The importance of proper keyword research goes beyond simple guessing and testing. It can be a complex task that encompasses a methodical process, that once completed, can set the foundation for ongoing International Search Engine Optimization.

ONE-Find the right words and the correct scope!

If you are to toptimise your website for French seo, the first step is to identify equivalent French search terms. This might not give you the same number of search terms. For instance, if you start with the 10 search terms around the word “socks” (buy socks, buy socks online, glow-in-the-dark socks, etc.), you will most likely end up with twice as many search terms in French, as there are two common words for socks in French (”bas” and “chaussettes”). This might mean that you need to create additional landing pages for French search engine surfers.

Note: be wary of using official translations for keyword research. Your translator probably used the very best vocabulary and grammar possible, including words and conjugations that your target market might never even have heard of, let alone be searching for.

Know the search keywords and phrases used in search engines. Get found for keywords related to your website. Analyze your competition, check your website position in search engines, grow your keyword lists and optimize pages for keyword density and prominence. Research keywords to have your websites rank better in organic and paid search results. Without this first step, your website and keyword marketing campaigns are disadvantaged from the start. Keyword research can help you find keywords with high traffic and weak competition.

• Track and position check website ranking for search keywords in search engines.
  Analyze keyword competition. Website backlinks, keyword density, pagerank etc.
• Use multiple online keyword suggestion tools to provide new keywords to research. Combine lists of keywords to generate new keyword lists.
• Analyze keyword density of pages. Adjust keyword importance for titles, headers, text etc.

TWO-Know your targeting purpose!

It’s important to define the language in which the keyword research will be conducted and its targeting purpose. By targeting purpose I mean whether the language to be used will be universal or localized.

1. Universal version, also known as international version, is more suitable for internationalization purposes. A good example will be to target the entire Spanish speaking world – 22 different countries and islands- with a common language that will be understood and accepted by the majority rather than using Mexican Spanish, Spanish from Spain, or Peruvian Spanish.Use of colloquialisms, idiomatic expressions or any connotation that will imply adaptation to a local, regional or a specific ethnic sub-group should be avoided.

An example of a good universal keyword in Spanish is the term “Buscadores,” which means Search Engines. Instead, if chosen “Motores de Busqueda,”, which also means Search Engines, it will more likely be understood only by Latin American folks.

1. Localized version is important if what you want is to deliver a targeted message to customers of a specific country such as Spain. For this purpose, you should include idioms, cultural aspects and idiosyncrasies of that particular group. A Regionalized version will also apply to geographical areas such as Latin America. Even though there are differences in terminology and applicability among Latino countries, they are more homogeneous when compared to European Spanish.A good example of a localized version for the Spanish term “shopping cart” for visitors from Spain is “Cesta de compras”. The regionalized version for Latin American visitors is “Carrito de compras”.

THREE-Find the right people!

Once you are clear about the coverage of your target language, then you need to find the right human talent to help you with the research. A company such as New Frontier Digital will ensure you get the best optimisation.

No machine can replace humans. So, if you are thinking about using online dictionaries, encyclopedias and keyword research tools such as Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Compete, Quantcast, Hitwise, Google Keyword Tools and others; with no human intervention, then you are risking your entire project. Human intervention is needed in multilingual keyword research because of sociological, contextual and intrinsic aspects of the language.

While a machine can give you a list of useful keywords for a seed list; the knowledge, meaning and understanding of the context in which each keyword applies is what really matters. For example, the Spanish keyword “Posicionamiento” (Positioning in English) can be understood in Marketing as the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization. Contrarily, this same Spanish keyword can be understood in Internet Marketing as Search Engine Optimization.

I would like to emphasize the fact that it is important to work with native speakers that preferably have experience in the field of research and are familiar with the geographical area for which you are localizing your website. For instance, if you ask me to do keyword research in Spanish, English and perhaps French, I am sure I can deliver results. But if you ask me to conduct research in Russian for terms related to Search Engine Optimization (Поисковая оптимизация сайта), I will be completely lost simply because I don’t speak the language and don’t understand Cyrillic.

Likewise, there are many translators that are familiar with basic legal terminology, but lack deep understanding of the context in which the terms apply. Some even confuse the term “bonds trader” with “bondsman”. The former refers to terminology used in the financial industry to describe someone that trades bonds in the cash market, while the later is strictly used in the U.S. criminal justice to refer to the person that pays the bond on your behave for a fee.

FOUR-Use the right tools for your keyword research

This is a challenging issue in the current state of the keyword research industry. There aren’t many keyword research tools that will allow you to conduct research in multiple languages. In fact, most of them are not even UTF-8 ready, which is the system that represents any character in the Unicode standard. And if you are not familiar with Unicode, you can learn more by visiting the Unicode Consortium page.

Now, image for a second you are conducting keyword research in Simplified Chinese to position your site in Baidu, the Chinese based Search Engine. If the tool you are using is not UTF-8, that means that all you may see is gibberish instead of a proper Simplified Chinese term.

This gets more complicated if you are using generic tools to try to find search volume estimates for a specific keyword in a specific country. And it gets even harder if you are dealing with low search volume keywords.

Google Trends is a clear reflection of this situation. You can find results for high volume searches, even for specific countries, but not so easily for low search volume keywords. Try the following keywords and keyphrases in Google Trends and see what happens:

• Поисковая оптимизация сайта
• Motores de Busqueda
• Buscadores
• Palabras Claves
• Bonds Trader

There are some tools like Keyword Discovery that offer information from specific countries for localization purposes. This tool seems to provide relevant estimates for high search volume, but can be off for low search volume keywords. In my personal experience I even found inaccurate results when conducting research for niche terms in Spanish. And the localized Spanish Database Center was a bit off when compared to other localized data.

In conclusion, start your multilingual keyword research by defining your language goals, and decide whether you will be using universal, regional or localized versions. Don’t forget to hire translators that preferably have experience in your niche or products and know the market for which you are localizing. Find the best tools for your needs and make sure they all work by literally seeing the results in your target language. And if you are using Google Keyword Tool or Traffic Estimator install the target language packs for your operating system.

Relying on online translation tools can be a risky business, especially if you expect too much from them. For the time being, translation is best left to experienced translators. Here’s why;

In 2003 the small German town of Homberg-an-der-Efze, north of Frankfurt, had to pulp an entire print run of its English-language tourism brochure – after officials used an internet translating tool to translate the German text.

According to one report, the brochure was “rendered meaningless” by the online tool. Tourists were promised “casual value”, the literal translation of the German word for “leisure potential”, at venues such as the “free bath” – better known as an “open-air swimming pool”.

Martin Wagner, mayor of Homberg-an-der-Efze, admits that the town made a “blunder”. As a result of officials trying to save money by getting the internet to do a translator’s job, a total of 7500 brochures had to be binned.

This story highlights some of the pitfalls of translating online. Even today, such disaster stories exist for businesses that tried to short-cut their international communications. There are many instant translation tools on the web – but they are best used for individual words and short phrases, rather than for brochures, books or anything complex, that should always be reviewed by an industry experienced translator.

Confused

For example, one of the joys of the web is that it grants you access to an array of foreign news sources. Yet if you were to use a translation tool to try to make sense of such reports, you end up with a rather skewed and surreal view of the world.

A report in the French daily Le Monde dealt with Tony Blair’s determination to remain as British prime minister, despite the post-Iraq and Hutton controversies. When the French text was run through an online instant translation service, it ended up more confusing than convincing.

“With listening to it”, Le Monde reportedly reported, “in the event of victory Tony Blair intends to remain with the capacity until the term of the legislature….” The German newspaper Die Zeit recently ran a piece on America’s efforts to sell the “Roadmap to Peace” to Israelis and Palestinians.

According to another translation tool, Die Zeit’s report said: “The US-government makes bent previously a large around Israel and the occupied zones, although both Powell and Rumsfeld in that sewed East delayed have itself.” That sounds more like Double Dutch than English.

‘Deprived visit!’

ABC, one of Spain’s leading newspapers, reported on Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar’s meeting with Tony Blair at Chequers. The text of the report, when put through the works, reveals that:
“The official description of the encounter is ‘deprived visit’, but Spanish governmental sources confirmed that the main boarded subjects were the process of European integration and, like no, the every day more delicate situation in Iraq and Near East.”

Why the mistakes?

Why is foreign text “rendered meaningless” in this way, when passed through an online translation tool? According to Sabine Reul, who runs the Frankfurt-based translation company Textburo Reul, translation tools have limited uses – and problems arise when web users expect too much from them. “A translation tool works for some things,” says Reul. “Say a British company wants to order a box of screws from a German supplier. A sentence like ‘We need one box of a certain type of screw’ is something that a machine could translate reasonably accurately – though primitively.”

Yet when it comes to translating blocks of text – words and sentences that convey thoughts and sentiments – online tools are bound to fail, she adds. “Beyond simple sentences, the online process simply doesn’t work because machines don’t understand grammar and semantics, never mind idiom and style.”

“Language is not a system of signs in the mechanical sense of the word”, says Reul. “It is a living medium that is used to convey thought. And that is where machines fail. Human input is indispensable as long as computers cannot think.”

Reul and other translators look forward to the day when clever computers might help to ease their workload – but that time has not arrived yet.

“It would be nice if computers could do the job. And certainly the quest for machine translation has prompted a lot of linguistic research that may prove valuable in unforeseen ways. But experience to date confirms that even the most subtle computer program doesn’t think – and you need to be able to think in order to translate.”

Online translation; simply don’t do it with important business documents. Leave it to the professionals.

Until the dawn of ‘human intelligence’ computers, online translation tools are best reserved for words, basic sentences and useful holiday phrases. For tourism brochures, newspaper reports and the rest, you will have to rely on old-fashioned “experienced translator’ such as the services we provide at New Frontier Digital. We know translation, give us a call or email today.

Localization and search engine optimization (SEO) are two processes rarely uttered in the same breath, considered as separate entities with little bond to one another. This isn’t, or rather shouldn’t be, the case.

This post will look at how SEO can be incorporated into the localization process to produce linguistically accurate and search engine friendly content. Additionally, it will highlight the features and benefits to organisations adopting the SEO/localization approach.

Why haven’t translation and localization industries simply not “got” SEO? Theodore Levitt in his famous article “Marketing Myopia” published in the Harvard Business Review in 1960 talked about railroads not running airlines because they were in the business of running railroads rather than in the business of transporting people from A to B. SEO firms exist principally to generate additional demand for a businesses products and services.

So what exactly is the purpose of localization if marketing is sidelined? In in the case of websites, it’s like offering the pudding without the cream or cherry on top. Without it, your content is ‘optimized’ for the search engines so native speakers are less likely to find your perfect translation.

Why is it so difficult?

If you study the localization industry’s online literature you are struck by the very clear obsession with certain key topics:

• The use of technology
• Maintaining the quality of translation
• Minimizing cost
• The threat from machine translation

The above is interesting because the following topics appear much less frequently:

• Offering value to the website reader
• Delivering return on investment
• Achieving online visibility
• Using web analytics and split-testing software to determine response rates

What these show is that the objectives of SEO and localization are quite different but in order to combine the two, we should look for common attributes.

THREE steps to effectively combine localisation and SEO!

1) Focus on local search engines

It is important that you focus on local engines since this will automatically help to better localise your website. In order to do this;

Claim your local business listings on sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local, Bing Maps, etc. Most local search still happens at the big search engines, so those have to be priority one. Make sure those listings are all accurate and consistent — same business name, address, and phone number everywhere. Any confusion between business listings can really hurt your local search visibility.

Do the same on the secondary sites like Yelp, Insider Pages, and industry-specific sites like TripAdvisor (if you’re in the travel industry), Urbanspoon (if you’re a restaurant), etc.

Fix up your main web site. Make sure it’s a great experience for visitors. Make sure you’ve taken care of the SEO basics — correct keyword usage in the title tags, good local content across the site, an excellent and detailed maps/location page to help people find you, and so forth.

2) Localize keywords

Localising keywords will help your SEO in local search engines. Different language = new keyword research. No translating! This, as discussed in previous posts, will ensure a good ranking.

The importance of proper keyword research goes beyond simple guessing and testing. It can be a complex task that encompasses a methodical process, that once completed, can set the foundation for ongoing international search engine optimization campaign.

3) Always use human translation.

Translation software has without doubt revolutionised the process of language translation, however not always for the better, particularly in the case of important documents. Prices have indeed become more competitive and turn around times have been slashed. Yet translation software will never be able to provide quality, fluid and meaningful translations simply because of the lack of human involvement.

As a simple way of highlighting the differences between the translations of humans and software, the following experiment can be done. The following piece of German text that needed to be translated into English will be used as an example:

Wir hoffen sehr, dass Ihnen unsere Website gefällt. Bitte lassen Sie es uns wissen, falls wir hässliche Übersetzungsfehler gemacht haben.

After running it through a piece of translation software the resulting translation was:

We hope very that you our websites felled.  Please you let know us it if we made ugly translation mistakes.

Whereas one of our human translators translated it as:

We sincerely hope that you enjoy our site and please let us know if we have made any ghastly errors.

It is clear that only human translation can provide sensible translation and this will provide your text with that localized readability.

In conclusion it can be said that combining localization and SEO is not an easy thing to do. But with the right people and techniques it can be achieved. This will help to boost your business to greater popularity and search engine rankings.

Swedish SEO and Internet Marketing

The Swedish e-commerce market is growing very rapidly, fueled by a rapid growth in Swedish broadband usage and ever increasing Swedish online retail B2C expenditure levels. This has served as a primary catalyst for the rise in cost-effective offshore internet retailing in Sweden, as online shopping has become an intrinsic part of Sweden’s shopping culture.

Quick Summary:

• Number of Swedish internet users: 6.8 million
• Swedish broadband access: 152.7 (per 1000)
• Swedish mobile phone usage per capita: 1026(per 1,000)
• Most popular local Swedish search engine: http://katalogen.sunet.se
• Most popular Swedish websites: News, Banking & Finance
• Swedish B2C e-commerce expenditure (2006): US $ 11.2 billion
• Number of Swedes who have bought online (latest data 1999): 1.014 million

Sweden On The Net

With an economy skewed towards international trade, Sweden has achieved high standards of living through a combination of modern capitalism and extensive welfare benefits. Sweden’s capital city Stockholm is amongst the world’s most prominent high-tech hubs in the world, along with Northern California’s Silicon Valley and Boston, Massachusetts. Sweden’s GDP at 2006 current prices reached US $ 380.75 billion, a growth of 6.1% over 2005 Sweden estimates, according to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Database dated September 2006. According to latest ITU data, the total number of Swedish internet users reached 6.8 million by 2006, comprising 74.9% of the Swedish population for the same year. The World Bank-ICT database has also estimated Sweden’s per capita internet usage to be at 592 (per 1000) in 2004, having increased from 456 (per 1000) in 2000.

Sweden’s broadband access per capita has also been increasing very rapidly, standing at 152.7(per 1000) in 2004, according to the World Bank ICT database, having witnessed whopping growth over 2000 estimates of 9.3(per 1000). The same database has also estimated that Sweden’s per capita personal computer usage stood at 640(per 1,000) in 2004, growing by 26.2% over 2000 estimates. Similarly, Sweden’s mainline and mobile phone usage also stood at 709 and 1026(per 1000) respectively in 2004.‘The World Factbook – Sweden’ database has also estimated that the total number of Swedish telephone mainline users stood at 6.45 million by 2004, while the total number of Swedish mobile phone subscribers reached 8.44 million by 2005.

Popular search engines in Sweden include

• http://www.eniro.se
• http://www.sweseek.com
• http://www.catweb.nu
• http://se.yahoo.com
• http://se.msn.com
• http://se.altavista.com.

The French Economic Center of Sweden has listed other top portals in Sweden like

• http://www.passagen.se
• http://www.lycos.se
• http://www.everyday.com

EIAA’s ‘Europe Online’ Report for August 2006 also states that Sweden’s most visited websites are those on news, banking and finance.

With debit cards being the most preferred mode of card payment in Sweden, the Swedish credit card market is still relatively small, though growing steadily over a small base. According to Euromonitor International, the number of credit card transactions in Sweden increased by 55% over the years 2000 to 2005. The combined value of Swedish credit transactions also increased during this period, though by a smaller percentage.

An European Perspective

With regard to Swedish e-commerce expenditure, a Mintel International December 2003 report states that Sweden ranks seventh in Europe in terms of annual per capita expenditure on home shopping. Even though mail order is the principal transaction method, e-commerce is quickly catching up as an effective alternative, with Sweden having one of the most developed e-commerce sectors in Europe. According to an IDC-Merrill Lynch report, Sweden’s e-commerce market size stood at € 844 million (US $ 848 million) by 1999 end, having grown by 221% over 1998 estimates for the same. The French Economic Center of Sweden had also estimated the number of Swedish e-commerce users at 1.014 million, as of December 1999.

EIAA’s August 2006 ‘Europe Online’ Report has stated that the average Swedish internet shopper spends approximately € 577 (US $ 717.8) and buys 5 items online over a six month period, with Swedish users purchasing more products online than the normal European average. A Forrester Research October 2006 report also forecasts that by 2006, more than half of Sweden’s adult population would be shopping online, spending nearly € 3 billion (US $ 3.73 billion) via the internet. Sweden’s overall online B2C retail sales for the same year would also grow substantially to stand at € 9 billion (US $ 11.2 billion), making Sweden the largest e-commerce market in the Nordics. Sweden’s path to future prosperity thus lies in offshore internet retailing, which ensure convenient and faster transactions, financial card security and a wider array of goods at lower prices.

Swedish Language And Localization

Like most languages, Swedish is constantly developing. In recent years, usage has changed as a result of new media such as mobile phone texting and net chatting, but Swedish has also been strongly influenced by the “world language” English.

Young Swedes generally like the Swedish language and feel it gives them an identity. Yet “Swenglish” is on the increase among today’s youth. Many feel that English has a broader vocabulary than Swedish, which makes it easier to absorb English words and expressions.

In this development, Swedes have been mainly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon culture. Many young people prefer English-language music to Swedish. Also, Swedes are constantly surrounded by English because, apart from some children’s films, English-language films and TV series are not dubbed in Sweden.

“I think English is going to become more common as a spoken language in the future, but the basics of Swedish will still be around, particularly in written language,” says Per, 17, and many young people agree with him.

Sofia, 17, adds: “Swedish is only commonly used in the Nordic countries, and in the future I think Sweden will become even more internationalized.”

“Swedified” English?

Language professor Sture Allén agrees with this prediction, and argues that a command of English is important if Swedes are to communicate properly with the outside world, not least when doing business. Allén was formerly head of the Swedish Academy (Permanent Secretary), an institution that decides which words are to be formally incorporated into the Swedish language by issuing new editions of the Academy’s dictionary. The Academy also awards the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Allén insists there is no evidence that English is in the process of taking over the Swedish language. In the past, for instance, German in various forms has influenced Swedish, but it has nevertheless survived intact. The reason is that Swedes have preserved their inherited vocabulary while at the same time assimilating the new words both grammatically and in pronunciation.

So despite the fact that Swedish has undergone a natural change process, borrowed words have been adapted, or “Swedified.” Email, for instance, is often spelled mejl in Swedish, or turned into e-post, while bug has become bugg. But spoken Swedish has also drawn on English to create totally new words. Thus delete becomes deleta, scroll scrolla and peak peaka.

Therefore Swedish Localization that is essential for Swedish SEO must be done with much care and skill to get the best out of your investment.

Finally Some Swedish Christmas Words to Know

Here’s a quick list of words you should know around Christmastime.

• Advent – Advent
• Boxing Day – Annandag Jul
• Chimney – Skorsten
• Christmas – Jul
• Christmas carol – Julsång
• Christmas table/dinner – Julbord
• Christmas Day – Juldagen
• Christmas Eve – Julafton
• Christmas Ham – Julskinka
• Christmas present – Julklapp
• Christmas-tree – Julgran
• Happy New Year! – Gott Nytt År!
• Gingerbread cookies – Pepparkaka
• Jingle Bells – Bjällerklang
• Merry Christmas! – God Jul!
• Mulled spiced wine – Glögg
• New Year’s Day – Nyårsdagen
• New Year’s Eve – Nyårsafton
• Reindeer – Ren
• Rice pudding – Risgrynsgröt
• Santa Claus – Jultomten
• Silent Night, Holy Night – Stilla Natt
• Sleigh – Släde
• Star – Stjärna
• Twelfth Day – Trettondagen

* www.eu-esis.org/Ministry of Research and Information Technology (Dec. 1999 estimates)

** Nielsen Net Ratings/www.internetworldstats.com (2004 estimates)

What Are On-Page Factors?

Getting a good ranking in a search engine hasn’t been the easiest thing for many. Search engines are getting more smarter & intelligent everyday, so now it takes more than just good content to top your competitors.

On-page optimization is one of the very first step of SEO which every webmaster should look into. It probably won’t even take you an hour to learn and implement some of these on-page optimization techniques. So why it is so important? – Well literally speaking, if you can do proper on-page optimization for your website you can not only rank well in a search engine but also can increase the overall readability of your website for your visitors.

Below are some of the most important on-page optimization techniques for you. You can implement some of these if not all to give your site a better exposure to the search engines as well as to increase your overall CTR (Click-Through-Rate) ratio!

The META Tag and International Search Engines

The rules of search engines when it comes to on page factors differ greatly., but the META tag has been a point of intrest since of late.

After Infoseek (Go.com) closed in 2000, the meta keywords tag was left with only two major supporters: AltaVista and Inktomi. Now Inktomi remains the only one, with AltaVista having dropped its support in July.

“In the past we have indexed the meta keywords tag but have found that the high incidence of keyword repetition and spam made it an unreliable indication of site content and quality. We do continue to look at this issue, and may re-include them if the perceived quality improves over time,” said Jon Glick, AltaVista’s director of internet search.

As for Inktomi, the search engine has no immediate plans to follow AltaVista’lead:

“The meta keywords value is just one of many factors in our ranking equation, and we’ve never given too much weight to it. That said, we will continue to use it as long as our relevance modeling shows that it adds value,” said Ken Norton, director of product marketing for Inktomi’web search division.

Therefore the Meta Tag is not as important as it used to be.

Title Optimization

A site’s title tag is by far the most important website optimization element. A title tag should be short but descriptive enough for your visitors to identify you and your business. Title tag is the first thing that is shown & indexed by the search engines. So naturally it is given a very high importance – out of thousands results that a searcher sees, your site’s title has to be appealing enough for him to want to find out more information. On the other hand, your title has to be appealing enough to the search engine in order to rank you above thousands of other similar websites like yours.

Important things to include in your title:

Your Name/ Business Name / Site Name: This is very important for breading propose. If you feel that your customers may search you by your brand name than it’s also useful to put it somewhere in your title.

Keywords: If you want to rank for a certain keywords it is always good to place some of them in your title tag. A Title tag represents the whole flavor & content of your website. So if you are selling pizza online you can include keywords like – order pizza, home delivery pizza etc in your title tag. Don’t staff too many keywords in your title. Write a title which is readable to humans & also good for the search engine. (e.g. Domino’s Pizza, Order Pizza Online for Delivery – Dominos.com)

Include your 1-800 or other toll-free numbers: Some may not agree with me on this, but I think including your phone number in the title tag does help your visitors to take a direct action! It also makes your site look more professional and legit when it’s being displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Searchers are likely to ‘click’ on the result that has a phone number attached to it because in their unconscious mind, they will have a good impression on the authenticity of the business and the level of support. If you prefer not to include your number in the title tag, you can alternatively include it in your Meta Description which will give you almost the same benefits.

The KEYWORD Tag

The KEYWORD tag used to be important for ranking. It’s not anymore, however, it’s best practice to include entries here as some search engines still pay some attention to them. Also there is evidence that the major search engines look for consistent entries across the tags.

So in the keyword tags put the keywords (actually keyphrases) you discovered in your keyword analysis. Actually you need to restrict it to a maximum of 25 words. Also use lower case and separate each phrase by a comma and a space.

Should you have the same keyword tag on each page?

Ideally you should change the order of the phrases, and put the phase being optimised for at the beginning of the list. So in the example above the homepage is being optimised for ‘event management’, so this is the first phrase in the list.

The DESCRIPTION Tag

This is more important than the KEYWORD tag ( but less important than the TITLE tag).

Quite often this gets listed in the hitlist directly below the title so it will have an impact on whether people click through or not.

For example:-

Your Events, Manchester UK – Christmas party organisers

Christmas party organisers by Your Events uk, looking after your christmas

production, venue, catering and entertainment.

www.youreventsltd.com/christmas.php – 14k – Cached – Similar pages

This is the result of a google search for ‘christmas party organisers’. First line is the contents of the TITLE tag; the text below the content of the description tag. So ideally it needs to be a bit salesy – encouraging people to click through.

Again – no longer than 25 words, and put the phrase being optimised for at the front of the description.

The H1 Tag

Unlike the other tags we’ve discussed the contents of the H1 tag appears as visible text on your web page.

Its best practice to include a version of the title tag as the H1 tag.

If your title tag says New Frontier SEO- Translations and Localisation Services’ The H1 tag could be something like “Quality Website Translation and International SEO Will Catapult Your Business Into The Global Marketplace”.

That is, a bit more ‘call to action’ oriented. Essentially this has the affect of placing your keyphrase for the page being optimised for as a headline at the top of your page. Something the search engine spiders seem to like a lot.

I this case the page is being optimised for two phrases – ‘technical translations’ and ’software localisation’. Generally we should try to optimise one page for each of our keyphrases. Sometimes we can get away with two but three is pushing it as you will see when we discuss copy writing below.

There’s on more thing to do to ensure your pages get top rankings….

Write Keyword Rich Visible Text For Your Optimised Pages.

Search engine spiders thrive on keyword rich content. Also the higher placed it is on your webpages the better.

If you can get 200 words of text at the top of each page of your site (ideally right below the H1 tag content) and include your keyphrase (the one the page is being optimsied for) around 6-8 times, that is pretty optimal.

This is not always easy and we’ll discuss some issues in later lessons to help when it isnt.

Essentially the TITLE tag content for a particlar page is compared to the keyphrases which appear on that page. The more the better, within certain guidleines.

The trick is to stay within certain ‘keyword density’(KD) limits. Around 1.9% is good. Five keyphrase repetitions in 100 words would be a KD of 5%.

This should satisfy the spiders and also you should be able to put together reasonable copy for human visitors.

These tips will help you to catapult your Global SEO campaign!

The reason why a ‘www’ or ‘world wide web’ sits in front of your domain address, is that it signifies a huge opportunity. That opportunity is to reach, network, share and communicate your products and services across the global.  With international SEO tactics allowing you to duplicate local success, it’s important to start looking to multiplying your website into other languages. Think local, act global (in context to SEO) can now be taken literally. But what about the costs? Duplication effectively means building new verticals and costs can get out of control, so how do you manage this?

International link building poses many unique challenges for link builders, least of which are language and cultural barriers as well as effectively qualifying link building opportunities for their greatest impact on local search engine results. So apart from the relatively limited selection of agencies or freelance talent out there, you don’t need to go to the extent of bring such skills in-house. Just make sure you have the following checklist before outsourcing or hiring a multilingual link builder:

Here’s how to do it in 5 easy steps!

• Step 1 Identify fresh keywords: know where you should focus on by starting keyword research all over again in the target language
• Step 2 Don’t translate keywords: Optimise your new pages correctly, taking note of local search engine algorithms if going after rankings in multiple search engines
• Step 3 Identifying link building assets;

1. Identify your international SERPs competitors
2. Prospect for international link opportunities by identifying those links which give your competition the most strength
3. Qualify for international link opportunities by adopting similar tactics for those prized links
4. Acquire international links before diversifying into new linking opportunities

• Step 4 Monitoring: monitor your competition and your rankings, track adjustments in ranking relative to new link additions

Analyze and Identify

Identifying the top established sites is often just a case of looking at what the local competition is currently linking to, you don’t need to have a million dollar budget in for some markets, in fact relative to English speaking markets, you often need alot less, but of course that depends on the language and keyword you wish to rank for.

Different countries have varied resources available, so knowing what opportunities you have is critical to forming a solid link building strategy if keyword competition is high.

The web offers a variety of sources for this purpose if you consider CEE countries, blogging is quite a popular route along with social media and press releases. Article directories remain an undeveloped option at this stage.

Get the help of a local search marketer to find relevant sites in other countries that you can approach to find out your options.

“Tap into search engines”

One link from an authority site can be equal to 1000 off topic links. Since relevance is one of the key metrics search engines use to determine how much value the link passes, think outside the box, or at least outside the country to find other sites that have attained authority status. Naturally, quality or the authority of a site varies depending on the country. It’s important to note that what may seem ‘low’ quality in the English speaking market, may in fact be the standard in that particular market, this presents a opportunity for further research.

Monitor

As with the English speaking market, traffic comes from uncommon sources. Therefore always monitor your site with Analytics software to determine were visitors and comments originate from. Next step is to monitor your link building activities to identify which tactics are generating the ideal results. Overtime you can look to cater your landing pages and your service offer in a way that targets the international audience even better.

Create link-worthy content and communicate with local suppliers and buyer

Before you embark on an SEO campaign, look for new ways to emulate local or national SEO strategies abroad (a great plug in for FireFox exists from Red Fly Marketing for this purpose called Google Global. This will assist with seeing local search results). Finding which links prove most valuable to your competitions ranking will streamline any local link building efforts. Taking competition analysis offline, identify what local providers are doing to attract local interest, find out how they reached and connected with local buyers and supplier you can start by assessing the links, then taking your efforts one step further by contacting those companies and making them an offer.

If you want to build links internationally, it’s more then just building links. Identifying the resources available, creating the online links, then getting ‘really’ local and connecting with local suppliers and link building partners is a solid strategy.

The strategy is not limited to websites, resources or directories, communicating through a blog is universally recognised online, you can also make your RSS feed international! by blogging in multiple languages.

Use similar strategies to jet set without leaving the comfort of your computer when looking for other uncommon International SEO link building opportunities.

As these show, international link building has a lot more to it than what seems at first sight. The key point here is that the marketer must “think out of the box” and tap what will benefit him most and should exploit it carefully. With each language added to a site the cost of marketing drops as you multiple into an authority site, your experience and effectiveness often accelerate. Going multilingual is not only exciting, it is truly rewarding.

International link building, once mastered, will definitely boost SEO in today’s rapidly globalizing internet community and would help you stay amidst the rising tide of multicultural and bilingual web users.

Online spending by the U.S. Hispanic market is projected to reach $21.6 billion by 2011. This domestic market is composed of U.S. natives and people from over 20 countries, with purchasing power estimated at over 1 trillion dollars as of 2010 (the-infoshop.com, 2010). Over 50% of U.S. Hispanic households own computers and Latinos in the USA spend nearly 20% more time online than the general, domestic population. Clearly, one of the richest non-English e-Commerce markets exists right under your nose, here in the United States of America.

USA Hispanic Online Market Statistics

• Purchasing Decisions: the U.S. Hispanic market considers the Internet the premier source of information for major purchasing decisions.
• Time online: U.S. Hispanics spend 20% more time online and view 25% more pages than the general population. Beyond the workplace, domestic Latinos use the Internet more than 17 hours per week, and more than half of that time is spent on Spanish language websites. U.S. Hispanics now spend more time online than watching television.
• Search: Nearly 90% of Latinos with computer access search online on a regular basis. Significant portions of the U.S. Hispanic market prefer to search Spanish language websites, including Spanish language versions of popular search engines (Google Español and Yahoo Telemundo) and Spanish language search portals based in their own country of origin or heritage.
• Communication: this market uses the Internet as a communication tool for social networking, and keeping in touch with family.
• Family: Latinos in the USA consider the Internet a great source of information that also allows their children to make career advancement beyond previous generations.
• Access: 65% of U.S. Hispanics over 18 have used a computer.
• Median age of U.S. Hispanic population is 27.7 years compared to 36.8 years for the population as a whole.
• Total U.S. Hispanic population: 46.9 million

USA Hispanic Markets At A Glance

• Ethnic self-identification: Nearly two-thirds of Hispanics in the U.S. self-identify as being of Mexican origin. Nine of the other ten largest Hispanic origin groups-Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Honduran , Ecuadorian and Peruvian-account for about a quarter of the U.S. Hispanic population.
• U.S. Cities with large Latino populations: Los Angeles: 8.4 million, New York: 4.4 million,Miami: 2.1 million, Houston: 1.9 million, Chicago: 1.9 million
• Highest Hispanic state populations: 48% of the U.S. Hispanic population lives in California and Texas.

Insights Into U.S. Hispanic Consumer Values

• Family: U.S. Hispanics are very close to their family and are more likely to choose a product that will benefit the whole family instead of just one individual.
• Empowerment: Hispanics in the USA go online for purchasing information. In addition, they hold the belief that their children’s lives will be improved by the Internet.
• Value: U.S. Hispanics prefer to buy products that are high in quality and will last for a long time.
• Loyalty: Hispanics in the USA are very loyal to products, but only to products that they feel are designed to last.
• Information: Hispanics do a lot of research before they decide to purchase a product; therefore, having online information available on products and services is important.

U.S. Hispanic Consumer Decision Making

• Familiarity: Hispanics in the USA want to feel familiar and comfortable with any brands they are purchasing. They usually have some knowledge of brands through commercials, personal experience or word-of-mouth. Social networking is influential in this regard.
• Relevance: Products need to be perceived as relevant by Latino consumers and also seem complimentary to Hispanic culture and lifestyle.
• Word of Mouth: U.S. Hispanics talk and chat online about products, websites, and experiences they have had with companies, both positive and negative. If they have had a positive experience with a product, they will share their impressions with their family, friends, neighbors and social group.
• Culture: The majority of domestic Hispanic people are very emotionally attached to their country-of-origin or the culture of their parents’ home country. These emotions have a positive impact on their purchasing decisions.

Primary Cultural Values Of The U.S. Hispanic Market

• Familismo (family)
• Simpatia (harmony in interpersonal relation)
• Dignidad and respeto (dignity and respect)
• Tradition (home country, culture and traditions)

U.S. Hispanic Consumers Segmented Via Demographics

• New Lifers: Foreign-born U.S. Hispanics who have been in the USA on average of 8 years comprise this group; they moved to the USA to provide a better life for themselves and their family. This group speaks the Spanish language exclusively and has strong ties to the Latino culture and traditions of their homeland. New Lifers have an average household income of $40,000.
• Old Ways: This group includes foreign-born Hispanics that have spent about half their lives in the U.S. They are on average 54 years old and speak the Spanish language almost exclusively. Members of this group are very proud of their heritage and Hispanic culture, although there has been some integration of U.S. cultural values. Average household income is $47,000 and over half of this group lives in New York, Los Angeles or Miami.
• Settled In: The majority of this group are U.S.-born Hispanics and are 43 years of age with an average household income of $68,000 per year. Although they are still proud of their Hispanic culture and heritage, the effects of American cultural are evident. Less than 20% of this group prefer to speak the Spanish language exclusively; they are much more technologically savvy than either “New Lifers” or “Old Ways.”
• The Pioneers: This group (average age is 65 years) was the first group to grow up in the United States; parents and extended family are their only ties to the “old country”. Around 20% prefer to speak the Spanish language exclusively and they have an annual household income of $50,000. This group still prefers products that reminds them of their heritage, but are willing to try new American products.
• Young Americans: Approximately 75% of this group was born in the USA and has an average age of  26 years. With an average household income of $60,000 per year, only 17% of this group prefers to speak Spanish exclusively; members of this group are the most technologically advanced of the five groups, using the Internet the most. “Young Americans” are fully assimilated into American culture in terms of product usage but still show some preference for products that pay homage to their ancestry.

The Spanish Language as Used by U.S. Hispanics

The Spanish language is a Romance language that originated in the northern region of Spain, is the primary language of 21 countries, one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and the second most widely spoken language in the United States. The Spanish language is spoken by over 417 million people worldwide, (329 to 358 million as native speakers), and is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin Chinese. (Wikipedia.org).  The Spanish language can have many variations in dialects, idioms, vocabulary, accents, and even grammar rules, that must be taken into consideration during translation and U.S. Hispanic website localization.

The Spanish language is read from left to right. The Spanish writing system uses the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet with the addition of the characters ñ, ch and ll. The use of accents such as á, é, ó, í and ú are used in some words to change meaning and pronunciation.

Although there isn’t an “official” universal Spanish dialect, it is possible to translate materials into a “neutral” Spanish, or what some copy writers and translators call a “Universal Spanish”. In response to the demand for Spanish language materials appropriate for the diverse groups of U.S.-based Spanish speakers, skilled teams of Spanish translators collaborating and using appropriately developed glossaries can translate and localize content into a “Universal Spanish” that effectively communicates to U.S. Latino consumers.

U.S. Hispanic Website Customization Considerations

The U.S. Latino market is not a homogenous culture, but instead one that is strongly tied to many different countries of origin. Therefore, many of the symbols and icons that are important to different segments of the Latino population are country-dependent. It is important to be aware of these differences in order to avoid cultural blunders and the inadvertent use of offensive symbols.

For example:

U.S. Hispanic Color Connotations

• Red: Religion, vibrancy, visibility and death
• Green: hope
• Black: Mourning, respect and sophistication
• Purple: Death

U.S. Hispanic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Strategies

A search engine marketing campaign for the U.S. Hispanic market should be multi-dimensional for both short-term and long-term success. Using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns on targeted Hispanic websites and search engines is one way to produce immediate results and become familiar to the Hispanic market segment that is being targeted. Long term search engine marketing plans should include the use of keywords in both the Spanish language and in English. In addition, it is important to note that U.S. Hispanics tend to use longer strings of words in search phrases and/or questions than the rest of the U.S. market.

Popular U.S. Hispanic Websites

Goal: Getting top search results with your U.S. Hispanic SEM campaigns including U.S. Hispanic SEO.

When localizing your U.S. Hispanic website, it is important to research cultural and linguistic issues specific to domestic Latino consumers. Keyword list localization is a very different process from standard Spanish translation; you should make sure that your SEM and/or localization agency has the experience and understands the requirements for performing this service so that they can provide you with appropriate Spanish keyword localization. This will ensure that your Spanish Web site Localizationoptimizes your content for U.S. Hispanic search engines to produce maximum results.

Terminology: about Hispanic and Latino Americans; the term Hispanic came into general use by the U.S. Government in the 1970s, and was added to the Census in 1980. The term “Latino” is more popular in the western portion of the USA, was adopted by the U.S. government in 1997 and was added to the Census in 2000. The terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” are used interchangeably in this article.

What is linguistic diversity?

Linguistic diversity is basically mapping all of the languages spoken within one country. It may stem from ethnic minority languages, such as Hungarians who live in Romania, to official multi-lingual countries like the French Canadian and English in Canada. In India, English is spoken as a common language, as is Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, and Tamil.

What is Keyword research?

If you have a basic knowledge of the principles of search engine optimisation you’ll know that keywords are extremely important. The words users type into searches to get to pages they’re interested in are a pivotal part of SEO because without them wed all be groping in the dark. Keywords order the Internet and we should all be grateful.

What is out there

If you’ve received advice from a good team of SEO consultants about keywords, you’ll probably be aware of some of the SEO tools at your disposal for conducting effective and exhaustive research. Free tools are available from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, the three biggest search engines in terms of traffic. Other useful tools on the market include WordTracker, KeywordMax, Keyword Discovery, Marketing Samurai and many more. If you want to start thinking globally, you might well ask whether these tools are sufficient.

Most of the free SEO tools for keyword research provided by the big name search engines already allow users to select particular countries and cities when they do research. This can be of use, but if you’re using a search-based keyword tool from, say, Google, you need to be aware that Google might not be the most popular search engine in the countries you are starting to target.

With that in mind, a list of SEO tools that will aid international keyword research will be of use to anyone setting their sites on expansion toward a more global market. There are many countries and many tools, of course. If you’re wondering how to start your global keyword research, here is a list of just a few that are available to you.

Country to country

Keyword Research in Russia

The big domestic search engines in Russia are Rambler and Yandex, and the largest e-mail provider is mail.ru. Along with the Live Internet company, all of these provide Russian language keyword research tools.

Keyword Research in China

If you can read Chinese, youll be able to make use of the keyword research tool provided by Chinas main search engine, Baidu. You can take advantage by joining their pay per click network and investigating the free SEO tools to be found in that section.

Keyword Research in Europe

Miva have a pay per click network that extends far and wide in terms of popular websites, and so the data they have is very significant. The keyword research SEO tools they feature are separate for Germany, France, the U.K. and other countries in Europe. Paying to advertise on their network is a good idea if you want to take advantage of all the SEO tools available for researching keywords through them in Europe.

Keyword Research in Germany

The Germans have a reputation for being thorough when it comes to SEO, and theres a good community of people with a special interest in keyword research. The Keyword Datenbank is the best tool available for researching keywords in German.

Keyword Research in the Philippines

Google succeeded in cornering the market for Internet search in the Philippines, overshadowing every other tool for searching the web soon after its introduction. That being said, theres a site called Sulit.com.ph which is basically a large forum for classified ads, selling, providing a service. The site serves a large community of users, and they records of keywords used. These records can provide a lot of valuable information about patterns in keyword use there.

Keyword Research in Korea

The biggest search engine in Korea is Naver. They have their own advertising platform which is based on keywords and you can easily check on which searches are popular and which keywords are used etc.

Not mentioned ones

If you’re from the country where you want to research keywords, its likely that you’re familiar with sites that people are using and which probably keep records or provide keyword research tools. If not, the best idea might be to ask someone who is. If Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. are not the search engines of choice there, find out which search engines are popular and work from there. Think about commercial sites that are likely to have a broad appeal too. Keyword research from those sites can be very useful indeed.

Three Top Tips

1) Research and anlyse

From your research, you need to create a linguistic diversity list within your target markets. Chart out each language and the population of that language group.

2) Deduce from your chart

Once the chart is complete, you can utilize a linguistic expert or a native translator to then expand on these new keyword lists and test. Make sure you create different ad groups to get the true value out of your keywords and specify geographical targeting if you can.

Fortunately, global search to this level is small, so don’t be nervous trying new things. As you find value, you can then move on to more optimization tactics, such as newly translated, locally-specific landing pages.

3) Analyze Your Target Language Dialects for New Words

Pulling out dialect related words within a language isn’t always easy and best left to an expert to identify. Once the new dialect list is created, classifying the dialects to their corresponding regions, even on the lowest local level, will be necessary. For example, in India there are many different dialects.

Summary

International keyword research can be difficult when you’re trying to expand to the same level as English. You can greatly improve your ad groups by researching new opportunities through linguistic diversity and language dialect expansion.

Because this level of targeting is relatively new, you may not find a ton of traffic. However, if “long tail” is important in your English campaigns, then globally expanded keywords shall be equally important in your internationally targeted campaigns. Its best you hire a company like New Frontier Digital to do this for you and get best results.

European SEO is not as simple as it seems since catering properly to the Continent would mean optimising to atleast two dozens of languages. The following is a summary of what to expect in European SEO.

Czech Republic

The number of inhabitants in the Czech Republic is about 10 million.

90.4% of the population is Czech by nationality although many other

nationalities are represented,1% citizens speak Czech, which is the

official language of the Czech Republic.

The 90% of the population is Czech, and the other 10% consists of

Moravian, Slovakian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Hungarian,

Russian, Romany/gypsy, Silesian, Bulgarian, Grecian, Serbian, Croatian,

Romanian, Albanian minority.

Estonia

Estonia has about 1.351 million inhabitants (as of January 2005). The

largest ethnic groups are Estonians (68%), Russians (26%), Ukrainians

(2%), Belorussians (1%) and Finns (1%).

Estonian is the only official language in Estonia in local government

and state institutions. The Estonian language belongs to the Finno-

Ugric language family and is closely related to Finnish. Finnish, English,

Russian and German are also widely spoken and understood in Estonia.

Finland

Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish. It is the

governmental policy that common public services must be provided in

both languages where appropriate. This guideline is followed by most

public offices and cultural institutions. The websites reflect this principle

although in some cases only a fraction of the content is provided in

Swedish. Another indigenous language in Finland is Sami, which is

spoken within the small community of Sami people in Lapland (also

known as Lapps). There are websites, which offer also material in Sami,

both sites linked to their culture and administrative websites.

English is commonly used. Finnish is very different from other larger

European languages. This is why English is commonly used in cases

where international contacts are judged essential. Commonly only a

fraction of the website content is available in English.

France

On the basis of these criteria more than seventy-five languages of France

can be counted in Metropolitan France and overseas areas. They are

characterized by a great diversity. In Metropolitan France: Romance,

Germanic, Celtic languages as well as Basque, a non-Indo-European

language. Overseas: Creoles, Amerindian, Polynesian, Bantu (Mayotte)

and Austronesian (New Caledonia) languages, among others. There is

also a great demographic diversity between these languages. Three or

four million people are speaking Arabic in France whereas Neku or Arhà

are spoken only by a few dozen people. In between, the various Creoles

or the Berber languages are spoken by about two million people in

France.

The 1999 national census revealed that 26% of adults living in France had

regularly practiced in their youth a language other than French – Alsatian

(660 000 speakers), Occitan (610 000), Oïl languages (580 000), Breton

(290 000). For each of these languages one can add an equal – at least –

number of occasional speakers. However language transmission in

France is almost not effective any more in the family circle and relies

today mostly on the teaching of these languages and their creativity in the

artistic domain.

Germany

82 million people live in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is the

most heavily populated nation in European Union. 75 million inhabitants

possess German citizenship and about 8 million people hold foreign

passports. Approximately 15 million people do not speak German as their

native language. The largest population of foreigners are the Turks (1.87

million), followed by Italians (0.62 million), immigrants from the former

Yugoslavia (0.56 million), Greeks (0.35 million), Poles (0.32 million),

Croatians (0.23 million), Austrians (0.18 million), Bosnians (0.16 million),

Americans (0.11 million), Macedonians (0.06 million) and Slovenians

(0.02 million).

National minorities, or in other words “groups of German citizens who

have traditionally … resided on the territory of the German Federal

Republic and who live in their historic settlement areas“, include the Sorbs

and Wends (60,000), the Danes (50.000), the Frisians (50.000) and the

German Sinti and Roma. In accordance with the European Parliament’s

European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages of 05 November

1992, they are protected and supported in the context of a “threatened

aspect of European cultural heritage“. Protection includes the right to use

a regional or minority language in the private and public spheres. At the

same time, the charter includes the responsibility to facilitate or maintain

the use of regional or minority languages. In 1994, a further regional

language, Plattdeutsch (Low German), was recognised. According to the

Law on Administrative Proceedings [Verwaltungsverfahrensgesetz § 23.1

(VwVfG)], Standard German has been designated as the official written

and legal language.

In reality, linguistic and cultural diversity are significantly larger: in 2004,

for example, 45.4 million overnight stays of non-German tourists were

registered. In December 2004 in Berlin alone, the fourth largest city in

Europe, approximately 450.000 foreigners with passports from 185

countries were registered.

Greece

According to the 2001 survey of the National Statistics Agency the

population of Greece consists of about 10.934.087 inhabitants. 99% are

Greek and the other 1% is divided between about 5 major people groups

that posses other citizenships. There are no languages or national

minorities currently recognized in Greece. The only officially recognized

minority is the religious minority of Greek Muslims in western Thrace.

Greek is the official written/spoken language and the vast majority of the

population speaks Greek. However, some very small language groups

speak other languages and dialects such as Romanika, Vlachika or Turkish.

Hungary

There are over 10 million inhabitants in Hungary. 97% of the population

are Hungarian and the remaining 3% consist of 13 different nationalities:

German, Roma, Slovakian, Croatian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Slovenian,

Greek, Serbian, Polish, Ruthenian, Bulgarian and Armenian.

The official language, and the majority language is Hungarian, which is

part of the Finno-Ugric language family. There are another 5 million

Hungarians in the surrounding countries as minorities, and many of them

live scattered all over the world. The minorities of Hungary live in small

sporadic communities within majority language environments. They are

free to use their mother tongue, but due to strong assimilation the usage

of minority languages is decreasing in social communications. The

minority languages are mainly used in self-government, TV programmes,

schools and informal communication. Macedonian, Osetin and Yiddish

are also spoken in Hungary, but the numbers of native speakers are very

small. There is no education in these minority languages in Hungary.

Ireland

The 2002 Census reported that Ireland has a population of some

3,917,203 inhabitants. There are two official languages: English and Irish.

English is the most widely written and spoken language. But 42.8% of the

population speaks Irish. The highest proportion of Irish speakers are

amongst students in the 10-19 age group and in Galway County in the

West of Ireland, which has 52.7% Irish speakers.

Israel

There are over 6.3 million inhabitants in Israel, the majority are Jewish

with other religions and languages present. It is a multi-cultural country

with various communities living in Israel – both Jewish (stemming from

North Africa, Asia, Europe and America) and non-Jewish (Arabs:

Moslems, Christians, Bedouins, Druzes).

Most cultural institutions strive to be bilingual in English and Hebrew with

some including Russian and Arabic. Russian is supported as there has

been a high immigration of Russians to Israel. In 2004, the Israeli

government supported 994 cultural institutions and projects. These

included 107 museums, 220 libraries, 4 archives and 327 educational

facilities.

Italy

Italy has a population of 58,462,375 citizens (recorded on 31 December

2004), which includes 1,990,159 foreigners. Italian is the official language

of the Republic, but there are several cultural and linguistic minorities.

Italian legislation (laws n. 482/1999 and n. 38/2001; effective decree of

the President of the Republic n. 345/2001) states that the Italian Republic

(according to article 6 of the Constitution) values minority languages.

According to the law, the following languages and cultures are preserved

and promoted: Albanian, Catalan, Croatian, French, Franco-provençal,

Friulian, German, Greek, Ladin, Occitan, Slovene, and Sardinian. (this

represents a population of 2,428,770 people). Law 482/1999 decrees,

among other things, that these languages and cultures can be taught in

schools, that official documents and acts are bilingual, and that the local

language can be used for broadcasting information. This law doesn’t take

into account other languages that are commonly spoken in Italy among

immigrant communities, such as Arab or Chinese.

Latvia

In 2004, there were 2,319,203 people in Latvia according to the 2004

Year book published by the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia. The total

number of national minorities is not particularly large in Latvia, and each

minority group (except Russians) is relatively small. The biggest and most

active communities are Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews and Roma.

The majority of people of foreign descent mainly (69.2%) live in the seven

major cities of Latvia: Riga, Daugavpils, Jelgava, Jurmala, Liepaja,

Ventspils and Rezekne. As in many other countries there are both types

of minorities in Latvia – historical, traditional minority and immigrant

minority; 16% of all minorities are historical, but 27% are immigrants.

62% of Latvia’s residents recognise Latvian as their native language.

According the legislation (from 1989) the official language of the Republic

of Latvia is Latvian.

Luxembourg

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is located in the centre of Europe; it’s

often called «the heart of Europe». The territory of the country has a

surface of 2.586 spkm. The population consists of 277.400 Luxembourg

nationals (61,43%) and 174.200 foreigners (38,57%)9.The indigenous

language is Lëtzebuergesch (Luxembourgish-Frankish-Moselle dialect

from the West) and it coexists among others with High German and

French. These three languages have been recognized by law in 198410.

At that moment Lëtzebuergesch was elevated to the rank of the

Luxembourgers’ national language. The government also sanctioned its

status as a language in its own right, separate from German, and its

importance as a symbol of the national identity of the Grand Duchy. 33%

of  the inhabitants speaks Lëtzebuergesch, 58% speaks French, 8%`speaks German, and 1% speaks English.

As can be seen the number of different languages in the continent is overwhelming but so is the market and proper European SEO by a company like New Frontier Digital can give you a huge return of interest.