Service
Local & International SEO
Location pages that deserve to exist, and multi-market sites that do not compete with themselves.
Geographic SEO fails in two familiar ways: near-duplicate location pages that read as templates, and international sites where hreflang, canonicals and market targeting contradict each other. Both are architecture problems before they are content problems.
- Employer-of-record searches in several countriesSee the case study
- #1
- Ranking keywords across marketsSee the case study
- 8,147 → 22,562
Why it matters
What is at stake.
For businesses that serve specific places or several countries, the same service has to be found by different people searching in different ways. Getting the structure wrong means pages competing with each other or the wrong version appearing in the wrong market.
Local search also brings the map results and business profiles, which often sit above every organic result for a local service.
Workflow
How the work runs.
Each step builds on the evidence from the one before, and every finding is checked against the live site before it becomes a recommendation.
01
Market and location demand
Measure demand by city, region and country to decide which locations and markets justify their own pages.
02
Structure
Choose the domain, folder and hreflang setup for international sites, or the location page architecture for local ones.
03
Local presence
Optimise Google Business Profiles, citations and name, address and phone consistency for each real location.
04
Differentiated pages
Give each location or market page genuinely local substance, so it earns its place instead of duplicating a template.
05
Measure by market
Track rankings and visibility separately for each location and market.
Results
What it can bring.
- The right page ranking in the right location or country.
- Stronger visibility in map results for local services.
- No cannibalisation between locations or language versions.
- Growth measured market by market.
Typically includes
- Google Business Profile optimisation
- Location page architecture
- hreflang and international targeting
- Market and domain structure decisions
- Multi-market content planning
In practice
How country-by-country pages ranked
A global HR and payroll platform: keywords in Google's top three grew from 95 to 1,025 in six months, on searches worth up to $111 a click.
Common questions
Questions about Local & International SEO.
- Should every location have its own page?
- Only where there is real demand and genuinely local substance. Near-identical location pages are a common reason local sites underperform.
- Do you set up hreflang for international websites?
- Yes, as part of deciding the overall market structure. Hreflang only works when canonicals, internal links and the page versions themselves agree with it.
- How do I rank in Google's local map results?
- Through a complete and accurate Google Business Profile, consistent business details across the web, genuine reviews, and a website with strong pages for each location. Proximity to the searcher also plays a large part, which no optimisation can change.
- What is hreflang?
- An annotation that tells search engines which language or country version of a page to show to which users. It prevents versions of the same page from competing with each other and helps the right version appear in each market.
- Should an international site use separate domains, subdomains or folders?
- There is no single right answer. Folders on one domain are usually easiest to build authority for, while separate country domains can give a stronger local signal but split authority. The choice depends on markets, resources and how the business operates.
- Can I rank in a city where I do not have an office?
- In regular organic results, yes, if a page offers genuinely useful information for that area. In the map results it is much harder, because they depend heavily on a verified business address near the searcher.
Need help with Local & International SEO?
Describe what is happening on your site. You will get a direct answer about what I think is going on, how I would approach it, and whether it is work I should be doing.
Or email directly
hello@ivanseo.com