I have a question for any bilingual readers of this blog, particularly those skilled in the art of SEO.

Do you find it easier to rank a website by building it in a foreign language?

This is something that has played on my mind for a long time now. One of the things that has always deterred me from SEO has been the sheer competition from millions of other English-speaking webmasters. I hate brushing shoulders with the urchins of Digital Point. The thought ruins my morning coffee.

It makes sense to me that somebody who has a perfect grasp of French, Spanish or German, would find life much easier to generate traffic when there isn’t such a global demand for the hottest keywords.

You don’t have to be speaking English to spend money. And most of us believe in the gigantic advantage of being first mover in a market.

My foreign experiments so far have extended to building landing pages in different languages and using the cheaper Facebook clicks to play arbitrage. This is something that I actively preach, and is rapidly becoming the best way for an affiliate to turn over a healthy margin – certainly on Facebook.

However, designing a website from the ground up and focusing an SEO campaign on ranking for foreign keywords is something that I haven’t nailed down. Surely it makes sense to do so?

It doesn’t even have to be the traditional affiliate website. Entire western web concepts can be ported abroad and matched to new markets where there is little or no competition. In some regions, that lack of competition is justified. There’s no money to be made. In other growing economies? Stepping out of your comfort zone seems like a lucrative step, dare I say it, logical even.

It’s no secret that the American economy is well and truly spitroasted, and Europe is hardly faring much better. The emerging economies of the world offer new opportunities, new growth and new demand.

Now while there are many reasons why China may not be ready for your lose weight fast campaigns, that’s not to say there aren’t areas that affiliates shouldn’t be seriously looking at and asking “How can I get a slice of that pie?”

I’m going to be running a personal experiment over the next 60 days to learn a brand new language and develop a website that caters to one of these emerging markets.

It’s going to take me to epic places that I’ve never been before (the library), but I hope that by the end of these 60 days, I can proudly showcase a sparkling new website that lines my account with pesos. Or rupees. Or magic beans.

Stay tuned to see the calamity unfold.

Recommended This Week

• Are you signed up to the Stack That Money Forum? It offers coaching from two of the best CPA bloggers in the biz, Mr Green and Mr Stackthatmoney. You’ll find a bunch of follow along case studies and some very generous knowledge dumps which you’d have to be an absolute muppet not to take value from. More info here.

• Lots of Ads is the latest service to offer spying capabilities over Facebook’s most profitable ads. The great appeal for me is the ability to spy on International markets including France, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and many more. Save time on translations and tap in to the most lucrative markets on Facebook. Definitely a worthy addition to your toolkit. First 20 customers only who use code FINCH11 will receive 10% off their lifetime subscription. Enjoy!

• If you’re a new reader, please add me to your RSS. Also follow me on Twitter Love you long time. Thanks for reading.