Step 4: Keyword Research, SEO & Stuff...
After changing the language of your WordPress site, the next common question is how to do keyword research and SEO if you're building a website in other languages.
1. Keyword Research
You definitely won't be able to use WA's Keyword Tool or Jaaxy anymore as those keyword tools are for English users.
There are a few alternative ways.
Firstly, you can look for keyword research tools online that are in your language. (Although the chances are low)
Secondly, you can use Google AdWord's Keyword Planner. (In order to use that to find keywords in your language, you need to set your Google's language to your own language.)
Lastly, do your keyword research manually!
Once you're more experienced, you can actually manually research for keywords in Google. Manual keyword research allows you to find relevant/similar keywords as well as each keyword's competition.
Learn more about Manual Keyword Research here!
2. SEO
For SEO, it's the same like what you have been doing...
- Download & Activate Yoast or All-in-one SEO
- Set up the basic settings
- Add & verify your website in your Google Analytics and Search Console
- Writing your contents freely and normally in your own language
All these steps are the same. You just need to take note that if you change the default WordPress language (method 1), your SEO plugin settings will also be in your language.
The plugins are developed in English so some of the translations may not be accurate. As long as you know what each of them represents, just freely type in the necessary stuffs.
For Yoast, please do not be too concerned about their SEO scores just because they can't recognize your language.
Also, your Permalink should be in English if your website language is not formed up my English characters. This is better for Google to understand and rank your posts/pages.
Only if your website language can be formed up by English characters, then you can use that in your permalink. This is for the purpose of being SEO friendly.
(I read this somewhere which I can't find the source now...)
Reply
There are a few words in the default WordPress template that still appear in English on the site but in Indonesia that seems acceptable. I can get that may not be appropriate for a Mandarin site.
You said: "Also, your Permalink should always be in English regardless of your website's language. This is better for Google to understand and rank your posts/pages." Do you have any evidence for this or is it just your "thinking" .. for example Indonesians are searching in Bahasa not English so how would Google correctly rank a search if the permalink is in English? FYI the Bahasa Character set is the same as English.
Cheers, William.
I think I need to rephrase it. For example, Mandarin doesn't use English characters so there's an issue when setting the permalink. Some people will use Mandarin characters in the permalink which is not SEO friendly. (I read some articles about this.)
However, for languages that also use English characters, you can stick to your language for permalink.
