International SEO Checklist

The closing guide of the international silo is the whole discipline as a working checklist — the planning gates, the per-market launch procedure, the wiring verifications and the standing rhythms, each line linking its full guide. Run it forward for a new market; run it as an audit over an inherited international mess (its most common professional use — the gaps light up in order).

Phase 0: Planning gates (before any URL exists)

1. ☐ The matrix named: language, country or both — actual cells listed, each justified by demand and operations.
2. ☐ Per-market research run for the entry market: local demand mapped, local SERPs read, winnability priced.
3. ☐ Structure decided once: subfolders default, ccTLD/hybrid where the case is real.
4. ☐ Market sequencing set per the one-per-cycle doctrine — and the empty-folders temptation formally declined.

Phase 1: Per-market build

1. ☐ Priority pages localised at tier per the translation tiers — money pages tier-one, volume tier-two, nothing raw-MT indexed.
2. ☐ Titles, slugs, metas and markup re-originated from local research, per the everything-translates rule.
3. ☐ Localisation past language: currency, formats, payments, contact reality, legal furniture, texture.
4. ☐ Internal links within the language; the version's own cluster shape intact.

Phase 2: The wiring

1. ☐ Hreflang generated (never hand-written), one method site-wide, x-default present, both laws verified: reciprocity and target integrity.
2. ☐ Canonicals agreeing: every version self-canonical, per the contradiction rule.
3. ☐ Country evidence in place per section — the signals layer, since the dropdown is gone.
4. ☐ Switcher compliant: real deep links, suggest-never-force, native labels.
5. ☐ Sitemaps per structure, Search Console properties/segments per market, baselines exported.

Phase 3: The market programme (permanent)

1. ☐ The local link layer running: native-speaker outreach, localised assets, the market's own linking class mapped.
2. ☐ Market-specific playbook applied where one exists (India · UK · US-from-overseas — the coefficients differ; the physics don't).
3. ☐ Per-market reporting: each market's chain read separately, never blended.
4. ☐ Maintenance parity: the refresh cycle per language, translations tracked against source drift.

The standing rhythms

1. ☐ Quarterly: the hreflang audit (crawler report against the error catalogue), the switcher walked per market, wrong-version symptom check in per-market rankings.
2. ☐ Per migration/slug event: the target-integrity pass — where working wiring goes to break.
3. ☐ Annually: the native's thirty-minute foreignness audit per market, the matrix itself revisited (markets earning more investment, markets honestly retired).

Frequently asked questions

Auditing an inherited international site — which lines first?

The damage order: hreflang's two laws (item 9 — the silent mis-server), the auto-redirect check (item 12 — the crawler trap), canonical agreement (item 10), then the raw-MT census (item 5's retroactive form, per the triage). Four checks, most inherited messes explained.

What's the minimum viable international launch?

Phase 0 for one market + phases 1–2 on the money pages only + item 14 started — whole-but-small, per the silo's founding doctrine. Everything else phases in behind performance.

And when the checklist is green?

Then each market is just SEO again — the same contest every silo in this library ends on, run per market: content at the local bar, and authority earned in the local web (whichever markets you're entering, talk to us).