If you’ve invested in dedicated websites for different countries but aren’t seeing the right traffic, your hreflang tags are likely the culprit. This common but critical technical issue can make your international expansion stall, delivering a poor user experience and costing you revenue.
Stop the traffic drain. Let us diagnose the problem with a free, no-obligation hreflang mini-audit.
What Are Hreflang Tags and Why Do They Matter?
Think of hreflang tags as signposts for Google. They tell search engines which specific version of a page should be shown to a user based on their language and location.
- When they work correctly, a user in Canada sees your Canadian pages, and a user in the USA sees your American pages. The experience is seamless.
- When they’re broken or missing, Google gets confused. It might show your American site to Canadian users, a phenomenon known as “traffic cannibalisation”. This creates a jarring experience, presenting customers with irrelevant products and information and preventing you from monetising that traffic effectively.
This is a particular issue for international brands targeting multiple countries with the same language content, but need to provide separation due to local legislation or differences in the local service offering.
Correct implementation is essential for global growth.
Solving Hreflang Issues Drives Massive Growth
We don’t just talk theory, we deliver results. When Atkinson Smith Digital director Seb Atkinson partnered with a market-leading financial services platform, their global expansion outside of the US was hitting a wall due to international traffic cannibalisation.
Seb led a multinational team to untangle their complex setup, building a new, centralised hreflang system that worked across their disparate platforms. The impact was immediate and substantial.
The Results (in just 3 months):
- 📈 81% traffic increase to their targeted Canadian pages.
- 📈 82% traffic increase to their targeted Australian pages.
- 💰 81-82% revenue growth across both of those markets, in line with traffic increases
Get It Right From Day One
Hreflang isn’t just for fixing existing problems. We also architect solutions for clients embarking on new international expansions.
For a pioneering UK manufacturer planning to enter South America, we built their international SEO framework from the ground up. We implemented a technical solution that baked in all the vital elements for success, including hreflang tags, to ensure they could serve Spanish and Portuguese content effectively from the start. This transformed their user experience in new markets from offering english content only, to optimised content in the local language, and helped them to double global new business enquiries.
Whether you’re fixing a current issue or building for the future, a correct hreflang strategy is the foundation of your success.
Your Free Hreflang Health Check
Our free audit is a fast, no-obligation way to understand the health of your international Technical SEO setup.
Here’s what you’ll get: We will perform a technical review of your website’s hreflang tag implementation. You’ll receive a clear, jargon-free report that flags any critical errors, conflicts, or missed opportunities in a one-page report and accompanying data. You’ll know exactly what needs to be fixed to ensure Google sends the right traffic to the right website.Your personalised audit will be delivered to your inbox within one week once we have all necessary information.
Your Trusted Digital Marketing Partner
Seb and his team have worked with businesses in the UK, USA and Europe. Below, you’ll find a selection of testimonials from clients who’ve experienced first hand the impact of our SEO and digital marketing expertise. Their words speak volumes about the results we deliver and the trust we’ve earned.