Stand out in any region through better personalisation
Gemma says: “Focus on personalisation, adapting your content in each language and across different formats, to really build your brand in each region.
These actions will allow you to stand out from your competition, demonstrate authority and expertise, compete in multilingual markets, and stay visible in the era of generative AI.”
How do you go about personalising content?
“First of all, personalising content is very important nowadays because search engines today are rewarding depth, expertise, and true relevance, in order to stand out.
In 2026, with AI-generated content everywhere, what will really make the difference is cultural, linguistic, and format-specific personalisation, if you really want to differentiate your brand.
How can you do that? There are two different things that you can do. If you want to start your strategy in a newer market or you are already working in that region, you can do an EEAT analysis to analyse which channels will allow you to show expertise, experience, trust, and authority. Also, you can analyse the main experts to see how people show trustworthiness through different formats.
In order to personalise your content, you can also conduct multilingual keyword research in each market. This will not only help you know what people are looking for, related to your product or service, but also understand how people are looking for your product in each market. This will help you identify the best strategy related to the format.
For example, you might find that people are looking for images related to your product, a step-by-step guide, or maybe a video that will help them to understand, know, or choose to purchase your product.”
How do you conduct an EEAT analysis?
“You analyse by each letter: Expertise, Experience, Trustworthiness, and Authority – and differentiate it for each market.
For expertise, you analyse how people in each market show that they are the top experts on that product. Analyse your competition, and the top directories and magazines, and how they show that they really know about that product.
For experience, again, you do competitive analysis, but also keyword research to show how people are looking for your product related to informational keywords and commercial keywords.
On the authority side, analyse other websites and directories again. Also, do a backlink analysis to see how other sites that are relevant in each country demonstrate that, and what kind of content they have.
For trust, analyse your competitors to see what kind of signals they use to show that they are a reliable source. For example, if that’s through certain payment methods or other actions that help them to show that.”
In international markets, should you get someone local who understands the market to do that EEAT analysis on behalf?
“I would recommend working with native or local SEO experts in each market, although it's not always possible, depending on the size of the agency or the company.
My number one recommendation and tip would be to go for an agency, influencer, or a local expert in that market.
If you cannot do that, create a strategy that works in your market and try to duplicate that by doing the same analysis in whichever country you are targeting. Also, try to get all the knowledge that you can.”
You say that multilingual personalisation helps you outperform direct competitors in international SEO, so what is multilingual personalisation?
“Multilingual personalisation is about not only understanding each region, but also about understanding all the different audiences related to the languages that exist in those regions.
For example, Spain (where I live) is one market, but many different languages are used here. That's why it's important to not only understand the market but also to analyse how users communicate in each region and the most common or official language that people use, and try to personalise your content to these different users.
That will help you to have better performance and connect more with your audience.
For example, Catalonia is in Spain, but the most common language in a lot of towns and cities is Catalan. That's why it's very important to do this analysis, if you are trying to sell products that are very local or culturally related.”
Some people in Catalonia may still prefer to speak Spanish, so how do you identify the right person?
“That's why it's very important to analyse your audience really well.
If you really know who your audience is, and you work with local experts, you will really know which is best for you – for example, whether to write in Catalan or Spanish.
It depends on the product or service, because there are usually differences between the audiences, depending on the language they speak.”
Can you get an alternative language version of a website, like the Catalan version, ranked in Google?
“With hreflang and specific language targeting, you have official and perhaps unofficial languages spoken within a region, so it's sometimes not possible for search engines to actually rank a specific version if it's not an official language in a region.
Sometimes it's difficult, especially if you only want to do a campaign for a product or service in that specific country. In this case, it's better to complement it with paid strategies.
If you really want to build your brand in that country, and you have the entire site translated to that specific language, it will usually be easier for you to rank in that region in the local language – both from a technical and a content perspective.”
You advocate the use of diverse formats, like text, video, and images, to connect with different audiences, so how do you know the right format for an audience?
“First, you can analyse your competition and see what they are doing when they try to sell this product or get people to know that product.
Also, do your keyword research. With keyword research right now (through different tools or directly through Generative AI, Google, or other search platforms), you can analyse how people want that content.
For example, if a user wants to know how to do something step-by-step, you will usually see that the best response is an image or a video because it's what people want to see. If you do this kind of analysis and this kind of keyword research, it will help you know exactly which format is best for your audience for each specific search query.”
If you're delivering different content to different audiences, which version do you display to Google and other search engines?
“You don't know 100%, but if you've done all of this properly – you analysed your competition and you know your audience – you will probably offer the best format for them.
Usually, the best format for them is also the best format for Google because this is what will offer them the best experience. If it is the best experience, then it will rank better in search engines because it's what people want.”
How can personalised human-driven content in each language help you gain more visibility in search in each country?
“If you sell some products and you really know how people are looking for that product in that country, you can personalise it better.
For some local products, people from a specific local region may already know a lot about them, so they don't want a video with an explanation of what the product is. They may want a transactional page where they can already buy this product. In another country, people may not know a lot about this product, and maybe they want a video showing them what it is, or an informational landing page explaining what it’s about.
If you already know your audience, and you have done the keyword research and analysed the competition, you can create this personalised content that will offer them a better experience, and probably help you to rank better in that region.”
How do you know when the competition is not implementing the best strategy, and how do you decide what might work better?
“Here, it's very important to really know the product or the service that you are selling. It's also very important to know the audience and the market.
For example, in Spain, I know if it's better to do an article, a podcast, a video, or an image. However, to make that decision in another country, I would get support from local people because they will really help me understand whether the new strategy that I want to try out is focussed in the right way, or whether it's something that simply won't work in that country.”
How do you measure success?
“It is a combination of a number of things, including user engagement, buying signals, and rankings on search engines
I measure it in four different ways. First, I measure market-specific rankings and keywords, and I analyse how different keywords and pages perform in each country or region. Second, I analyse engagement metrics like click-through rate, scroll depth, or the time that they spend on my pages.
Third, I analyse conversion and conversion rates by region and languages, to see if I am really focussing my strategies on the right audience. Last but not least, I also analyse brand mentions and backlinks from local authoritative sources to my website or my products.”
To implement this at scale, on websites with hundreds of thousands of pages, can this be more automated?
“It can definitely be automated, although it will depend a lot on the kind of website or product that you have.
What I would do is try to automate and duplicate these strategies in all my channels. For example, if you already know your products and the main keywords for your products in one country, you can translate them and automate a lot of that for other regions.
See which actions work in your current region, then try to duplicate all the analysis that you have done there for the other countries you are targeting. Of course, it's not easy, but you can also use AI-generation platforms to not only translate but also transcribe your content into another language.
With all of that, of course, you need to personalise it, and not everything can be duplicated or just translated. However, it will help you to save a lot of time for each region.”
Gemma, what’s the key takeaway from the tip you shared today?
“If you really want to stand out today – not just from your competitors, but also from AI – it's essential to build your brand in every country and region.
To do that, you need to truly understand your audience in each market, personalise your content for them in the right formats, and make sure you are showing EEAT throughout all of your different channels.”
Gemma Fontané is a Director at Orvit Digital. Find out more over at OrvitDigital.com.