Wondering why your carefully crafted website isn’t reaching as broad an audience as you anticipated, especially in the most populated country like India? Indian people speak, read, and communicate in various other languages besides English. It’s possible that your website, flawlessly crafted in one language fails to attract or communicate with an audience that is comfortable with a different language.
Even if your website is available in multiple languages it is possible that it remains hidden from your target audience. Why does this happen?
The answer might lie in how your site communicates across language barriers. The key to unlocking a truly global audience strategically depends on the implementation of hreflang tags.
Hreflang tags act as a powerful tool for developers, enabling them to effectively communicate with audiences worldwide. By implementing these tags correctly, businesses can bridge the language gap and ensure the documentation reaches the ones who need it most.
What is Hreflang Tag?
The Hreflang tag is an HTML attribute that instructs search engines on how to serve the correct language or regional URL in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to users based on their geographic location. This tag is utilized to manage content in multiple languages and regional variations of the same language.
How does the Hreflang tag look?
<link rel=”alternate” href=”http://example.com/en-gb” hreflang=”en-gb” />
In this example, the tag tells search engines that the content located at the specified URL is in English, specifically designed for audiences in Great Britain.
For businesses in India targeting regional audiences, Hreflang tags play an important role in offering website content in various languages (e.g., Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and more). This ensures that the right content reaches the right audience.
For example, if a business has different pages for its Hindi-speaking and Tamil-speaking customers, Hreflang tags can guide search engines to display the Hindi page to users in Hindi-speaking regions and the Tamil page to users in Tamil-speaking regions.
This enhances user experience by providing content in the user’s preferred language and also helps improve the site’s SEO performance by reducing bounce rates and increasing engagement.
Step-by-Step Implementation Guide for Hreflang Tags
This step-by-step guide is for developers implementing the Hreflang tag. Following these steps will enable developers to serve the right content to the right audience. It is important for businesses looking to target their web content to users in specific languages and regions, especially in a market like India.
- Assess the need for Hreflang tags- Start by identifying if your website serves content in multiple languages or targets users in different countries. Hreflang tags are essential for businesses with an international presence or businesses operating in multiple states within India. They help avoid duplicate content issues and improve search engine visibility across different regions.
- Map your website’s language and country/state versions- Create a clear structure of your website’s various language and regional versions. This step involves listing all the versions of your website, each assigned to a specific language and, if applicable, a country code. This will serve as the foundation for your Hreflang implementation.
- Construct Hreflang tags- Utilize the standard syntax for hreflang tags:
<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”languagecode-countrycode” href=”URL-of-the-page” />.
The language code should follow the ISO 639-1 format, and the country code should follow the ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 format.
Each page should include a self-referential tag and tags for all other versions.
- Implement Hreflang tags across your site- There are several methods to implement Hreflang tags:
- In the HTML <head> Section- Directly insert the Hreflang tags in the <head> section of each corresponding page. This method requires manual insertion for each page version.
- Using HTTP Headers- For non-HTML files like PDFs, implement Hreflang tags in the HTTP headers. This method is suitable for documents and media files served in multiple languages or regions.
- Through XML Sitemaps- Add Hreflang annotations in your XML sitemap. This approach is highly recommended for websites with a large number of pages, as it centralizes hreflang information, making it easier to manage and update.
- Validate your implementation- Use tools like Google Search Console to check for errors and ensure your Hreflang tags are correctly recognized by search engine. Pay close attention to common mistakes, such as incorrect language or country codes and missing return links, which can lead to issues with page indexing and user redirection.
- Regularly update- As your website evolves, regularly update your Hreflang tags to reflect new content versions or changes in your international targeting strategy. Monitor the performance of your multilingual content in search engines and make adjustments as needed to optimize visibility and user engagement.
Common Hreflang Tag Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Here is a detailed guide for developers on how to avoid the most common Hreflang tag mistakes and improve the user experience
- Incorrect language or country codes- Use the correct ISO 639-1 language codes and ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 country codes. Ensure the codes are used in the correct order, language code followed by the country code, separated by a dash.
- Missing return links- Each version of your site must reference all other language or regional versions, including a reference back to itself. This mutual referencing ensures search engines correctly understand the relationship between various versions of the content.
- Failure to use self-referencing Hreflang tags- Every page must include a Hreflang tag that references itself. This is important for search engines to understand the intended audience of that specific page and to avoid content duplication issues.
- Neglecting the X-default tag- The X-default Hreflang tag is essential for directing users to a default language page when their language preference does not match any of the available languages. Not using x-default can lead to a poor user experience for a portion of your international audience.
- Using relative URLs instead of absolute URLs- Always use absolute URLs in your Hreflang annotations to avoid confusion for search engines when they crawl and index your site.
- Incorrect implementation of canonical tags- Ensure that canonical tags on multilingual or international pages do not contradict the hreflang annotations. Each page should have a self-referential canonical tag that aligns with its hreflang tag.
- Ignoring Required Updates- Regularly check and update your hreflang tags, especially if your site undergoes significant changes or updates. Broken links within hreflang annotations can lead to crawling issues and negatively impact SEO.
The Reverie Advantage: Bridging Language Barriers
Businesses these days are facing the challenge of effectively managing multilingual content to reach a global audience. The implementation of Hreflang tags is a crucial strategy for ensuring that search engines display the correct language version of a website to users, enhancing the overall user experience and SEO performance.
Things to Consider:
- i) Reverie, as a solution for an Indian regional language company, offers innovative solutions to streamline the management and optimization of multilingual content. With tools like Anuvadak for website and app localization and APIs for translation and transliteration, Reverie simplifies the complex process of creating and managing content across different languages.
- ii) The utilization of Hreflang tags involves careful mapping of web pages to their language-specific versions to avoid content duplication issues and improve search visibility. Reverie’s technologies streamline this process, making it more accessible for businesses to implement Hreflang tags By automating and integrating translation processes into applications or systems, Reverie enables real-time language conversion, enhancing user engagement through seamless multilingual experiences.
Schedule a free demo today to unlock the power of effective multilingual communication and make a lasting global impact.
