copy—you’re aligning with how individuals search, what they care about, and the issues they’re making an attempt to resolve.
“We already had good content material in English,” Erik advised me, “however there was no clear technique. We had been simply translating the whole lot with out contemplating localization or key phrase analysis. I knew that by fixing this, site visitors would develop.”
And it did. That’s why a translation-only strategy typically falls flat. It misses the nuance, and with it, the site visitors.
We have to begin with a wake-up name: localization is not optionally available, as a result of Google may do it for you.
Since early 2025, Google has been more and more translating English content material into native languages and serving it underneath a Google-owned subdomain (e.g., translate.google.com). This proxy translation exhibits up in AI Overviews, Featured Snippets, and even the common 10 blue hyperlinks.
The end result? Customers by no means land in your web site. As an alternative, they view a Google-hosted model of your content material, and any clicks or hyperlink fairness are attributed to Google, not you.
“For those who don’t localize your content material, Google may do it for you—and take the site visitors.”
If you wish to see if Google is auto-translating your web site pages, you should use Search Console and Ahrefs to search out out:
In Google Search Console, go to Search Look → Translated Pages.
In Ahrefs’ Web site Explorer, open the highest pages report for translate.google.com and apply a “URL accommodates” filter, getting into your area title.
The repair? Localize your content material—even minimally. A 300-word native-language model can typically be sufficient to exchange Google’s proxy web page within the SERPs.
Attempting to localize for everybody directly is a recipe for burnout. As an alternative, do what Erik did: select markets primarily based on metrics.
“We base selections on billing, interface language use, model searches, GDP, and tech adoption. Indonesia shocked us—it’s probably the greatest when it comes to billing.”
Spanish was the pilot. We’ve been fairly energetic in Spanish-speaking nations, organizing all kinds of meetups and collaborating in conferences in Spain and Latin America.
Then, Japan as a result of we had been already fairly in style there (extra in style than our opponents, if I’m not mistaken). Indonesia emerged as an sudden champion, so it’s going to be subsequent in line. Whenever you let information lead, you make investments smarter and develop sooner.
Have a look at historic demand and potential future upside. Markets with fast-growing tech ecosystems or altering search habits (like South Korea’s transfer from Naver to Google) could also be extra ripe than they appear.
That brings us to native key phrase analysis.
What works in English received’t at all times work in Spanish, Japanese, or German. Localized search engine marketing begins with native intent.
“We verify site visitors potential, enterprise potential, and assign priorities. Then we resolve if it’s price adapting or writing from scratch.”
Right here’s what Erik’s referring to.
In Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer, you possibly can verify site visitors potential individually for over 200 nations. By the best way, site visitors potential is the entire quantity of natural site visitors that the #1 rating web page to your goal key phrase will get from all of the key phrases it ranks for.
For those who skip this step, you threat optimizing for key phrases nobody searches—or worse, competing on phrases you possibly can’t win.
To make issues simpler, you can begin along with your native language, add key phrases to an inventory, and let AI present related translations with search engine marketing metrics proper contained in the device.
Right here’s a pattern end result that immediately dispels doubts in regards to the appropriate translation.
Subsequent, Erik makes use of Ahrefs’ enterprise potential framework to prioritize key phrases. We rating each advertising and marketing concept from 0 to three primarily based on how important our product is to the issue.
“For those who’re simply translating the whole lot, you’re losing time,” Erisk advised me bluntly. The smarter strategy is to decide on what deserves translation and determine when creating from scratch is a greater funding.
For instance, Erik’s group begins by translating information research straight, as that is essentially the most environment friendly technique. They then create supplementary micro-studies inside these translated items so as to add native relevance.
“We created a workflow to evaluate which articles to translate and when to jot down new ones. Generally translations don’t make an excessive amount of sense—it’s higher to jot down 100% new articles primarily based on native key phrase analysis.”
Earlier than you even begin localizing, step again and map your targets. Contemplate content material age, market relevance, and search demand. Prioritize items that may carry out, not simply those you’ve lately revealed.
A superb start line would to take a look at the site visitors and hyperlinks a chunk of content material will get. Simply plug within the URL of the web page in Ahrefs’ Web site Explorer and take a look at these numbers within the Overview report.
To see which pages carry out the perfect, head on to the Prime pages (you possibly can moreover filter by nation) and Greatest by hyperlink report.
In case your localized content material reads like a careless translation, it received’t join. To actually resonate, it must really feel prefer it was written by somebody who lives in that market.
“Once I took over the Spanish weblog, we began utilizing extra examples from the Spanish market and created our personal case research.”
So, the recommendation right here is: use native case research, adapt examples to suit regional norms, and reference the platforms your viewers really makes use of.
Right here’s Erik displaying the outcomes of localizing a information to affiliate internet marketing through the use of native examples:
And that is an instance of how they created a wholly new article about advertising and marketing guide suggestions by asking Spanish audio system for his or her favorites, quite than merely translating the present English model.
The outcomes:
Erik’s group lately began utilizing this strategy in Japan as nicely. Right here’s an instance of a case research they created that includes a Japanese company’s success with Ahrefs.
However content material relevance isn’t nearly utilizing native examples; it’s additionally about voice and opinion. In line with Erik:
“Someday this will likely be totally changed by AI, and what’s going to matter will likely be opinionated content material by native authors.”
That includes native authors not solely boosts authenticity but additionally social attain.
And right here’s the bonus: content material like this naturally earns hyperlinks.
“We don’t comply with any particular strategy [to link building]. These native hyperlinks come naturally, and Web site Explorer exhibits regular development.”
When your weblog content material feels prefer it was created for the native viewers—not simply translated at them—it builds belief. That belief turns into shares, mentions, and backlinks. Put money into content material high quality and cultural connection. Native hyperlinks will come, as you possibly can see within the screenshot under.
Erik shared a case research displaying how republishing articles can restore and even enhance search efficiency, particularly when rankings have plateaued or declined over time.
Search engines like google and yahoo typically favor freshness, and updating alerts that your content material remains to be related.
What to give attention to when republishing:
- Replace outdated info. Assessment stats, examples, screenshots, and hyperlinks. Bringing the whole lot updated exhibits Google (and customers) that the article remains to be related and reliable.
- Enhance inside linking. Use Ahrefs’ inside hyperlink alternatives function to attach your up to date article to related content material throughout your web site. This helps distribute hyperlink fairness and improves crawlability.
- Use Folks Additionally Ask as a content material information. Test Google’s “Folks Additionally Ask” part to search out widespread associated questions and add solutions to your article. This makes it extra complete and aligned with search intent.
- Improve with visuals and information. Add infographics, charts, or up to date statistics to help your factors. This makes content material extra participating and may enhance dwell time and backlink potential.
AI can velocity up the fundamentals, but it surely nonetheless stumbles on nuance. You’ll want people to iron out the main points.
We carried out an AI pre-translation system primarily based on a longtime glossary, prompts, and translation reminiscence, since AI has the potential to be taught and self-improve.
He added:
“The [Spanish] Weblog is run by people for now, however we’re additionally testing AI pulling articles, translating them, and importing to blogs.”
Begin with automation the place it helps most—bulk translation, glossary administration. However at all times go away room for human QA.
You want editors who can spot format glitches, catch damaged hyperlinks, and flag mistranslations or cultural mismatches that AI may miss. Construct in clear suggestions loops between translators, reviewers, and content material homeowners to verify high quality improves with each iteration.
By the best way, this is applicable to all kinds of content material localization, together with product UI. For instance, we had a humorous mistranslation in Ahrefs’ interface for fairly a while. As an alternative of “don’t examine”, it mentioned “don’t purchase”.
Fashion guides and glossaries are essentially the most thrilling, however they’re your finest protection towards inconsistency.
“Glossary, fashion information, SOPs… that’s how we guarantee consistency.”
That is additionally the proper time to suppose extra strategically and resolve issues like whether or not we need to translate product names and unique ideas.
To keep up high quality throughout languages, doc the whole lot. Create a shared glossary of key phrases, set up tone and formatting guidelines, and construct an editorial fashion information that translators and native writers can depend on. Erik shared how each of these paperwork search for Ahrefs.
Retaining each model aligned with the supply? That’s a serious ache. However there’s hope.
Erik discovered a cool use case for the Content material modifications function in Ahrefs’ Web site Explorer (you could find it within the Overview report). If the English weblog has made any modifications to the content material that resulted in additional site visitors, he’ll see precisely what it was. Then he can simply repeat the identical factor for localized variations.
Behind each profitable localization technique is a stable technical basis. That features getting hreflang tags proper, adjusting inside linking buildings, and making certain localized media recordsdata don’t break the consumer expertise.
- Select your URL construction properly: Subfolders like “instance.com/fr/” are usually higher for search engine marketing as a result of they consolidate all of your area authority in a single place. Nation-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) like “instance.fr” can really feel extra native and reliable to customers in that nation, however break up your search engine marketing efforts throughout a number of domains, making it more durable to rank globally.
Don’t redirect customers by IP: Routinely sending guests to a localized model of your web site primarily based on their IP can confuse Googlebot, which crawls principally from the US. Which means your localized content material won’t even get listed. As an alternative, present a language or area switcher so customers can select their most popular model with out being pressured to do so. - Contemplate a CDN: A content material supply community helps serve your web site from servers nearer to the consumer, which reduces loading instances—particularly vital for worldwide audiences. Quick ship higher consumer experiences and this counts for Google, so this small infrastructure change can have huge efficiency impacts.
- Implement hreflang correctly: The hreflang tag tells Google which model of your content material is supposed for which language or area. If it’s misconfigured, Google may serve the incorrect model in search outcomes. Ahrefs’ Web site Audit device helps you catch points right here by visually mapping your hreflang construction and flagging damaged hyperlinks between language variations.
We’ve obtained a full information on the technical elements right here: 10 Worldwide search engine marketing Greatest Practices + Guidelines.
Remaining ideas
The very best methods are born from expertise, particularly errors.
“I wouldn’t redo something, as a result of if I didn’t strive, I wouldn’t know. Principally, FAFO.”
Don’t intention for perfection from day one. Check. Be taught. Adapt. Each market will train you one thing new. Observe what works, double down on wins, and let go of approaches that stall.
Obtained questions or feedback? Let me know on LinkedIn.
