Analysis of regional differences and cultural impact of keywords

Languages vary from country to country, and the way users search for products and services online also varies greatly. Even in countries with the same primary language, users may have different search habits for similar products.

Let’s say you’re a shoe manufacturer planning to sell a new pair of running shoes. In the US, it would be wise to optimize your page to attract users searching for “running shoes.” This is because “running shoes” is not only a huge keyword (see US traffic forecast for 2024 below), but also fits the language used by users in the US market.

US traffic forecast for 2024

If the target market is shifted to the United Kingdom, according to the table below, the keyword "training shoes" has the most high-value traffic. By optimizing the page for "training shoes", you can get more than twice the high-value traffic, resulting in more conversions.

US Traffic Forecast 20242

The relationship between culture and keywords

The phrases that users search for online are directly influenced by culture. In the early days, users often searched based on how they imagined search engines would understand them.

As search engines like Google evolved, they began to pay attention to users' actual search habits. This allowed the search engines to have a more complete understanding of users' needs, including the use of slang.

However, most machine translation tools fail to effectively take into account cultural differences in terminology and are slow to adapt. Even Google Translate is not always responsive to cultural nuances in phrases or slang. This is a challenge that international SEO experts must face every day.

Search volume varies by country

While certain terms may be common across countries (such as “reasonable” or “cheap”), they may not necessarily reflect online searches in local markets.

Our partner Arrow Translation was working with an international hotel chain who requested a direct translation of their target keywords from English into French. However, the client was concerned that the search volume would not be sufficient to support this effort.

As shown above, simply translating keywords will bring you almost no results. While not conducting thorough keyword research may save costs in the short term, the cost of potential traffic loss will far outweigh the savings in the long run.

Here’s how effective keyword research compares to simply translating keywords in the same hotel example:

in conclusion

The challenges of translating keywords include failing to adequately account for local nuances, failing to accurately target how your audience searches, and missing out on significant amounts of high-value traffic.

In the next article, we will cover effective methods for multilingual keyword research. Google’s philosophy of optimizing the end-user experience should be a guide for your optimization process.

To discuss your international keyword strategy, please feel free to contact our team.

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