New languages, restrict access, and keep ranking

[Kepass]

Hello everyone,
I have a website in Spanish that is well-ranked in South American countries.
We are moving the business to Switzerland, and I expect to have many clients there.
For the Swiss audience.I want the website to be available in English first, and later in German,
However, I do not want to change the main domain's language to avoid losing my rankings in Spanish.
At the same time, I want to ensure that Swiss users do not access the website in Spanish.

Is there a SEO Friendly way to achieve this ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ElizabethRule]

If you want to build the English and German pages on the same domain, you need to look into Hreflang. Aleyda Solis is a world-class international SEO and I suggest starting with her guide Avoiding Hreflang Issues by Following a 6 Steps Implementation Process

Another option is creating a second site on a different domain just for your Swiss audience. You will still need to use Hreflang to tag the English vs German content, but you won't have to worry about any Spanish content showing up for Swiss users.

 

[Kepass]

If you want to build the English and German pages on the same domain, you need to look into Hreflang. Aleyda Solis is a world-class international SEO and I suggest starting with her guide Avoiding Hreflang Issues by Following a 6 Steps Implementation Process

Another option is creating a second site on a different domain just for your Swiss audience. You will still need to use Hreflang to tag the English vs German content, but you won't have to worry about any Spanish content showing up for Swiss users.

Hello, and thank you for your response.


Creating a new site would almost be a simpler solution for me.


But not for the client.


We’re talking about a blogger with an online shop.


If I had to create two sites, I think she would go crazy with the management.


Unless we went for a multisite, but I don’t know much about that.


And considering the number of plugins her site already has, it’s not going to be easy.


I’ll check the link you sent me and thank you again.

 

[ElizabethRule]

One site can work just as well! I would create URL subfolders for each language, i.e /es/ for Spanish, /gr/ for German, /en/ for English. That along with Hreflang should help you accomplish your SEO objectives

Good luck!

 

[Kepass]

Thanks.