Multilingual SEO agency for companies already selling abroad, AI search included
Search run across several markets at once, so the languages you already publish in start producing enquiries too
Mike Bastin leads one multilingual SEO plan across every market you sell in. Each language is researched from its own searches and written in that language from the start, so your French, German and Spanish pages earn enquiries as well as visits.
Mike is very driven and extremely professional in every aspect of his work. He takes a great deal of care with each task and always puts his client first, ensuring their needs are met during each… stage of the process. Mike's professionalism and vast experience makes him a reliable choice and one you can count on time and time again.View on Google
What you get from a multilingual SEO agency that runs every language
A ranked list of your markets, scored on evidence, so the first one we open is the one most likely to send enquiries soon.
Pages written natively in each language. Search engines treat them as original content, AI engines tend to cite them ahead of machine translation, and native readers stay to read them.
One structure for every language. We agree the web addresses, the links between pages and the keyword targets for each language before the first page goes live, so French published now and Spanish added six months later fit together.
A monthly report per market: rankings, AI answers and enquiries, with what moved and what comes next.
The research, writing and setup we run per language
Every global SEO programme we run starts with native research in each target language, covering real commercial intent and long-tail phrasing per market. We recommend a subdirectory, a subdomain or a country domain for your case, and set up hreflang (the tags that send each visitor to their language version) and a sitemap per language from the start.
We settle early the decisions that are expensive to undo later: the domain structure, the hreflang map and the order the markets go in. We check that hreflang sits on every page, the homepage included, so each visitor lands on the version for their country. We write French, English, Spanish and Dutch ourselves. German, Italian, Portuguese and other languages are written by native copywriters from the BeTranslated network. LocalBusiness, Service, Article and FAQ schema is built per language and validated on Google's Rich Results tool, and the same work extends to how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and AI Overviews answer in each language.
Three cases where the multilingual scope was the whole challenge
BeTranslated, the translation agency we have run for twenty years, runs ten country-specific domains with WPML across all of them, cross-domain hreflang, native content per market from the in-house translator team and schema localized per country. The result has been consistent organic ranking across several European markets and AI citations in each target language for translation services queries.
Century 21 Perdomo sells Dominican real estate in English, French, Spanish and German on a headless WordPress, WPML and WooCommerce build, with every locale researched from its own market's searches.
A Valencia law firm working in Spanish, French, English and Russian runs WPML across all four, with LegalService schema localized per language and attorney bios adapted to each audience. It now receives regular enquiries on commercial searches such as business law and franchise contracts, in its clients' own languages.
Open what you need
Multilingual SEO work we run across several markets
Six pieces of work in a programme that opens market after market, and what each one gives you.
Market launches in waves
The brief that arrives most often asks for English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese from day one. We open three or four markets first, where the evidence is strongest, because four markets done properly beat nine launched together every time we have compared them: the four get the depth to rank.
A second wave stays a test until the first shows traction, so your budget follows the markets that return it.
Market scoring on evidence
We score your candidate markets, usually eight to twelve at the start, on five things: search volume, competitive difficulty, commercial fit with what you actually sell, the cost of localizing for them, and the regulatory load they bring with them.
You get a ranked list that settles the order on evidence, and the scoring often puts first a different market from the one someone in the room feels strongly about. Around the half-year mark we review which test markets to promote and which to pause.
A domain structure recommendation
We recommend a country domain (ccTLD), a subdomain or a subdirectory for your case, and the choice turns on budget, how much authority you can afford to split, and how much a local buyer needs to see a local domain before they trust you. A country domain per market is the strongest local signal and the most expensive thing to maintain. A subdirectory keeps the authority in one place and is the right default for most companies adding markets to an existing business.
We settle it once, early, because a slightly imperfect choice at the start costs less than a move later.
Keywords and references localized per market
A removalist in Australia is a removals company in the UK, and London searches for the second word. We research the term people type in each market, and carry the same care through currency, units, legal references, payment methods, trust badges and the customer names you cite as proof.
Regulatory framing changes with it: GDPR in the EU, CCPA in California, LGPD in Brazil. We cite the one your reader lives under, so the page reads as written for them.
Hreflang, sitemaps and schema per market
We validate hreflang per market, split the sitemap by language, translate slugs into each language and localize schema per country. Broken or circular hreflang is the single most common finding in the audits we run, and fixing it lifts the ceiling on everything above it.
We set geo-IP to suggest a version and let visitors choose theirs, so search engines see every version and a business traveller can still reach the one they want.
Local links and AI citations per country
We earn links country by country, because a backlink from local press, a sector association or a regional directory in the target country is worth considerably more than a generic international link: in international search, relevance is geographic as well as topical.
We track AI answers the same way. Which sources get cited varies by country and by language, so we report citations per market alongside rankings.
From the brief to the reporting
What happens after your first message
- A free 20-minute auditWe look at your site in each language you sell in and show you which markets have the most to give, before you commit to anything.
- A written scopeAfter the first call you get a written scope naming the markets, the pages and the deliverables, with the order the markets go in.
- Native research per marketWe research each target market in its own language, score the candidate markets on evidence and settle the domain structure before the first page goes live.
- Native pages for every languageWe write French, English, Spanish and Dutch pages ourselves and brief native copywriters from the BeTranslated network for German, Italian and Portuguese, with the technical setup checked per language.
- Monthly reporting per marketWe report rankings, AI answers and enquiries market by market each month, with what moved and what comes next.
- Month to month, with 30 days' noticeEngagements run month to month, and either side can end one with 30 days' notice.
Who does the work
Mike Bastin and his team, working from Valencia in your buyers’ languages
Mike has worked in multilingual search for over two decades and founded BeTranslated, the translation agency he has run for twenty years, whose ten country sites each compete in their own market. He works natively in French, fluently in English, Spanish and Dutch, and well enough in German, Italian and Portuguese to run SEO projects in them.
We run our own sites the way we run yours. See how we built ValenciaMove, our relocation site for Valencia in five languages.
Mike leads the team on every engagement, so you deal with him from the first call to the monthly report.
The next step
Find out what multilingual SEO could be worth in your markets
A free 20-minute audit of which markets matter, what already ranks, and what has been tried before. A written scope naming pages and deliverables follows. Engagements run month to month, with 30 days' notice on either side.
The whole scope
What else we take on for you
Most of the work happens before a word gets written. Which markets to enter, in what order, and where the budget goes, decided against what a market is worth.
Then the technical groundwork: a site that can carry more than one market, from URL structure to hreflang to the parts that have to be rewritten per language. Built right, the second language adds to the first.
And the brand has to make the trip intact. A tagline is rewritten for the new market, since a literal translation often says something else entirely, so the company is as recognisable abroad as it is at home.