If you want to be visible in your target export market online, you need to optimize your website for local search engines, such as google.de in Germany or google.fr in France. You might laugh that we call this global search engine giant local, but that is indeed the truth. Over 90% of searches in most European countries come from local Googles that show different search results. Remember, you cannot simply translate a well performing US keyword to Spanish or Dutch and expect to see the same results. Search trends, including keywords popularity and difficulty to rank, vary among markets.
Do not translate the keywords, research them and analyze them for each market individually. To research product names, product applications and other relevant context keywords, use SEO tools. One of the freely available and fairly reliable tools that gives you information on keywords performance is Google’s keyword tool. Type in a number of keywords you think could do well in your market, specify desired geographic location and Google will give you estimated monthly search volumes. The tool also allows you to discover and analyze new keyword ideas that people often search for. Very useful, huh?! But here’s the tricky part: the most popular keywords can have really bad grammar!
Why do people use bad grammar in online searches?
There are three main reasons that help explain why this happens.
Firstly, and not surprisingly, some people do not realize their keywords are grammatically incorrect. Grammar of some European languages can be very complex (yes, way more complex than English) and it’s natural that even well-educated people end up making mistakes when writing something unofficial, such as search terms into Google. And let's not forget about those of us who frequently search in languages other than their mother tongue!
Secondly, some languages, such as French, German, Czech, Polish... have some special characters, such as: é, ç, ö, ß, š, ů, ę, ż…
Although these special characters might look cool, they are located outside of QWERTY keyboard and it therefore takes extra time and effort to type them in, especially on mobile devices that are increasingly popular in Europe. That’s why some people substitute these letters for their closest alternative, such as:
e for é, oe for ö, š for s and z for ż
Some call it laziness, some time-saving. In any case, this leads to phrases that are grammatically incorrect or at least less suitable within the context.
Thirdly, people either subconsciously or on purpose simplify keyword phrases that are either grammatically incorrect or do not sound natural, hoping to generate more or more relevant search results. For example, in German and Swedish, when a noun is composed of two nouns, e.g. snowmobile accessories (snöskoter tillbehör), this new noun has to be written as a single word to be grammatically correct, i.e. snowmobileaccessories (snöskotertillbehör). However, Google search trends show that seven times more people search for the grammatically incorrect phrase. Native speakers explain that the rationale behind this could be to make the keyword less complex, covering more options and generating more search results. If there are linguists or psychologists amongst you with more explanations of this phenomenon, let us know!
Should you use bad grammar keywords, when they have higher search volumes compared to their grammatically correct alternatives?
This might help you attract more visitors, but you will most likely fail to convert those visitors into customers or loyal fans. Even though online visitors might use bad grammar to get to your page, they will most likely reveal that there is something wrong with your text, you will lose your credibility and could create an illusion of a careless, uneducated, or even scam organization. So how can you recognize bad grammar keywords when your SEO tool suggests them based on similar search trends? The solution is easy: have them checked by a native speaker.
If you would like to know more about the language aspect of this topic, download our ebook Language and translation.
On the other hand, if you want to learn about multilingual SEO, download our ebook Optimizing websites for European search engines.
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