- 6 months ago
In this insightful episode, host Ruchi Pardal (SVP of Innovation at ResultFirst) is joined by Amir Alsayegh, Global SEO Lead at Crocs, to explore the often-overlooked nuances of international SEO. From cultural missteps to technical scaling, Amir brings a decade of experience and a rich global perspective to help SEO professionals navigate the real challenges of going global.
The episode begins with a discussion on why hreflang tags alone aren’t enough, and how understanding cultural context and user behavior across regions can make or break an international SEO strategy. Amir shares compelling examples—like how the word “clog” carries very different meanings in Dutch versus American culture—and explains why simple translation won’t suffice.
The conversation then delves into common pitfalls brands face when entering new markets, from rushing to launch before a site is fully localized to underestimating regional user flows and expectations. Amir reflects on a past experience where a minor hreflang adjustment significantly resolved traffic cannibalization and boosted regional performance. He also provides a tactical checklist for launching SEO in new markets, highlighting the importance of site readiness, URL structure alignment, and optimizing user flows before targeting a region.
Toward the end, Amir emphasizes that international SEO is as much about community integration as it is about metadata. He shares his go-to expert resources, including a shoutout to Aleyda Solis, and encourages brands to research, respect, and serve their international audiences meaningfully—because true success in global SEO is rooted in cultural empathy.
For anyone looking to scale SEO globally while avoiding costly missteps, this episode is packed with actionable insights, real-world case studies, and expert tips.
👉 Prefer YouTube? You can also catch this episode there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4vSz67TnI8&t=483s
The episode begins with a discussion on why hreflang tags alone aren’t enough, and how understanding cultural context and user behavior across regions can make or break an international SEO strategy. Amir shares compelling examples—like how the word “clog” carries very different meanings in Dutch versus American culture—and explains why simple translation won’t suffice.
The conversation then delves into common pitfalls brands face when entering new markets, from rushing to launch before a site is fully localized to underestimating regional user flows and expectations. Amir reflects on a past experience where a minor hreflang adjustment significantly resolved traffic cannibalization and boosted regional performance. He also provides a tactical checklist for launching SEO in new markets, highlighting the importance of site readiness, URL structure alignment, and optimizing user flows before targeting a region.
Toward the end, Amir emphasizes that international SEO is as much about community integration as it is about metadata. He shares his go-to expert resources, including a shoutout to Aleyda Solis, and encourages brands to research, respect, and serve their international audiences meaningfully—because true success in global SEO is rooted in cultural empathy.
For anyone looking to scale SEO globally while avoiding costly missteps, this episode is packed with actionable insights, real-world case studies, and expert tips.
👉 Prefer YouTube? You can also catch this episode there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4vSz67TnI8&t=483s
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TechTranscript
00:00It's easy to use translation, but the reality is that words have different connotation, have different sentiment, have different history.
00:10Take care of H.R.F. Lang and you're good for international SEO.
00:13The reality of international SEO is that it's not only technical, it's not only content.
00:18Welcome to the Performance SEO Unpacked Podcast, where leading experts reveal practical solutions for scaling enterprise and e-commerce growth.
00:26Deep dive into cutting-edge AI SEO strategies.
00:30Hi, everybody.
00:30Welcome to another episode of Performance SEO Unpacked.
00:33I'm joined today with Amir, who works at Crocs and has great experience of working in international SEO.
00:40Today, he's going to be sharing with us some insights on how to maneuver the international SEO space.
00:46Welcome to the podcast, Amir.
00:48Thank you so much.
00:49I really appreciate it.
00:50I appreciate being included and invited to join here.
00:53Looking forward to chatting today.
00:55Absolutely.
00:55So getting right into the podcast, international SEO, whenever somebody talks about, typically most of the people think about H.R.F. Langs, you know, that you kind of take care of H.R.F. Lang and you're good for international SEO.
01:08But I guess it's a lot more than that.
01:10What's one major cultural factor that you think, you know, can make or break an international SEO strategy?
01:18It's an interesting subject.
01:19I think, you know, the world of international SEO has always thought of, it's always been thought of as kind of a technical first initiative, right?
01:27For most brands and one that's certainly challenging, right?
01:31Like it's it's requiring extra meta tags.
01:34It's requiring, you know, language shifts, sometimes subdomains and subdirectories.
01:39You know, there's there's kind of this technical infrastructure that's required as a starting point for any international SEO initiative.
01:47And I think the majority of brands start there and sometimes they think that, well, because of how challenging those technical pieces are, that must be all we have to do.
01:58You know, if we can get the tech part down, you know, we we have enough to kind of move into an international market.
02:04I think the reality of international SEO is that it's not only technical, it's not only content, right?
02:11It's not only just kind of translating your content, but there is this kind of cultural and user flow perspective that brands really need to consider.
02:20That's beyond the technical, beyond the content and really comes back to the user first mentality of what is a user in an international location look like and what might their, you know, kind of search queries reflect a reflection of change in search intent?
02:38You know, how does their search intent change as you go from region to region, from language to language?
02:43How does their purchase process change, you know, are they kind of thinking about the same things?
02:49Are they considering the same reasons to buy as your home country's, you know, audience or the user base that you're used to?
02:57So I think when it comes down to like one major cultural factor that can make or break, it really comes down to, are you putting your user, especially that new user, that new kind of international user,
03:10are you putting them first in every choice that you make?
03:13And sometimes it might be a complete shift in your experience.
03:18You know, most brands have a traditional user flow of, you know, you land on a homepage, you, you know, digest a category page,
03:27and then you're kind of down to some type of product, some type of service page before, you know, converting, before engaging with the brand in a meaningful way.
03:35That's not true for every user in every part of the world.
03:38Sometimes there's more questions, sometimes there's more need for building trust and that sort of thing, you know, understanding history, right?
03:47The history of a brand, the history of a particular product, all of those things, I think, kind of make or break the experience for an international user.
03:55And understanding that culture, understanding that user's culture is sometimes the first place before you tackle some of the technical and content related challenges.
04:04So, yeah, that's a great point.
04:07You know, it takes you down way deep into understanding of the user, the user intent.
04:13You know, following up on that point, have you ever experienced a keyword that meant something very different in one country,
04:21whereas you had to deal with, you know, it in a very different way in a different country, and it meant completely different for the brand?
04:28A hundred percent, yeah.
04:29It's interesting coming back to when you have this SEO hat on and you're looking at how do I convert, you know, the entirety of this site or this product line into another language for another region, it's easy to use translation, right?
04:47I just need to translate this keyword, call it a day, you know, I'm selling shoes, I'm going to look up what is shoes in every other language in every other region, and we're selling the same product, right?
05:00And that seems pretty straightforward.
05:01But the reality is that words have different connotation, have different sentiment, have different history.
05:08There's this whole world of etymology in every region, in every language that's generally ignored by, you know, especially us in the West.
05:18You know, the Western world tends to ignore some of that etymological history.
05:22And so when it comes down to like individual keywords, it's also important to understand what does this mean culturally?
05:28What does this mean regionally and dialectically?
05:30And so a perfect example in kind of this world of Crocs, we sell shoes, but more specifically, we sell clogs.
05:39And so the classic clog kind of silhouette that everyone's familiar with in the Crocs world, clog in other languages means a lot of different things, even in English, right?
05:51Like you have an English translation of clog to clog.
05:54My favorite example is in the Netherlands, clog and a classic clog especially means something very different than the silhouette that's on our site.
06:02It means this wooden, you know, kind of very historically relevant, especially to the region, this wooden footwear piece.
06:10And, you know, it has this historical cultural relevance to it that is so beyond the silhouette of the product that we have.
06:17And so in a lot of ways, you have these two kind of competing icons in a very specific region.
06:23You know, in the Netherlands, in Dutch culture, clog doesn't necessarily mean just a shoe that you slip in and that's, you know, kind of flat underfoot.
06:32But it's specific to that culturally relevant icon.
06:35And so I think when you have two, especially two iconic silhouettes that are kind of now competing for the same keyword, it's important to kind of recognize that culture and, you know, call it out explicitly that, hey, this is a classic clog style that's flat underfoot that, you know, is easy to slip on and off.
06:55And you start finding that you're describing, even though people get what a croc is, right?
07:00Like we know what a classic clog looks like.
07:03Everyone kind of recognized that icon.
07:04But it's important to describe it more carefully in regions where, you know, it might not mean the same thing.
07:10And the same goes for a lot of Europe.
07:13Sabot, which is S-A-B-O-T, technically means clog in languages like French.
07:18But again, it's going to represent something that's vastly different to what we, you know, especially in Western cultures, think as a clog, you know, as that one image.
07:29So I think, again, kind of putting that user first, taking your SEO hat off and putting your, you know, your good culturally relevant human hat back on and saying, hey, what does this mean in another language?
07:41Is this dialectically relevant or am I getting into a world that's a little shaky?
07:46That's a very interesting example.
07:48You know, in our experience that we've had with some of our clients, we've generally been dealing with, you know, keywords like some countries will have sale as a word, you know, to talk about offers.
07:58The other one are more common with deals as their daily dialect.
08:03You know, what are the deals around it?
08:04Some of the others will say, what's the sale around it?
08:06Because typically tied around, you know, the Thanksgiving and the, and the Big Friday, Black Friday event.
08:12But this is like completely taking just the meaning of the product, which is clogs, which is a flagship product, I guess, for, for crocs, just means completely different in a, in a different region.
08:22You know, that's, that's just mind blowing and it, how you, you know, mentioned and you broaden the entire scope and learning process for an SEO person, right?
08:31Not just knowing technical SEO and the way and the nuances of the SEO industry, but also learning the history and the culture around it.
08:39It just broadens the spectrum so much for an SEO.
08:42It just sounds like a lot of fun for me here.
08:45It is, it is, it is.
08:47And, and, you know, and, and I appreciate you saying that immensely because for me, it kind of, it takes you outside of the world that we live in and then, you know, it takes you beyond your front door.
08:58And I think that that's good for kind of every person to do, regardless of industry, regardless of, you know, what company you work for, what, you know, what your origin is and what your kind of home country is.
09:11I think it's kind of a fun exercise to take a step back and say, man, it's a big world out there.
09:18You know, it's a big world out there.
09:20That's all doing something similar, but also something different and recognizing what those differences are and being able to say, man, it is cool to think that, you know, there's someone just like me in another part of the world.
09:34Looking up a new shoe purchase and researching it in the same way and getting different results and having different needs and being able to meet those needs, you know, in, in, in kind of new and creative and meaningful ways.
09:46It's a really, really fun thing to do that, you know, goes so far outside of just SEO and really goes into the world of like, oh man, yeah, I'm learning about another culture.
09:55I'm learning about another kind of history and being able to kind of put myself, no pun intended, in another person's shoes.
10:01Yeah, super interesting, super interesting.
10:05Coming from a technical standpoint, you know, scaling international SEO can be challenging from a technical standpoint, you know, multiple different domains, multiple languages.
10:14What is that one underrated, you know, SEO tactic that can really help you scale the SEO growth internationally?
10:21Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.
10:23So I think there's two things that come to mind.
10:29The first is our favorite hreflang tags.
10:34Hreflang tags are bare to contend with, even at a glance when they seem simple, you know, they still have this kind of underlying challenge of, well, there's three different ways to implement an hreflang tag.
10:46And, you know, are the search engines respecting that tag and, you know, showing the right URL to the right type of user and that sort of thing.
10:54So I'd say that that's certainly kind of the first place where big mistakes can happen, targeting the wrong language, the wrong region, having formatting issues, whether you're deploying via sitemap or deploying via meta tag.
11:07So take the time and intentionality to do that right from day one.
11:14I think that that's going to set you up for success.
11:15I think that the other component to that is, you know, kind of these intentional decisions and intentional decision making process around having a site experience that's ready to be deployed to a larger audience in advance of putting it out there, in advance of using hreflang tags to kind of target this new region, this new language.
11:38A lot of brands, you know, and we're certainly guilty of this too, a lot of brands, they're like, great, the site is ready to go.
11:46And on day of launch, we want to start targeting this new language in this new region without really thinking like, is this a fully launched experience?
11:55You know, have the bugs been worked out if someone, if a hundred people, a thousand people, you know, 10,000 people were to come and buy products on our site from that language and region, would they be happy with their experience?
12:10If the answer is no through any of that user flow, then it's probably time to kind of, you know, take it back into staging, work on it some more and really focus on some of those, those experience changes required before launching to an audience.
12:27Because the other thing that you have to remember is you're not just launching the same site in a new region or language, you're exposing a whole new audience, a whole new region and language to your brand for the first time.
12:41You know, Crocs is certainly lucky and the Hey Dude world, right?
12:45Like our sister, our sister brand is certainly lucky that large majority of the world has probably heard of us, has probably seen our products, has seen them in the wild, that sort of thing.
12:54That's a really, really cool thing.
12:56And, and, you know, we're, we're certainly lucky to have that, but that's not the case for every brand.
13:01That's not the case for every site.
13:02So, you know, I think that, that, that intentionality piece, that just being intentional around, this is the first time that, you know, a person speaking this language in this region is going to be exposed to our brand, to our experience.
13:18Is that really the exact experience that we want?
13:22That first impression.
13:23Is that really good?
13:24Is that exactly what we want it to be?
13:27And if any of those answers are no, then it's probably time to, you know, to kind of take it back to the staging.
13:31So I think that those are the two biggest mistakes, you know, it's, it's getting the targeting, the technical pieces right and making sure that that is really, really well locked in.
13:41And then, you know, kind of the second half is just remembering that this is the first impression of your brand to this language and region.
13:48Is that impression going to be a good one?
13:51Interesting.
13:51That brings me to a point, you know, if, for our listeners, is there a quick top of the mind checklist that you can, you know, just mention some of the items that you would always want anybody launching a new market, you know, in international SEO.
14:06So to must go through or to swear by, you know, what could that checklist contain?
14:11Yeah, so I think first and foremost, it's making sure that there is like a well represented change in your user flow.
14:21So it's, do your collection pages accurately reflect the new language and region, you know, are you not only translating the content on the page, but translating things like URLs?
14:31Are you then targeting those URLs with hreflang targets?
14:35So using the tags to, to target the right language and region, and again, making sure that those match up.
14:41A lot of the times you'll have some English language content, but you're targeting like a German language speaking user within, you know, the German region, that sort of thing.
14:52Making sure that those all kind of match up from experience to experience is going to be, is going to be a key part of that.
14:58I would also say that that checklist can be using the tools available to you.
15:04There are so many great international SEO resources and tools out there, partners like yourself that can help you navigate this process.
15:12You know, certainly results first, go to them.
15:15You know what I mean?
15:15Like go to, go to the experts over, over on your, on your side of things and, and, and be able to kind of ask those questions in advance because it's, it's a team.
15:25You know, it really does take a village.
15:27It really does take a team to get these things right.
15:29And I would also say like, turn to the experts that have been doing this for years.
15:34You know, I know when you and I first introduced ourselves to each other, we were talking about Aleta Solis.
15:39Aleta is an amazing resource in the space, has been in the SEO world, is an absolute rockstar for so many, so many years.
15:46Aleta is the go-to for anyone like myself, including myself, when it comes to just SEO gut checks in the international SEO space.
15:54So if you're doubting something, you know, use the tools on Aleta's site, use some of those kind of checklists that she's built because yeah, the resources are out there.
16:06It's a, it's a tough thing to navigate, but you don't have to do it alone.
16:11You know?
16:11Yeah.
16:11I love it.
16:12Thank you for the shout out.
16:13And I love it when you mentioned that it takes a village to launch an international SEO campaign and doing it right.
16:19It really does.
16:21It really does.
16:21Well, can you share a time where, you know, a small SEO tweak, an international SEO tweak could have brought a massive impact on the returns and the revenue for the organization?
16:32Yeah, a hundred percent.
16:34So the example is actually not in my current role, but in a previous role, yeah, without saying brand names, they were a major financial institution.
16:43So selling credit cards, you know, that sort of thing, credit cards, loans, they had a whole loan division, that sort of thing.
16:49Their name rhymes with risk cover.
16:52So you can probably guess who I'm talking about.
16:54They were launching in various countries, various regions.
16:57They obviously don't have a huge international presence.
17:00They're, they're primarily us-based, but you know, they wanted to kind of have content that was easy to digest all over the world.
17:06And they found that even though their HLFLang targets looked good, had kind of every component correctly built, they were deploying it via header meta tag.
17:18Meta tags that existed in the header.
17:21The issue was that because of the setup of lazy load that were on kind of built into their tech stack, the header wasn't properly loading in time and wasn't properly rendering in time for the search engines to pick it up.
17:39And respect it to be the right URL to the right user.
17:43And so what was simple enough was just taking copy and pasting, basically copying and pasting those meta tags into a site map and sending that as kind of a separate entity.
17:54It existed at the same time.
17:55So the meta tags were unchanged on, on page, but we just kind of gave like a backup, um, in the form of a site map.
18:01And so realistically it was maybe like a day's worth of work across all of their web properties, but it had a massive impact.
18:10I mean, the cannibalization across the various regions was gone within a few weeks.
18:15You know, we had to let Google crawl in and respect that engine stuff like that, get it all submitted into Google search console.
18:22But within a few weeks, all the right traffic was going to the right regions.
18:27And those regions that were in the past really struggling to get traffic and revenue, we're starting to get a lot more engagement and, and then everyone was really, really happy.
18:35And so the regional partners were kind of looking at their agency partners, their regional agency partners.
18:40They're kind of looking at me and, and they were like, was this really all we needed?
18:44You know, was it as simple as this?
18:47And the answer I have is that like, it's never as simple as this.
18:51You know what I mean?
18:52Like it happened to be as simple as this, this time, but boy, did we get lucky because it could have been a much bigger project.
18:59Yeah.
18:59I mean, some, these are so celebratory moments in the life of an SEO, I guess, you know, when you find that small tweak that can bring in such a major impact.
19:08The other day in one of the other podcasts, I was talking to Liam and we were talking about migrating large websites.
19:15And as simple as updating the robots.txt that can make or break your entire strategy.
19:24Right.
19:24Yeah.
19:25It's, it's equally, you know, relevant there.
19:27Just not making sure that it's being rendered properly.
19:31Yes.
19:31And just completely make or break the whole thing.
19:33You know, it's, it's so hilarious.
19:35You know, at the end of the day, we are at the beck and call of the search engines themselves.
19:40Yeah.
19:40And, you know, we're operating with an exist within an existing ecosystem.
19:45We are not making the rules.
19:47You know, we are, we are playing by them.
19:49And I think SEO sometimes forget that, especially like the damn good ones tend to forget that where they're like, oh yeah, you know, I can, I can manipulate and mold the search engines to do whatever I need.
20:02A lot of times that's true, but the reality is that we're still playing their game and we have to abide by their rules.
20:08And if for whatever reason, you know, they feel like we're doing something wrong, the search engines feel like we're doing something wrong.
20:14We've got to listen to that.
20:16We've got to, you know, pivot where we need to.
20:18So it's a, it's a tough thing and it's a humbling thing to be reminded of that.
20:22But yeah, when you're reminded, it's a slap in the face.
20:25It's a real slap in the face.
20:26What's that, you know, this is all these experience of working with international SEO.
20:32What's that one advice that you would give to anybody who's listening, trying to get into international space that they must swear by while, you know, picking up an international SEO project?
20:44Yeah.
20:44Yeah.
20:45So I think what it comes down to is integrating into these communities.
20:51Ultimately, you're serving the community that you're, you know, that you're, that you're kind of reaching.
20:58So it's not just about translating.
21:01It's not just about, you know, technical SEO.
21:03I think it's even more than trying to accurately reflect, you know, a cultural change for your users.
21:09It's really about getting into that community and understanding it.
21:13And if you have access to the community, great talk to the people in that community, in that region, you know, that speak that language, try and get a sense of, you know, where their heads at, where some of their motivations lie.
21:25What life is like, you know, for, for people living in that country, in that region, speaking that language, but more so, you know, it's doing the research, you know, it's, it's not just necessarily integrating directly into that community, talking to those people, but it's also just researching what life is like there.
21:41I think that that's probably a must follow kind of, you know, peace, because it comes down to, you got to do right by that community.
21:51If you're producing something or selling something or, you know, even letting, you know, this, this community digest content, even if it's just reading content, if it's not serving that community's needs, then you're doing a disservice to them and you're doing a disservice to the world.
22:08And I think, especially now with the, the kind of the freedom of information, the freedom of technology that we have in today's world, there's so much stuff out there that does a disservice to every community out there, including our own, right?
22:23There's misinformation, there's scams, there's, you know, there's so much just, you know, pardon my language.
22:31There's so much bullshit that we have to wade through, you know, in, in today's modern age.
22:36And so I think if we individually can just take a moment to say, how can I do right by this one community?
22:44How can I integrate in a meaningful way that kind of makes their life better?
22:48That's going to be the key to success.
22:49The rest of that stuff will follow because if we don't, then we're just going to be another, another part of that bullshit that, you know, that everyone's already wading through.
22:59That's such great advice.
23:01And on the, you know, understanding community deeply is so much more important.
23:05Like you mentioned to understanding, you know, how the keywords changes, how the user experience of the website should adapt to that particular region.
23:13Just on the fun part, curious to know how many times you've been living in Germany or living in some other place on a, on a company holiday to understand the culture.
23:22You know, yeah, you know, not enough.
23:25I'll tell you that, you know, yeah.
23:28If, if, if Crocs, if the Crocs leadership team, you know, send me, send me all over.
23:34Send me out there.
23:35I need to, you know, I need to integrate into these communities if I'm really going to do.
23:40No, you know, I've, I've had the pleasure of living in a lot of places in my life and, you know, my family is from overseas.
23:45You know, we're, we're, we're originally from the Middle East and yeah, I, I, I really count myself lucky to have been exposed.
23:52And I really, I thank my parents for, for exposing me, especially at a young age to so many different cultures and so many different kinds of walks of life.
24:01And, you know, having the, the freedom to travel has been an absolute blessing.
24:05And so, yeah, I think for me, it's like, I've seen a small part of the world and it's still, I'm, I feel really, really lucky to even see that small percentage, but it was an instant reminder that there is so much more of the world to see and to experience and, and to respect.
24:23And yeah, and I think that we'd all be a little better off by just, you know, even, even doing the, the research, you know, putting in the time to understand how those other people are living their life and, you know, how we can better understand them.
24:37Yeah, totally.
24:38I agree with it.
24:39You know, that was on the fun part where cross should expand where your holiday destination should be.
24:43A hundred percent.
24:44Yeah.
24:44Yeah.
24:45Yeah.
24:45Fingers crossed.
24:46I'm going to look into that, you know, we'll see where, where, where, where haven't I been that I can get out there and, you know, you know,
24:53maybe we need a, maybe we need a Crocs Maui, you know, central dedication.
24:58Yeah.
24:58Yeah.
24:58I think we have, we have some stores out there.
25:00Maybe I'll have to, we'll have to plan a visit soon.
25:03Yes, totally.
25:04Well, it's been a great conversation.
25:06Where can people follow you and learn more about you, you know, on the international SEO front?
25:11Thank you so much.
25:11No, I appreciate it.
25:12Yeah.
25:12So, you know, feel free to find me on LinkedIn, you know, my full name.
25:16I'm probably the only one out there and yeah, look for, you know, look for my ugly mug on LinkedIn.
25:22You know, yeah, I think that's probably the best place to connect with me.
25:25I, you know, I really love doing what I do.
25:29I really, really love helping brands out with just figuring out these kind of little things, the little questions that become the big problems.
25:38I really do love doing this and I've been doing it a long time.
25:42I'm coming up on my 12th or 13th year in the SEO world and I really, really love doing it.
25:48So if you're, you know, looking for help, if you're a brand looking for help, reach out, let's chat.
25:53I'd love to be able to help.
25:54I do that quite a lot of just kind of talking to other brands and working out what issues they have because it's fun for me.
26:01You know, for me, it's investigative.
26:03You know, it's a lot like solving a puzzle.
26:05It's a lot like, you know, detective work more than anything.
26:08And that's the fun part for me.
26:10You know, I'll tell you what, I've produced enough title tags for a lifetime.
26:15So when brands come and they're like, hey, we've got a problem and we need help diagnosing it or kind of figuring out what's going on.
26:22That's the fun part.
26:23That's the fun part.
26:24Yeah, totally.
26:25Totally.
26:25I agree.
26:26Yeah.
26:27Well, thank you so much.
26:28It's been a fun, interactive episode.
26:30I hope the listeners enjoy it.
26:31And it was great chatting with you.
26:33Great chatting with you too.
26:34Thank you so much.
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