#hreflang plugin

What is a valid Hreflang?

Sometimes users of our Hreflang testing tool see an error like this and get baffled:

Invalid hreflang (en_US) found in HTML.

Why is en_US incorrect? Because the correct way to write a language code is with dashes, not underscores. The correct value is en-US.

What are valid values for Hreflang?

A valid hreflang can be specified as:

A 2-character language code (e.g. “en“), or

a combination of language and region code (e.g. “en-US“), or

a combination of language and script code (e.g. “sr-Cyrl” or “sr-Latn“), or

a combination of language, script and region codes (e.g. “sr-hu-Latn“)

A special value of “x-default”, used for country/language selectors and redirector pages. These pages are not specific to any language/locale. Users either choose their language/country (e.g. from a map or dropdown box), or the website uses the IP address of the visitor to this page and automatically redirects them to the page that is appropriate for them.

Examples of invalid Hreflang

Here are some examples of invalid language codes found recently by the online testing tool. See if you can figure out why these codes are incorrect:

en_US: Underscore used instead of hyphen

en-en: The second “en” is incorrect because “en” is not a valid region code.

en-UK: “uk” is not a valid region code. Use “en-GB”.

us-en: The order is inverted. It should be “en-US”.

ua: ua is not a language code. It is a region code. So it is incorrect to use it by itself, i.e. without a language code.

cmn-CN: The country code for China is correct (this page was in Chinese and the URL was a .cn URL. The language code is incorrect.

Valid Codes for Reference

Valid Language Codes (2-character ISO-639-1 Codes)

A list of valid 2-character language codes is as follows (the format is ISO 639-1): aa, ab, ae, af, ak, am, an, ar, as, av, ay, az, ba, be, bg, bh, bi, bm, bn, bo, br, bs, ca, ce, ch, co, cr, cs, cu, cv, cy, da, de, dv, dz, ee, el, en, eo, es, et, eu, fa, ff, fi, fj, fo, fr, fy, ga, gd, gl, gn, gu, gv, ha, he, hi, ho, hr, ht, hu, hy, hz, ia, id, ie, ig, ii, ik, io, is, it, iu, ja, jv, ka, kg, ki, kj, kk, kl, km, kn, ko, kr, ks, ku, kv, kw, ky, la, lb, lg, li, ln, lo, lt, lu, lv, mg, mh, mi, mk, ml, mn, mr, ms, mt, my, na, nb, nd, ne, ng, nl, nn, no, nr, nv, ny, oc, oj, om, or, os, pa, pi, pl, ps, pt, qu, rm, rn, ro, ru, rw, sa, sc, sd, se, sg, si, sk, sl, sm, sn, so, sq, sr, ss, st, su, sv, sw, ta, te, tg, th, ti, tk, tl, tn, to, tr, ts, tt, tw, ty, ug, uk, ur, uz, ve, vi, vo, wa, wo, xh, yi, yo, za, zh, zu

Valid Region Codes (2-character ISO-3166-1 Codes)

And here are all the valid region codes (ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format; note that the code for the United Kingdom is “GB”, not “UK”): AD, AE, AF, AG, AI, AL, AM, AO, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AW, AX, AZ, BA, BB, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BL, BM, BN, BO, BQ, BR, BS, BT, BV, BW, BY, BZ, CA, CC, CD, CF, CG, CH, CI, CK, CL, CM, CN, CO, CR, CU, CV, CW, CX, CY, CZ, DE, DJ, DK, DM, DO, DZ, EC, EE, EG, EH, ER, ES, ET, FI, FJ, FK, FM, FO, FR, GA, GB, GD, GE, GF, GG, GH, GI, GL, GM, GN, GP, GQ, GR, GS, GT, GU, GW, GY, HK, HM, HN, HR, HT, HU, ID, IE, IL, IM, IN, IO, IQ, IR, IS, IT, JE, JM, JO, JP, KE, KG, KH, KI, KM, KN, KP, KR, KW, KY, KZ, LA, LB, LC, LI, LK, LR, LS, LT, LU, LV, LY, MA, MC, MD, ME, MF, MG, MH, MK, ML, MM, MN, MO, MP, MQ, MR, MS, MT, MU, MV, MW, MX, MY, MZ, NA, NC, NE, NF, NG, NI, NL, NO, NP, NR, NU, NZ, OM, PA, PE, PF, PG, PH, PK, PL, PM, PN, PR, PS, PT, PW, PY, QA, RE, RO, RS, RU, RW, SA, SB, SC, SD, SE, SG, SH, SI, SJ, SK, SL, SM, SN, SO, SR, SS, ST, SV, SX, SY, SZ, TC, TD, TF, TG, TH, TJ, TK, TL, TM, TN, TO, TR, TT, TV, TW, TZ, UA, UG, UM, US, UY, UZ, VA, VC, VE, VG, VI, VN, VU, WF, WS, YE, YT, ZA, ZM, ZW

Valid Script Codes (4-character ISO 15924 Codes)

There are many mistakes you could make when implementing Hreflang tags on your website. Via the online Hreflang testing tool, we try to catch as many of them as we can. Here’s a list, complete with how to fix each type of problem.

Page-level errors

Some errors can be noticed simply by looking at an individual page. These are:

Broken pages: It is not uncommon that we crawl the pages in a sitemap and find some that are broken e.g. 404 page not found errors, or 301/302 redirects, or even pages that are completely blank or do not have HTML markup.

An Hreflang tag with broken markup. e.g. a <link> tag with missing href attribute

Incorrect Hreflang: Acceptable values for the language code used in Hreflang attributes must be in ISO-639-1 or the ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format. e.g. while “en-US” is correct, “en-UK” is incorrect. The correct value for the UK is actually “en-GB”.

Page not linking to itself: When you implement Hreflang tags on a page (say Page A), you obviously want to include <link>s to the version of page A in other languages. So you link to pages B, C and D. But search engine guidelines specify that page A must also link to itself (specifying the language used on that page, of course).

Missing x-default: Another guideline from Google is that an “x-default” must be included as the default page to be shown to users whose language is not among the languages that you have pages for. Usually this is English, and usually it’s the page that is in the XML sitemap.

Same page, multiple languages: Sometimes when Hreflang tags are incorrectly implemented, all (or multiple) language versions point to the same page. (see example here). You will see this error if two different languages — say en and fr — point to the same page. However, if the two hreflang attributes both use the same high-level language — say en-US and en-GB — then they can point to the same page and it will not throw an error.

Duplicate (or multiple different) Hreflang tags for the same language

HTML lang attribute does not match hreflang: The “lang” attribute of the <html> tag on the page is different from the “hreflang” attribute for that page in the <link> tag. This error is usually because of a CMS (content management system) template problem. The <html> tag has an optional lang attribute to specify what language this page is in. This tag is generated by the back-end CMS and most marketers don’t pay any attention to it because it’s not an important SEO meta tag like robots, description or hreflang. Since all pages served by the CMS tend to use the same hard-coding for the lang attribute, we find that pages in German, French etc. — even if they have the correct hreflang attribute — continue to use <html lang="en">

Hreflang in HTML and HTTP headers: This is rare but some sites specify Hreflang tags in both their HTML and the HTTP headers returned by the URL. Use only one and keep it simple for yourself and for search engines.

Errors related to a set of pages

Other types of errors require you to take a look at a set of pages that all have the same content. All pages in the same set have the same content, just in different languages. That is why they are grouped into a set and the set is examined collectively. All such pages should point to each other (and to themselves). What’s more, they should point to the canonical version of each other. The errors we look for are:

Pages not linking to each other (aka no return tags or missing return tags): All pages in a set must link to each other (and to themselves). Sometimes we see the default page (say Page A) linking to pages B, C and D but each of those only link back to page A. That is a mistake. The correct way to implement it is to have the exact same Hreflang tags on all pages in a set. Remembering this will greatly simplify your implementation. This error is explained in detail in this blog post.

Not linking to the canonical version: You have a set of pages all linking to each other. Wonderful! But sometimes when we crawl these pages, we discover that a page specifies that its canonical version is different from the URL that was in the Hreflang tags (or in the sitemap you are testing). This is a mistake because when you are dealing with search engines, you only want to specify the canonical version of a URL, both in your sitemap and in any hreflang tags. All other versions of that page (that point to the canonical version) are discovered by the search engine crawler when it is spidering the web (on your website or from outside). But you do not want to include non-canonical versions of a page in your sitemap, or any structured data that you provide to search engines (like hreflang tags).

Other Errors

Other errors we check for are a byproduct of crawling the pages supplied. These are not related specifically to Hreflang:

Invalid (mal-formed) canonical URL

More than 1 canonical URL specified for a given page

Further Reading

It’s a commonly accepted truth that writers write to be read.

If you’ve been writing for a while, you’ll probably agree that each new piece of writing attracts a different level of publicity.

Some posts will blow up with views just days after publication, while others can languish unnoticed months later.

Even though they’re of relatively the same standard.

So what gives? And what actually attracts traffic online?

Interest in new content is a subject close to the heart of most digital publishers.

Refinery29‘s senior vice president of content strategy and innovation says, “We are not after building our business from lone fragments of celebrity news. Banking exclusively on the news cycle is far too risky a move if one is after sustained loyalty and growth.”

Ben Robinson, chief creative officer at Thrillist, agrees and notes that content is an area which needs to be approached strategically and methodically.

In his words, “Assuming we roll out a list of best burgers you could find in San Francisco, not updating them at least annually or even so often, would be a great downfall on our side.”

Evidently, the need for fresh and compelling content is a top priority for most of today’s brands. But increasingly, digital publishers are digging deeper into their archives to resurface buried gems, and it’s becoming clear that evergreen content does not necessarily have to be brand new.

Old is gold

Little tweaks here and there to previously published content can go a long way to effectively maximizing traffic to your site.

Old is gold, well, at least to those who know how to mine it. For brands growing into independent publishers, creating new content can be a great challenge.

But what makes the challenge even greater is that not many brands have creatives among their workforce. The other challenge is keeping up to speed with industry insights, and creating content on the go.

Creating new content only every so often has proven to be an uphill battle for many.

But what if we could get this out of the way by using what you have on your hands – your old and dusty (but still valuable) content?

Here are some helpful tips to see you through growth by creating a larger following to your content. Firstly, by attracting new readers, and secondly, by encouraging loyalty from existing traffic.

1. Learn from your audience

Content marketing is all about developing content that satisfies the needs of a particular audience. In order for your content to find relevance in its intended niche, proper homework needs to be done.

For digital publishers, creating surveys or engaging user interactive content can help get your audience talking. After collating their opinions, it is time to put them to use by revamping your old post ideas.

This can be approached from two perspectives:

Create spin-off posts

For posts that did statistically well, you focus on creating spin-off posts. Identify any ideas that might have been overlooked while compiling the post and give it an in-depth touch. Using readers’ comments and feedback emails, you might be able to know what they felt was left out and maximize on that.

The above post from Inked Hub Writers, for example, targets digital publishers and tells them what to look out for when putting up content that stands out for a specific audience.

This same post recently got a revamp, and this time, the SEO bit was left out of the post. As it turns out, there was conflicting interest mentioning SEO and audience, seeing both could have differing ways of analyzing what fares well.

With that information coming in, it was possible to put out a post on the same topic, which now went straight ahead to address the audience as the big focus in the post, as shown below.

These spin-off articles make ‘cluster’ content, which continues to link back to the original content, helping it to rank higher. In other words, it’s the same content, but with a fresh feel to it.

Try rebranding

The second consideration in doing this is concerning posts that didn’t perform to the writer’s expectation. Ask yourself what a salesperson would do to increase the sales or shelf life of an under-performing commodity, and re-spin it.

Identify the places that could use a makeover, incorporate new ideas and better editing, or lend themselves well to additional graphics and anything else likely to jazz up the article. A new take on the general outlook of an article could be all it takes for audiences to realize how great your content is and engage with it afresh.

2. Experiment with creative promotion

Not being creative or bold enough with marketing strategies is a common sin that creeps into many brands’ publishing departments. There’s a genuine phobia about promoting already-published content. The truth is that most of the archived content is simply there growing dust because it lacks a focused, creative promotion strategy to begin with.

Try sharing across multiple social media platforms. In today’s world, promotion has become much harder and easier at the same time. Thinking creatively as a publisher can help you leverage your old content and close in more viewership. A start to that would be asking some very simple but worthwhile questions.

The major one is, how has your social promotion performed so far? Today’s many available social media platforms provide a virtually unlimited target audience. How you sell yourself on these social platforms is what will count. Focus on the things that your audience will easily relate to.

For example, you could share one post across multiple platforms by simply playing around with the headlines. An online pesticide store could be launching a new product, for example, and publish a press release on it. Seeing as it would appear too redundant to keep sharing the same title, the editor can get creative in this scenario. Possible ways for sharing this across different social media platforms could be:

Writing an interesting post on the overarching need for households to keep their houses pest-free by providing simple executable do-it-yourself tips on Facebook

Highlighting the prevalent problem the pesticide seeks to solve. Making audiences feel like you relate to their problems and frustrations to help them get interested in your proposed solution for it in a simple tweet

Creating a discussion reel around the subject, and letting your target audience share their input around it on Instagram. This could look like: passive opinions, shared disappointments and a mention of what has worked for them.

Simply put, settling for only one way of running a promotion could only limit the chances of the content’s performance.

3. Republish on a different platform

This can also do the trick. Guest blogging has become a networking boon for the digital publishing industry. Not many brands, though, have mastered the art of republishing.

While guest blogging in most cases, takes in new content from scratch, some sites are willing to republish a piece on their site with your permission.

While this can be viewed differently by different parties, it sure can be an opportunity for an expansive reach. There is no limitation to how many times you can self-publish your own content.

To mean that, you don’t have to publish the content entirely, but you can share the link to a piece through other published pieces that are relevant to your content.

Whether you are self-hosted on a private website or use WordPress or BlogSpot, you can choose to increase the breadcrumbs leading to your content by posting it on various other sites. The more links you put out there, the more likely you are to increase your page views.

4. Optimize for SEO again

A great way to get URL topping results in search engine searches is to effectively optimize your content. The SEO landscape is crucial to successful content production so it makes sense to update your publish times and keywords as it changes and evolves.

You might have noticed that among even the most informative posts in search engines, some of them date way back, beyond three or four years. That does not mean that the information has changed since – but people may not be as likely to click on the link if they think the content is dusty or outdated.

Posts actually often reappear years later because they were well-researched and optimized for the particular needs they were addressing. The publishers can therefore keep updating them in any case where information has changed over the years.

Using Google’s keyword planner, you can identify relevant keywords that will link well with your work. It also gives quick ideas for terms the page was not targeting.

A little tweak on a title tag and inclusion of relevant modifiers in the body part of the article can also go a long way to putting your content out there.

It may be a wise idea to consider engaging the services of a professional SEO writer or agency who understand the steps involved to achieve this.

5. Digitally repackage your content

Branded content has an appeal that helps your audience identify with your brand. Most times, what this calls for is effective packaging.

So how do you go about updating your content packaging?

Firstly, consider visual appeal. A larger percentage of humans tend to be visual learners; this is a proven fact. You can rejig content in the form of an infographic, which in simpler terms is a visual summary of your content.

Infographics can be as detailed and as engaging as you’d like them to be. On the other hand, they can be as simple and minimal as the one below.

To some, infographics appear to be more ‘snackable’ than consuming large pieces of written content.

You can also consider revamping your old content into videos, podcasts or maybe even live chats that showcase its value.

For instance, video blogging, or what is commonly known as ‘vlogging’, has taken content development by storm. Most online users are engaging channels like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook and Instagram to get their content out there.

Many marketers and content strategists are now pushing their brands to produce more graphics and video content as a result.

What’s good about video and infographic content is that it is, by nature, very interactive and easy to understand. This increases its likelihood of being shared widely, hence reaching a greater audience.

6. Create ebooks and white papers

Traditional publishing, or more notably, print media once held a fair share of the content market. But that’s not the story today. In the wake of the digital media boom, today’s consumers of content are more accustomed to reading things online than in print format. For brands and publishers, this presents a great opportunity.

If you have published content or flyers relating to a certain topic, you can consider compiling these previous articles to form an eBook. Make it easily downloadable on various sites for free, but if you want to make that extra buck by ‘gating’ it, that’s all well and good.

White papers, like eBooks, can help identify you as an industry authority. All you need is to compile your different informative and relatable pieces to create a very informative white paper.

Wrapping up

Content has been, and will always be, an interaction point between brands, publishers and consumers.

Publishing content may continue to be a necessary burden for brands. But with the different possibilities that dusty old content in the digital archives can offer, this burden can be somewhat reduced.

Paying attention to the six tips above can help you revamp your old content and develop a good readership from it.

plugin Hreflang to best seo for your website http://hreflang.co/

Perform actions automatically

You can change the target audience in each post.

Easily add in Web site

Ease of targeting and guidance

Superior Web site in search engines for other websites

Accelerates global and local search engines in read and speed up the process of archiving

how to get the best seo for your website ?

Why Hreflang plugin?

The implementation of the hreflang attribute in a website powered by WordPress can be a very cumbersome process without a specific plugin, for this reason i developed Hreflang Plugin

What is the hreflang HTML attribute?

plugin Hreflang to best seo for your website

http://hreflang.co/

>Perform actions automatically

>You can change the target audience in each post.

>Easily add in Web site

>Ease of targeting and guidance

>Superior Web site in search engines for other websites

>Accelerates global and local search engines in read and speed up the process of archiving