SEO localization: what to change on each translated page

SEO localization is adapting the parts of a translated page that search engines read, so the page can be found by people searching in that language and market. The visible text is one of them. The others are the title, the meta description, the URL slug, image alt text, structured data, social sharing tags and the anchor text of internal links. A page can be translated well and still show an English title in German results, or carry a slug nobody in the market would type. Localizing for search means choosing, for each of those fields, the words the market actually uses, which is often different from the words a direct translation produces.

How SEO localization differs from translation#

Translation renders what the source says. SEO localization starts from what the target market searches for and makes sure the page says that, in the places search engines give most weight. The research comes first: international keyword research finds the phrase per market, and this article is about putting it to work on the page. The site-wide side, such as URL structure, hreflang between versions and choosing markets, is in our international SEO guide.

In practice the two jobs are done together by the same reviewer, with one extra question for every search-facing field: is this the phrase people here would search for, and does it still read naturally?

The title#

The title is the most visible field in a search result, and Google's guidance on it has a rule that matters for every translated page: "Use the same language and writing system (meaning, the script or alphabet for a given language) as the primary content on your pages." If the two do not match, Google says it "may choose a different text as the title link". A Spanish page with an English title tag risks having its title rewritten from other text on the page.

Write the title as a person in that market would phrase the offer, with the primary phrase near the start. Google also asks for "distinct text that describes the content of the page" on each page and warns against keyword stuffing, so the localized title should be one natural phrase, not a list of variants.

The meta description#

Google says snippets "are primarily created from the page content itself", and that it "sometimes uses the meta description HTML element" when that describes the page better. It also asks for descriptions that differ by page: "Identical or similar descriptions on every page of a site aren't helpful." For a translated site that rules out one generic description per language. Translate each page's description, then check it reads as a summary of that page for a reader in the market, with the phrase they searched for in it.

The URL slug#

Google's URL guidance is explicit about language: "Use words in your audience's language in the URL." Its own example uses German words, example.com/lebensmittel/pfefferminz, for a German audience. For characters outside ASCII, Google asks that links percent-encode them: gem%C3%BCse in the href, not gemüse.

Slugs are the field where changing your mind costs most, because a changed URL needs a redirect from the old one. Decide the localized slug before the page goes live.

Headings and body copy#

The primary phrase belongs in the main heading and, where it fits, in a subheading or the first paragraph. Supporting phrases from the research can replace a direct translation wherever they read naturally. In German, for example, a translator might write one word for "website" throughout, while searchers use several; the body can use the second and third where a German writer would.

Image alt text#

Google "uses alt text along with computer vision algorithms and the contents of the page to understand the subject matter of the image", and asks for alt text that is "information-rich" and "in context of the content of the page" without filling it with keywords. Translated alt text should describe the picture in the target language. Screen readers read it aloud too, so an English description left on a French page is an accessibility bug as well as a search one.

Structured data#

JSON-LD often holds text: product names and descriptions, FAQ questions and answers, article headlines. Google's guidelines say "your structured data must be a true representation of the page content", so on a translated page the structured data has to be translated with it. An English FAQ block in the JSON-LD of a Spanish page describes content the page does not show.

Schema.org also has a property for the language itself, inLanguage, defined as "the language of the content", using "one of the language codes from the IETF BCP 47 standard", such as es or de-AT.

Social sharing tags#

Open Graph tags decide what a link looks like when someone shares it. Translate og:title and og:description with the page. The protocol also defines og:locale, "the locale these tags are marked up in", in the format language_TERRITORY such as fr_FR, and og:locale:alternate for "other locales this page is available in". Note the underscore: Open Graph writes fr_FR, while lang and hreflang use the BCP 47 form fr-FR.

Internal links and anchor text#

Links inside a translated page should point at the translated versions of their targets, with anchor text in the page's language. A German article that links to English pages sends readers out of their language and gives search engines mixed signals about which version belongs to which market.

A worked example: one product page for German searchers#

A hypothetical English shop sells running shoes and is adding German. Here is what each field becomes, first translated directly and then localized after keyword research. The phrases are illustrations, not measured data.

The direct translation is correct in every row except the last two, and it still leaves the page competing with the wrong words in three places. The last column needs the keyword research and someone who knows the market, and that reviewer should own it.

How LangRelay handles the search-facing fields#

LangRelay translates the page your WordPress site renders, and that includes most of the fields above. The <title>, the meta description, the Open Graph and Twitter title and description, and the text in JSON-LD are translated with the page, as are image alt text and accessible labels. The plugin serves each language under its own path such as /de/, with hreflang, a canonical per language, the html lang attribute and the Open Graph URL, and it rewrites internal links so a German page links to German pages.

The decisions stay with you. The Visual editor's SEO tab lists the page's title and meta tags, so a reviewer can put the researched phrase into the title; to do that before pages go live, choose Ask me first. On paid plans, a glossary entry per language keeps a chosen term consistent, because machine translation follows the glossary. The localized slug is set by hand per page and language today, and automatic slug translation is on our roadmap; LangRelay adds no redirect when a slug changes, which is one more reason to set it before the page goes live. By default a translation goes live as soon as it is ready, with free checks that hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price, and after each activation a delivery check reads the live page's lang, canonical and hreflang. The multilingual SEO page has more on what the plugin serves. To see the SEO tab on one of your own pages, book a demo.

Questions people ask about SEO localization#

Is SEO localization the same as SEO translation?#

The terms are used for the same work. "SEO translation" usually means translating with search in mind; "SEO localization" stresses that the phrase is chosen for the market, which can mean writing a field from scratch instead of translating it.

Should I translate keywords directly?#

Use the direct translation as one candidate, then check what people in the market search. The two often differ, and the search data should win in the title, slug and description, as long as the result still reads well.

Does Google translate my titles for me?#

Google Search can show translated results in some cases, opened through Google Translate. Your page still needs its own title, description and content in the searcher's language. Its title guidance asks for the title to match the language of the page.