We get a version of the same brief from two or three prospective clients every month. The company has strong rankings in India. They want to expand into UAE, Germany or Southeast Asia. They have tried running their Indian content strategy in the new market, sometimes with translations, sometimes in English as-is. Nothing has worked.
Why Indian SEO Fails Abroad
Search behaviour in different markets reflects different buying cultures and different decision-making processes. A user in Bengaluru searching for a real estate developer types "2BHK flats near Whitefield under 80 lakhs." A user in Dubai searching for the equivalent property types "apartments for sale in Dubai Creek Harbour" — no price mention, because price transparency norms differ.
If you are targeting Dubai with content optimised for Indian search intent, you will rank for keywords no one in Dubai is searching. Your traffic numbers look fine in Search Console. Your enquiries from that market will be near zero.
Technical Signals
Beyond keyword research, international SEO involves hreflang tags that tell Google which version of a page to serve in which country. Without them, your UAE content may compete against your Indian content for the same rankings, causing both to underperform.
Domain structure matters too. A subdirectory signals to Google that the UAE content is part of the same authoritative domain. A subdomain is treated more like a separate site — meaning you start from zero authority in that market.
What the Right Approach Looks Like
For a jewellery brand we worked with across India and the Gulf, the process started with market-specific keyword research conducted with local consultants in Dubai and Riyadh. Not translated from Hindi. Researched directly in the markets being targeted.
Eight months later, that brand ranks on page one in the UAE for seven of its twelve target keywords. None of that came from repurposing Indian content. See our international SEO services and how we expand Indian brands globally.