In this episode of the International Web Effectiveness Podcast, Bill Hunt and Bill Scully discuss the challenges of structuring websites to align with company structures, exploring how misalignment can hinder user experience and search engine optimization. We discuss practical strategies for improving product visibility across different markets and emphasize the importance of user intent in guiding website architecture.
Key Takeaways
- Content Strategy and User Intent: Organizations need to develop a unified content strategy that aligns with user intent and search behavior to improve search visibility and user experience.
- Market-Specific Challenges: Businesses often face challenges when their products aren’t available in certain markets, leading to frustration for consumers. Clear communication about product availability is crucial.
- Website Architecture: Aligning website structure with the organization can create issues for users. It’s essential to focus on intuitive navigation and ensure that users can easily find what they’re looking for.
- Centralization and Collaboration: Centralizing content management and encouraging collaboration among regional teams can lead to a more effective global presence and better resource allocation.
- User Experience Considerations: Using gating mechanisms (like CDNs) should prioritize user experience. Providing clear messaging and alternatives can enhance engagement rather than alienate potential customers.
Catch the Full Episode
YouTube: https://youtu.be/_nrlFaGzgOU?si=2jXpWBoo8u16jTNk
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5ufCIbp7xtfiiCCL2t8lcO?si=oggWsVr-S62I2B-1e6lV8g
Transcript
Bill Scully:
Welcome to Episode 11 of the International Web Effectiveness Podcast. Bill Hunt and I, Bill Scully, are here to discuss strategies and techniques that can improve your web presence and help manage your global websites. In our last episode, Centralizing Web Operations, we explored how centralizing your web management can positively impact both your SEO and development processes. We also shared insights on optimizing ticketing systems to improve efficiency. If you haven’t listened to it yet, make sure to check it out.
In this episode, we’re expanding on that discussion and focusing on the challenge of structuring your website to align with your organizational structure. But before we dive into that, I want to mention a LinkedIn post by Mark Williams Cook, which we both commented on. It’s about how internationalization involves more than just Hreflang and text—it’s also about technology, like mobile device internet speeds. I’ve been in situations where I rely on my phone to get information, and the website is painfully slow, depending on the connection speed. Bill, what are your thoughts on this?
Bill Hunt:
It’s definitely something that not enough people consider, especially if you’re in a large market and don’t think about how others will interact with the site. Having traveled to over 100 countries, I’ve encountered exactly what you mentioned—when you’re trying to get something as simple as your hotel address and the site is just slow to load. It’s frustrating.
As we continue to focus on web effectiveness, it’s important to be mindful of the connection speeds in other markets. Google places a lot of emphasis on mobile-friendliness and page speed, but many companies still overload their websites, assuming people will be viewing them on high-speed connections. However, this isn’t the reality in many markets. For instance, people in the U.S. or those working from home often have high-speed connections, but that’s not the case everywhere.
I recommend researching how your site performs in different regions. Tools like Google’s DevTools can simulate slow connections, such as 2G, to give you an idea of how your site performs in markets where slower speeds are common. That’s something to consider if you’re targeting these regions.
Bill Scully:
That’s a great point, Bill. You can use DevTools to check the site’s performance on slower speeds. Also, it’s essential to think about the user’s intent. Do they really need all the elements on the page? Maybe they don’t need the large footer or extra content. Simplifying your site based on user intent could help reduce load times, especially if you’re seeing high abandonment rates in certain markets.
Bill Hunt:
Exactly. Think about how users are interacting with the site. If you’re seeing high drop-off rates, particularly in markets with slower internet speeds, it could be a sign that the site is too heavy. Look at ways to streamline the experience for users, focusing on the critical functions they need. And as we’ve seen with efforts like Starlink and Zuckerberg’s initiatives with balloons and gliders in Africa, not everyone has access to high-speed internet.
If you’re targeting markets like this, it’s crucial to consider how your site is performing for people with slower connections. We’ll share a link to Mark’s LinkedIn post in the show notes for more insights on this topic.
Bill Scully:
Great, let’s move on to our main topic. Many companies structure their web presence to mirror their business structure, which often leads to duplicate content. In some cases, business arrangements complicate web performance. We touched on this briefly in our previous episode, but today we’ll dig deeper into the challenges and how to minimize the negative impacts.
Bill, why don’t you kick this off?
Bill Hunt:
Sure, this might be a bit confusing at first. But when we talk about structuring a website to mirror a company’s structure, we’re talking about large companies with multiple departments or verticals. For example, a company might have sections for enterprise, midsize businesses, SMBs, or even separate consumer sections. The issue arises when the same products are listed across these different categories, which often results in duplicate content.
Take server software and solutions, for instance. These products might be categorized under both consulting software and server solutions, even though they are essentially the same products. The problem gets even more complicated in industry verticals. I remember one of the most extreme examples I’ve encountered was a client selling rugged laptops. They had 22 different verticals for their product, ranging from mining to construction to defense.
Each vertical wanted to rank for terms like “rugged laptops” or “indestructible computers,” which is the main category name. Even a few years ago, it would have been tough to rank more than one or two pages for those terms. Nowadays, it’s even harder—if you can get one to rank, you’re doing well.
Bill Hunt: So, if someone is searching for rugged laptops, and they come across a page for mining, for example, they may not even realize there’s a page focused on defense. If Google presents the mining page, it might not even index the other pages, just like with Hreflang. If you have 30 English-language websites and Google can’t deduce that they target specific markets, it may suppress 29 of them. I’ve worked with several companies selling rugged laptops, and this was a big challenge. The solution was simple: let’s create one comprehensive rugged laptop page that acts as a magnet, drawing people in. From there, we can direct them to more specific pages, like those focused on mining or defense, if necessary.
For the most part, people are just looking for rugged laptops. The same issue applies to artificial sales segmentations. I’ve analyzed millions of search queries, and I’ve never seen anyone search for “enterprise servers” or “SMB servers” or “small business servers.” Those terms are created to manage sales teams or organize content, but they don’t reflect how people search.
Of course, you can have those categories on your website, but be mindful of their impact when you have redundancy across products. It’s common for businesses to do keyword research and think that customers will use industry-specific terms in their searches. But that’s rarely the case. There are exceptions, like in the military sector, where specific certifications are required, but for most products, people don’t search using industry terms.
The best approach is to have one central page that focuses on your product, bringing together all the relevant resources to help it rank. From there, you can guide users to vertical-specific pages, showing your expertise in different markets. Trying to rank multiple pages for the same product in different markets is nearly impossible.
Bill Scully: That makes sense. So, you’re suggesting that one page acts as the main point of entry for all markets, and then users are directed to the relevant content based on their needs?
Bill Hunt: Exactly. Think of it like a car website. If I’m looking to buy a car, I might have a preference for Jeep or BMW. I’d go to their website to see what they offer. But if I’m looking for a rugged laptop, I don’t want to land on a homepage and have to drill down through several layers. I want to find that page right away.
That’s the challenge many companies face: they want to rank for specific markets but end up segmenting their content in ways that confuse Google. A lot of companies try to create separate pages for each vertical—mining, defense, etc.—but in the end, Google may not see the connection. It’s a common problem with corporate website hierarchies.
I’ve worked with companies who had 22 verticals, each with its own KPI to increase sales for rugged laptops. They wanted to use search to drive traffic, but their content was too segmented. The real issue is this: can Google understand your structure? Can Google figure out that you need 22 pages? It’s a problem of interpretation, not necessarily a Google issue. But it’s a problem nonetheless.
Bill Scully: So, what should companies do to solve this?
Bill Hunt: Well, one step would be to educate internal stakeholders about best practices. You can organize workshops or presentations to explain why a unified content strategy benefits everyone. This could be difficult, but you might also consider realigning KPIs to reflect more collaborative goals. That way, the focus is on creating content that makes sense for both search engines and users, rather than trying to rank individual pages for each market.
Ultimately, it’s about understanding that Google is looking for a clear, unified structure. If you can present your content in a way that makes sense to both users and search engines, you’ll see better results.
Bill Hunt: I think if you always optimize for user intent and search behavior, everyone should understand that. When someone searches for “rugged laptops,” they’re looking for a rugged laptop. Like you mentioned, if someone lands on a military page, they might immediately reject the product because they don’t realize there are other markets.
People don’t typically land on a page and think, “What market am I in?” It’s not just for the typical plumber who might need a rugged laptop or someone else in the field. Any other ideas?
Bill Hunt: One thing I’ve done with senior managers, especially those overseeing verticals or even those on the product side, is that we’d create pathways into different verticals or markets. We could build a pie chart to analyze the data. For example, of the people who visited the rugged laptop page, 2% went into the military segment, or 3% went into another group, and so on.
Once we had the data, the company realized they didn’t need all those pathways. They ended up cutting four or five that weren’t yielding results. The brand team or product team was upset because they often used those pathways to send customers to specific pages, like “plumber rugged laptop” or “agriculture rugged laptop.”
I think this is one way you can test whether people are actually engaging with those verticals. You might find that certain content isn’t effective and could be pruned. You could even use canonical tags for pages that don’t perform well, so they’re still available for users but won’t affect SEO performance. This way, they’re not competing with your main page, and Google won’t prioritize them.
Bill Scully: That makes sense.
Bill Hunt: Right, it’s all about ensuring the content you focus on actually serves your audience and performs well for Google.
Bill Hunt: Okay, Bill. Let’s shift gears and talk about the legal side of things. You want to dive into that?
Bill Scully: Sure. Along with the hierarchy discussions—enterprise, mid-size, and the fertilization strategies—we also need to consider legal structures. I’ve had a couple of situations in the past few weeks where this came up, which prompted this discussion. Google doesn’t care how your company is structured.
One example is a large enterprise company that reached out for a demo of HREFLang Builder. The global head of SEO was responsible for about 100 markets. However, when we got on the demo, he admitted that he only managed 8 to 10 of those markets, despite his title.
It’s an interesting situation. Companies often divide their operations into regions like North America, Europe, APAC, and Latin America. People are only responsible for specific regions, which can cause issues when trying to implement global strategies.
In this case, the global head of SEO couldn’t allocate budget to markets outside his responsibility, even though the project was about managing those markets globally. This brings us back to the challenge of cannibalization. For example, the U.S. site and the Australian site were eating into traffic from other regions, but because he didn’t control those markets, they weren’t going to be part of the project.
Bill Hunt: Another challenge we face involves licensing agreements. For instance, if your brand is licensed to someone in the UAE to create an Arabic site, and then six months later, someone in Saudi Arabia licenses it and creates a similar site, you can run into issues. Even if they use different domains or a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD), it’s essentially the same brand and product.
Now, Google sees two sites with the same content and product targeting the same Arabic-speaking audience, and it doesn’t need two versions. The site from Saudi Arabia may not rank as well because Google already has the UAE version. This can create ranking and web architecture problems, particularly if the new site is struggling to rank while the original one gets all the traffic.
Bill Scully: That’s a really good point. These situations can complicate things, especially when you have competing sites for the same audience.
Bill Scully:
When deploying this across different markets, we need to consider how each additional market fits into the broader strategy. In an upcoming episode, we’ll dive into consistent and uniform URL structures, which is key when launching new markets. It’s essential to give guidance on maintaining uniform web structures, especially as we expand.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are a perfect example. They don’t even share the same currency, so even if the web team gets a bonus for traffic, they’re not generating sales in the other region. And, as you pointed out, they might not be concerned with the other region’s results.
Bill Hunt:
Exactly. And this is where centralization makes sense, even when markets are very different. Some markets may not even have the same currency, which affects the business model. There’s a bigger picture here—how do we set up a framework that helps maintain consistency across regions, even when there are differences?
Bill Scully:
Right, and then there’s the issue of different web infrastructures and CMS systems. Who’s making the decisions about these systems, and who’s footing the bill? I was talking to my wife earlier today about a company where each team has its own system, and it leads to inconsistencies. They asked for flexibility, but there was no guidance, and now everything’s a mess.
Bill Hunt:
That’s a great point. Whether it’s a mandate or not, many companies would benefit from having standard recommendations. For example, even if it’s not required to use the same CMS, many would appreciate having clear recommendations and examples.
Take the example of a billion-dollar company where one person manages 47 market websites from a single interface. They don’t invest in web infrastructure because they view it as a business card or brochure. But every time they want to add a new market, this poor person ends up taking on that responsibility.
Bill Scully:
And that’s where recommending consistency comes in. Just like we discussed in earlier episodes about centers of excellence, getting people together to agree on core strategies can save time. If we’re deploying into a new market, what are five things we can standardize across all regions? Uniform URLs, a similar CMS system, a shared product set—these are all key.
But often, not every market carries every product. We’ve seen this with companies where a product might not be available in one region, but people in other regions are aware of it. Take the example of a shoe brand worn by top finishers at the Boston Marathon—it wasn’t available in Australia at the time. Australians were upset because they created a placeholder page for the shoe, but the U.S. market was getting all the traffic. They didn’t even have the product ready yet!
Bill Hunt:
It’s important to share this information. Even if a product isn’t available in a market, just making people aware of it can build anticipation. The goal should be to think about how we can make life easier for users and standardize processes across regions.
Bill Scully:
I love that idea—especially not having products available in a region. Normally, I’d handle this by having a global website set as the x-default. Would you do the same?
Bill Hunt:
Yes, exactly. There’s one example we both know where people are aware of a product but can’t purchase it in their market. I also see this frustration with spirits brands, where something is only available in duty-free shops. You might see it there and think, “Wow, this is amazing.” But once you go home, it’s not available. If the global website just indicated that it’s a duty-free exclusive, it could save people a lot of frustration.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if there was a way to sign up for notifications when a product becomes available in a specific region?
Bill Scully:
That’s a great idea! Or at least providing a global page where people can see products they can’t yet buy in their market. That way, they can still get information and stay updated.
Bill Hunt:
Exactly. And this ties into another issue I often see with regional licensing. For example, with video games, Belgium might have one price point for a game, while the Netherlands has a different one. This often leads to IP detection being used to gate access. But the classic issue arises when people search for a product, and the price is listed locally, but when they go to buy, they’re redirected to a more expensive market. We saw this happen in Latin America, where a game’s price showed up in local search results, but then users were sent to a higher-priced site, sometimes 20-30% more.
Bill Hunt: So, we end up with these situations, and it’s a legitimate scenario, just like with dark markets. We’ve had this issue where a company cannot sell in a specific market, so it’s gated. But people still search for it there. They don’t necessarily tell them that it’s unavailable. These are all merchandising challenges, but again, it’s being indexed, people are aware of it, and they’re searching for it. They just want information. So maybe let them know that it’s not currently available or not legally available in their market.
By the way, the next time you fly through Dubai, make sure to pick it up at duty-free. Anything other than routing them somewhere they can’t buy it or giving them a page that just coldly says it’s unavailable in their market—do something to interact.
Again, this is about collaboration and coordination between markets, right? It’s not uncommon for me to battle the idea of putting every product on the global site, and I get pushback, especially when it’s only available in the U.S. But other people are searching for it. If they hit the U.S. page and there’s nothing indicating it’s unavailable in their market, it’s a missed opportunity.
Bill Scully: Right, merchandising and marketing.
Bill Hunt: Yeah, merchandising and marketing. This is the essence of web effectiveness. How are you making your web presence more effective with simple things like that? Maybe the people managing the global site with the full product portfolio aren’t thinking about how this works for other markets, even with something as simple as that message.
The one that drives me insane is when people use CDNs—specifically Cloudflare—as their gating mechanism. I ran into this when I was in Lithuania. Someone asked me why we were being gated and why we saw this cryptic 250-character message. I could see it was a 403 statement, saying we were blocked from entering the website. They changed their VPN and looked at it from another market. People know how to get around it. But that cryptic statement—it’s just like, “You can’t enter,” without explaining why.
Bill Scully: Yeah, it’s a bad experience.
Bill Hunt: Exactly. You can’t just block people coldly. Instead of just gating them at the front door, it’s like having a doorman who tells them to go away before they even have a chance to ask what they want. It’s something we need to think about. And we’re going to need a session on when people try to use brute force methods like Cloudflare to block people or redirect them. While it’s efficient for developers, it’s inefficient for users and offers a poor experience.
Bill Scully: Definitely.
Bill Hunt: Alright, that wraps up our discussion on the issues of structuring your website to mirror your organization. What we wanted to focus on was how to improve findability and increase customer satisfaction. The key takeaway here is that aligning your website architecture with your internal structure can create issues for both users and search engines. Focus on the searcher’s intent, guiding visitors through categories in ways beyond just the product.
Bill Scully: Any final thoughts, Bill?
Bill Hunt: No, I think that’s it. As you mentioned earlier, check out the different courses. We’re going to try to put up some mini-courses related to intent and best practices—things like worksheets and checklists. Keep an eye on the Facebook page or the International Web Mastery site for more information.
Great, that’s it for this episode. Thanks for listening!