One of the first considerations will be the site’s top-level domain name. Some multinational organizations, such as Apple and Microsoft, use subfolders branching out from their top-level domain, each containing a localized version of the top-level, U.S.-based .com site. Other brands, including Google, use country domain extensions, such as .de or .uk. Still other brands use a combination of both strategies.

Which way you go on this may be based as much on technical and business considerations as on search engine optimization. But SEO should play into the decision in terms of how critical it is to capture a certain market or audience via search, and what search engines are dominant in the countries in question. Google, the 900-pound gorilla of search in much of North America, Europe, and Australia, displays country-specific domains with country-specific content in the local language first. So, in the UK, for example, .uk domains are all but guaranteed to dominate search results for any search from a British IP address—unless the searcher consciously changes the default search settings. I certainly wouldn’t recommend betting an SEO strategy on searchers doing the work for you.

Hosting counts, too. A .de site residing on a server with a New York City-based IP address doesn’t stand as much of a chance on Google Germany as it would if that server lived in Berlin. Once again, there are other business and technical considerations around this issue, but it’s one of the few online instances of physical location making a difference in SEO terms.

Language matters, obviously, as does careful attention to the localization of local languages. This is as necessary for foreign versions of websites as it is for foreign language versions. The UK version of a North American site will sell “holidays,” not “vacations,” perhaps inclusive of a hired (rather than rental) car. It will offer “mobile phones” rather than “cell phones”. There’s no getting around the fact you’re going to require the help of someone versed in SEO who’s perfectly native to the colloquialisms, vernacular, slang, and spellings of the local language.

In search, relevant results are what count, which means content must be relevant to local searchers. This applies not just to the literal translation of the words on a given page, but to their cultural context. Images, video, and other digital assets may need to be re-adapted to an international website, and with them their names, meta data, and other on-page elements that enable optimization. How a given product or service is discussed within a local culture is paramount. How else can a keyword and phrase strategy be developed? What statements and benefits will spur customer conversion? How do locals search, and what are the search trends in their country or region?

Once language considerations have been mastered (no mean feat), search engines themselves can often play an enormous role in a global SEO effort, particularly in Asia, where Google (hard as this might be to believe) is an also-ran, as is Yahoo!. In China, Baidu dominates with a 60 percent share of searches. Google exists in China, of course, but primarily for searches conducted in English. If Korea plays a role in your plans, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with Naver.

Latin America brings with it another set of issues. Spanish-language localization isn’t sufficient to reach Portuguese-speaking Brazil. And even Spanish, of course, is rife with regional variations between the vast expanse separating Tijuana from Tierra del Fuego.

Just as any marketing initiative requires oversight, a global SEO strategy has its own set of specific managerial requirements. In addition to an overall SEO manager, native language speakers who are also local to the individual cultures are a necessity, not an option. Global SEO almost always involves hiring local expertise, often on the ground in the territory in question. It’s an investment in time, money, and resources, but one that’s worth undertaking for businesses working to reap the benefits of the Web’s global reach.