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• Multilingual SEO : A Marketer’s Guide to Measuring and Optimising Multilingual Websites

  26 juin, par Joe

  The web—and search engines in particular—make it easier than ever for businesses of any size to reach an international audience. 

   
  A multilingual website makes sense, especially when the majority of websites are in English. After all, you want to stand out to customers by speaking their local language. But it’s no good having a multilingual site if people can’t find it. 

  That’s where multilingual SEO comes in. 

  In this article, we’ll show you how to build a multilingual website that ranks in Google and other local search engines. You’ll learn why multilingual SEO is about more than translating your content and specific tasks you need to tick off to make your multilingual site as visible as possible. 

  ¡Vamos !

  What is multilingual SEO ? 

  Multilingual SEO is the process of optimising your website to improve search visibility in more than one language. It involves creating high-quality translations (including SEO metadata), targeting language-specific keywords and building links in the target language. 

  

  The goal is to make your site as discoverable and accessible as possible for users searching Google and other search engines in their local language. 

  It’s worth pointing out that multilingual SEO differs slightly from international SEO, even if the terms are used interchangeably. With multilingual SEO, you are optimising for a language (so Spanish targets every Spanish-speaking country, not just Spain). In international SEO, you target specific countries, so you might have a different strategy for targeting Argentinian customers vs. Mexican customers. 

  Why adopt a multilingual SEO strategy ?

  There are two major reasons to adopt a multilingual SEO strategy : to reach more customers and to deliver the best experience possible. 

  

  Reach a wider audience

  Not everyone searches the web in English. Even if non-native speakers eventually resort to English, many will try Googling in their own language first. That means if you target customers in multiple non-English-speaking countries, then creating a multilingual SEO is a must to reach as many of them as possible. 

  A multilingual SEO strategy also boosts your website’s chances of appearing in country-specific search engines like Baidu and Yandex — and in localised versions of Google like Google.fr and Google.de.

  Deliver a better user experience

  Multilingual SEO gives your customers what they want : the ability to search, browse and shop in their native language. This is a big deal, with 89% of consumers saying it’s important to deal with a brand in their own language.

  Improving the user experience also increases the likelihood of non-English-speaking customers converting. As many as 82% of people won’t make a purchase in major consumer categories without local language support. 

  How to prepare for multilingual SEO success

  Before you start creating multilingual SEO content, you need to take care of a couple of things. 

  Identify target markets

  The first step is to identify the languages you want to target. You know your customers better than anyone, so it’s likely you have one or two languages in mind already. 

  But if you don’t, why not analyse your existing website traffic to discover which languages to target first ? The Locations report in Matomo (found in the Visitors section of Matomo’s navigation) shows you which countries your visitors hail from. 

  

  In the example above, targeting German and Indonesian searchers would be a sensible strategy. 

  Target local keywords

  Once you’ve decided on your target markets, it’s time to find localised keywords. Keywords are the backbone of any SEO campaign, so take your time to find ones that are specific to your local markets.

  Yes, that means you shouldn’t just translate your English keywords into French or Spanish ! French or Spanish searchers may use completely different terms to find your products or services. 

  That’s why it’s vital to use a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to do multilingual keyword research. 

  

  This may be a bit tricky if you aren’t a native speaker of your target language, but you can translate your English keywords using Google Translate to get started. 

  Remember, search volumes won’t be as high as English keywords since fewer people are searching for them. So don’t be scared off by small keyword volumes. Besides, even in the U.S. around 95% of keywords get 10 searches per month or fewer. 

  Choose your URL structure

  The final step in preparing your multilingual SEO strategy is deciding on your URL structure, whether that’s using separate domains, subdomains or subfolders. 

  This is important for SEO as it will avoid duplicate content issues. Using language indicators within these URLs will also help both users and search engines differentiate versions of your site. 

  The first option is to have a separate domain for each target language. 

  • yoursite.com
  • yoursite.fr
  • yoursite.es

  Using subdomains would mean you keep one domain but have completely separate sites :

  • fr.yoursite.com
  • es.yoursite.com
  • de.yoursite.com

  Using subfolders keeps everything clean but can result in long URLs :

  • yoursite.com/en
  • yoursite.com/de
  • yoursite.com/es

  As you can see in the image below, we use subdomains to separate multilingual versions of you site :

  

  While separate domains provide more precise targeting, it’s a lot of work to manage them. So, unless you have a keyword-rich, unbranded domain name that needs translating, we’d recommend using either subdomains or subdirectories. It’s slightly easier to manage subfolders, but subdomains offer users a clearer divide between different versions of your site. 

  If you want to make your site even easier to navigate, then you can incorporate language indicators into your page’s design to make it easy for consumers to switch languages. These are the little dropdown menus you see containing various flags that let users browse in different languages.

  5 multilingual SEO strategies to use in 2024

  Now you’ve got the basics in order, use the following SEO strategies to improve your multilingual rankings. 

  Use hreflang tags

  There’s another way that Google and other search engines use to determine the language and region your website is targeting : hreflang..

  Hreflang is an HTML attribute that Google and other search engines use to ensure they serve users the right version of the page.

  You can insert it into the header section of the page like this example for a German subdomain :

  <link rel=”alternate” href=”https://yourwebsite.com/de” hreflang=”de” />

  Or you can add the relevant markup to your website’s sitemap. Here’s what the same German markup would look like :

  <xhtml:link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”de” href=”https://yourwebsite.com/de/” /> 

  Whichever method you include one language code in ISO 639-1 format. You can also include a region code in ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format. Note that you can include multiple region codes. A web page in German, for example, could target German and Austrian consumers. 

  Hreflang tags also avoid duplicate content issues. 

  With a multilingual site, you could have a dozen different versions of the same page, showing the same content but in a different language. Without an hreflang tag specifying that these are different versions of the same page, Google may penalise your site.

  Invest in high-quality translations

  Google rewards good content. And, while you’d hope Google Translate would be good enough, it usually isn’t.

  Instead, make sure you are using professional linguists to translate your content. They won’t only be able to produce accurate and contextually relevant translations — the kind that Google may reward with higher rankings — but they’ll also be able to account for cultural differences between languages. 

  Imagine you are translating a web page from U.S. English into Italian, for example. You’ve not only got to translate the words themselves but also the measurements (from inches to cm), dates (from mm/dd/yy to dd/mm/yy), currencies, idioms and more. 

  Translate your metadata, too

  You need to translate more than just the content of your website. You should translate its metadata — the descriptive information search engines use to understand your page — to help you rank better in Google and localised search engines. 

  As you can see in the image below, we’ve translated the French version of our homepage’s title and meta description :

  

  Page titles and meta descriptions aren’t the only pieces of metadata you need to pay attention to. Make sure you translate the following :

  • URLs
  • Image alt tags
  • Canonical tags
  • Structured data markup

  While you’re at it, make sure you have translated all of your website’s content, too. It’s easy to miss error messages, contact forms and checkout pages that would otherwise ruin the user experience. 

  Build multilingual backlinks

  Building backlinks is an important step in any SEO strategy. But it’s doubly important in multilingual SEO, where your links in your target language also help Google to understand that you have a translated website. 

  While you want to prioritise links from websites in your target language, make sure that websites are relevant to your niche. It’s no good having a link from a Spanish recipe blog if you have a marketing SaaS tool. 

  A great place to start is by mining the links of competitors in your target market. Your competitors have already done the hard work acquiring these links, and there’s every chance these websites will link to your translated content, too.

  

  Don’t forget about internal linking pages in the same language, either. This will obviously help users stay in the same language while navigating your site, but it will also show Google the depth of your multilingual content.

  Monitor the SEO health of your multilingual site

  The technical performance of your multilingual pages has a significant impact on your ability to rank and convert. 

  We know for a fact that Google uses page performance metrics in the form of Core Web Vitals as a search ranking factor. What’s more, research by WP Rocker finds that a side loading in one second has a three times better conversion rate than a site loading in five seconds. 

  With that in mind, make sure your site is performing at optimal levels using Matomo’s SEO Web Vitals report. Our SEO Web Vitals feature tracks all of Google’s Core Web Vitals, including :

  • Page Speed Score
  • First Contentful Paint (FCP)
  • Final Input Delay (FID)
  • Last Contentful Paint (LCP)
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

  The report displays each metric in a different colour depending on your site’s performance, with green meaning good, orange meaning average, and red meaning poor.

  

  Check in on these metrics regularly or set up custom alerts to automatically notify you when a specific metric drops below or exceeds a certain threshold — like if your Page Speed score falls below 50, for example. 

  How to track your multilingual SEO efforts with Matomo

  Matomo isn’t just a great tool to track your site’s SEO health ; you can also use our privacy-focused analytics platform to track your multilingual SEO success.

  For example, you could use the report to focus your multilingual SEO efforts on a single language if searches are starting to rival English. Or you decide to translate your most trafficked English keywords into your target languages, regardless if a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush tells you whether these keywords get searches or not.

  If you want to analyse the performance of your new language, for example, you can segment traffic by URL. In our case, we use the segment “Page URL contains fr.matomo.org” to measure the impact of our French website. 

  We can also track the performance of every language except French by using the segment “Page URL does not contain fr.matomo.org”.

  You can use Matomo to track your Keyword performance, too. Unlike search engine-owned platforms like Google Analytics and Google Search Console that no longer share keyword data, Matomo lets users see exactly which keywords users search to find your site in the Combined keywords report :

  

  This is valuable information you can use to identify new keyword opportunities and improve your multilingual content strategy. 

  For example, you could use the report to focus your multilingual SEO efforts on a single language if searches are starting to rival English. Or you decide to translate your most trafficked English keywords into your target languages, regardless if a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush tells you whether these keywords get searches or not.

  For international brands that have separate websites and apps for each target language or region, Matomo’s Roll-Up Reporting lets you keep track of aggregate data in one place. 

  

  Roll-Up Reporting lets you view data from multiple websites and apps as if they were a single site. This lets you quickly answer questions like :

  • How many visits happened across all of my multilingual websites ?
  • Which languages contributed the most conversions ?
  • How does the performance of my Spanish app compare to my Spanish website ?

  Is it any wonder, then, that Matomo is used by over one million sites in 190 countries to track their web and SEO performance in a privacy-friendly way ?

  Join them today by trying Matomo free for 21 days, no credit card required. Alternatively, request a demo to see how Matomo can help you track your multilingual SEO efforts. 

• Matomo Launches Global Partner Programme to Deepen Local Connections and Champion Ethical Analytics

  25 juin, par Matomo Core Team — Press Releases

  Matomo introduces a global Partner Programme designed to connect organisations with trusted local experts, advancing its commitment to privacy, data sovereignty, and localisation.

  Wellington, New Zealand – 25 June 2025 — Matomo, the leading web analytics platform, is
  proud to announce the launch of the Matomo Partner Programme. This new initiative marks a significant step in Matomo’s global growth strategy, bringing together a carefully selected
  network of expert partners to support customers with localised, high–trust analytics services
  rooted in shared values.
  
  As privacy concerns rise and organisations seek alternatives to mainstream analytics solutions, the need for regional expertise has never been more vital. The Matomo Partner Programme ensures that customers around the world are supported not just by a world–class platform, but by trusted local professionals who understand their specific regulatory, cultural, and business needs.
  
  “Matomo is evolving. As privacy regulations become more nuanced and the need for regional
  understanding grows, we’ve made localisation a central pillar of our strategy. Our partners are
  the key to helping customers navigate these complexities with confidence and care,” said
  Adam Taylor, Chief Operating Officer at Matomo.

  Local Experts, Global Values

  At the heart of the Matomo Partner Programme is a commitment to connect clients with local experts who live and breathe their markets. These partners are more than service
  providers—they’re trusted advisors who bring deep insight into their region’s privacy
  legislation, cultural norms, sector–specific requirements, and digital trends.
  
  The programme empowers partners to act as extensions of Matomo’s core teams :
  
  • As Customer Success allies, delivering personalised training, support, and technical
  services in local languages and time zones.

  • As Sales ambassadors, raising awareness of ethical analytics in both public and private

  sectors, where trust, compliance, and transparency are crucial.
  
  This decentralised, values–aligned approach ensures that every Matomo customer benefits
  from localised delivery with global consistency.

  A Programme Designed for Impactful Partnerships

  The Matomo Partner Programme is open to organisations who share a commitment to ethical, open-source analytics and can demonstrate :

  • Technical excellence in deploying, configuring, and supporting Matomo Analytics in diverse environments.
  • Deep market understanding, allowing them to tell the Matomo story in ways that
  resonate locally.
  • Commercial strength to position Matomo across key industries, particularly in sectors with complex compliance and data sovereignty demands.

  Partners who meet these standards will be recognised as ‘Official Matomo Partners’— a symbol of excellence, credibility, and shared purpose. With this status, they gain access to :

  • Brand alignment and trust : Strengthen credibility with clients by promoting their
  connection to Matomo and its globally respected ethical stance.
  • Go-to-market support : Access to qualified leads, joint marketing, and tools to scale their business in a privacy-first market.
  • Strategic collaboration : Early insights into the product roadmap and direct
  engagement with Matomo’s core team.
  • Meaningful local impact : Help regional organisations reclaim control of their data and embrace ethical analytics with confidence.

  Ethical Analytics for Today’s World
  

  Matomo was founded in 2007 with the belief that people should have full control over their data. As the first open–source web analytics platform of its kind, Matomo continues to challenge the dominance of opaque, centralised tools by offering a transparent and flexible alternative that puts users first.
  
  In today’s landscape—marked by increased regulatory scrutiny, data protection concerns, and rapid advancements in AI—Matomo’s approach is more relevant than ever. Open–source technology provides the adaptability organisations need to respond to local expectations while reinforcing digital trust with users.

  Whether it’s a government department, healthcare provider, educational institution, or
  commercial business—Matomo partners are on the ground, ready to help organisations
  transition to analytics that are not only powerful but principled.

• Privacy-friendly analytics : The benefits of an ethical, GDPR-compliant platform

  13 juin, par Joe

  Your visitors shouldn’t feel like you’re spying on them — even if you’re just trying to improve the user experience or track your marketing efforts. 

  While many analytics platforms make customers feel that way thanks to intrusive cookie consent banners and highly personalised ads, there is a growing movement towards ethical, privacy-friendly analytics.

  In this article, you’ll learn what privacy-friendly analytics is, why it matters, what to look for in a solution and which of the leading providers is right for you. 

  What is privacy-friendly analytics ? 

  Privacy-friendly analytics is a form of website analytics that collects and analyses data in a way that respects the user’s privacy. It’s a type of ethical web analytics.

  Privacy-friendly platforms limit personal data collection and anonymise individual user data while being transparent about collection and tracking methods. They help companies adhere to data protection laws (like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA) and new privacy laws (like OCPA, FDBR, and TDPSA) without configuring custom settings. 

  Why use privacy-friendly analytics ? 

  Millions of businesses choose privacy-friendly analytics platforms like Matomo. Here are a few reasons why : 

  Build trust with customers

  Research shows that the vast majority of consumers don’t trust companies with their data, believing that they prioritise profits over data protection. 

  Privacy-friendly analytics can help businesses prove they aren’t out to profit from consumer data and regain customer trust. This can ultimately boost revenue. According to Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study, organisations gain $180 for every $100 spent on privacy. 

  Comply with privacy regulations

  Data privacy regulations, such as GDPR, protect consumer privacy and establish strict rules governing how businesses can collect and use personal data.

  The cost of non-compliance is high. Under GDPR, fines can be up to €20 million, or 4% of worldwide annual revenue.

  Thanks to features like data anonymisation and the default use of first-party cookies, privacy-friendly analytics platforms can support and strengthen compliance efforts. 

  In fact, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) approved Matomo as one of the only web analytics tools to collect data without tracking consent.

  Minimise the impact of a breach

  According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach is nearly $4.5 million. The more personally identifiable information (PII) is involved, the higher the fines and penalties. 

  A privacy-friendly analytics tool can reduce the potential impact of a breach by minimising the amount of personal information you hold. 

  Is Google Analytics privacy-friendly ?

  Google may be the best-known analytics platform, but it’s not the best choice for businesses that want to collect data responsibly and ethically. 

  Here are just a few of Google Analytics’s privacy issues :

  • It uses analytics data to run its advertising business.
  • It may train large language models like Gemini with analytics data.
  • It requires a specific setup to be GDPR compliant that isn’t available out of the box.

  Google Analytics’s ongoing issues with privacy laws like GDPR also raise doubt. The French and Austrian Data Protection Authorities have banned Google Analytics in the past, and there is no guarantee they won’t do so again. 

  What to look for in privacy-friendly analytics ?

  Several privacy-friendly analytics tools are available. To find the right one for your brand, look for the following features.

  Data ownership

  Choose a provider that gives you as much control over your users’ data as possible. Ideally, this will be via an on-site solution where you store data on your servers. For cloud-based options, ensure your analytics provider can’t access, use or sell it.

  With 100% data ownership, you have the power to protect your users’ privacy. You know where your customer data is stored and what’s happening to it without external influence.

  Open source

  The only genuinely privacy-friendly software is open-source software. Open-source software means anyone can review the code to ensure it does what it promises — in this case, maximising privacy. 

  Matomo is an open-source software company. Our source code is on GitHub, where everyone can see precisely how our platform tracks and stores user data. A community of developers also regularly examines and reviews our code to further strengthen security. 

  Data anonymisation 

  Privacy-friendly analytics should allow marketers to completely anonymise the data they collect. They achieve this through several techniques like IP anonymisation and pseudonymised user IDs that modify or remove personally identifiable data so it can’t be linked to individuals.

  

  Matomo’s data anonymisation settings 

  In Matomo, for example, you can anonymise the following things in the platform’s Privacy settings :

  • IP address
  • Location
  • User ID

  IP address anonymisation is enabled by default in Matomo.

  No data sampling 

  Data sampling involves extrapolating analytics reports from an incomplete data set. Google Analytics uses this practice and relies on estimates, leading to incomplete and potentially inaccurate results.

  Privacy-friendly analytics should provide 100% accurate insights without making assumptions about your users’ data.

  GDPR compliance

  Privacy-friendly web analytics platforms adhere to even the strictest privacy laws, including GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA, thanks to the following features :

  • Data anonymisation
  • Cookieless tracking
  • EU data storage
  • First-party cookies by default

  

  Matomo data subject access request settings
  (Image Source)

  Privacy-first platforms also make it easy for companies to fulfil data subject access requests. In Matomo, for example, a dedicated feature lets you find, download and delete all of the data you hold about specific individuals. 

  Cookieless tracking

  Cookieless tracking is a form of visitor tracking that uses methods other than cookies to identify individual users. It is more privacy-friendly because no personal data is collected, and users can withhold consent from cookie banners.

  Matomo uses the most privacy-friendly industry-leading cookieless tracking method, config_id, to anonymously track visitors without fingerprinting them. 

  Top 3 privacy-friendly analytics platforms

  We’ve shortlisted three of the leading privacy-friendly analytics platforms. Learn what they offer, what makes them different and how much they cost.

  Matomo

  Matomo is an open-source web analytics tool and privacy-focused Google Analytics alternative trusted by over one million sites in over 190 countries and over 50 languages. 

  

  Matomo dashboard

  Matomo prioritises privacy and keeping businesses compliant with global privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA. The data you collect is 100% accurate and yours alone. We don’t share it or use it for other purposes. 

  Benefits

  • Matomo’s all-in-one solution offers traditional web and behavioural analytics, such as heatmaps and session recordings. It also includes a free, open-source tag manager. 
  • Matomo gives you the choice of where to store your user’s data. With Matomo Cloud, that’s in our European servers. With Matomo On-Premise, that’s on your servers.
  • Matomo is open-source. Hundreds of independent developers have reviewed our code, and you can view it yourself on GitHub.

  Pricing 

  Hosting Matomo On-Premise is free, while Matomo Cloud costs $26 per month. 

  Fathom

  Fathom Analytics is a simple, easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics that puts a premium on privacy. 

  

  Fathom dashboard
  (Image Source)

  Fathom has made its platform as easy to use as possible. You can install Fathom on any website or CMS using a single line of code. It also means the platform won’t massively impact your site’s speed or SEO performance. 

  Benefits

  • Fathom complies with all major privacy regulations, including GDPR and CCPA.
  • Fathom doesn’t sample data. It also blocks bots and scrapers, so you only see human visitors.
  • Fathom anonymises IP addresses, so you don’t have to show cookie banners.

  Drawbacks

  • Fathom doesn’t offer many of Matomo’s advanced features like e-commerce tracking, heatmaps, and session recordings.
  • The premium version of Fathom is not open-source. 

  Pricing 

  From $15 per month.

  Plausible

  Plausible Analytics is an open-source, privacy-friendly analytics tool built and hosted in the EU.

  

  Plausible dashboard
  (Image Source)

  The platform launched in 2019 as a lightweight, easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics. Its simplicity is a big selling point. Instead of dozens of menus, it presents the information you need on a single page.

  Benefits

  • Plausible boasts an ultra-lightweight script, which means it has a minimal impact on page loading times. 
  • Plausible is GDPR and CCPA-compliant by design, so there’s no need for cookie banners.
  • Plausible is an open-source software with the source code available on GitHub.

  Drawbacks

  • Plausible lacks advanced privacy controls like a GDPR manager.
  • It has none of Matomo’s advanced features like A/B testing, session recordings or heatmaps. 

  Pricing 

  From $9 per month

  Try Matomo for free

  Ready to try a privacy-friendly analytics solution ? Making the switch is easy with Matomo, as it’s one of the only platforms to import historical Google Analytics data. You can also try Matomo for free for 21 days — no credit card required.