I'm Shashikant Shah, an SEO consultant and software engineer in Kathmandu. International SEO is the part of technical SEO that decides which version of your site Google shows in which country. This page is for the Nepali businesses selling abroad, and for anyone running English and Nepali versions of the same pages.

Short answer: an international SEO audit checks whether Google can tell which page is for which country and language: hreflang pairs with return tags, an x-default, canonical tags that agree with the hreflang, country targeting in Search Console, and currency, address and phone signals that match the market. Most sites have two or three errors that quietly send the wrong version to the wrong people. The audit is USD 249, about NPR 34,000, with a 30 day fix list, and the fixes go into your own code.

Who this is for

  • Trekking and travel companies, exporters, software and outsourcing firms and consultancies in Nepal whose buyers are in India, Australia, the UK, the US, the Gulf or Singapore.
  • Businesses serving the diaspora: Nepalis abroad searching in English for a service at home, and paying from another country.
  • Sites with an English and a Nepali version of the same pages, where Google keeps ranking the wrong one or treats them as duplicates.
  • Sites that sell in two currencies and show the wrong one to half their visitors.

If you sell only in Nepal and only in one language, you don't need this. The local SEO page is yours.

What the audit covers

  • hreflang pairs and return tags. Every language and country version has to point at every other one, and each one has to point back. One missing return tag and Google ignores the set.
  • x-default. The version Google should show to anyone outside the markets you named, usually the English page.
  • Canonicals that agree. A canonical tag pointing at the English page from the Nepali page tells Google the Nepali page doesn't exist. Most CMS setups do this by default.
  • Country and language targeting. Whether the structure, a .com.np domain, a /np/ folder or a subdomain, matches what you are trying to do, and what Search Console thinks the site targets.
  • Duplicate markets. Two English versions for two countries with the same text need a reason to exist, or Google picks one for both.
  • Currency, address and phone signals. A page for Australian buyers that quotes NPR with a Kathmandu number is a page Google and the buyer both doubt.
  • Sitemaps and internal links. Whether every version is in the sitemap with its alternates, and whether the language switcher is a real link a crawler can follow.
  • What the AI engines see. Which version ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews quote for a question from each country, checked by hand.

What you get

An audit sheet with every URL, its declared alternates, the errors and the fix, in priority order. A written 30 day plan your developer can act on, or that I act on myself. Then a re-check in Search Console once Google has recrawled, with the before and after for the queries that matter in each country.

How it works

First call. Free, thirty minutes. Tell me which countries you sell to and which versions of the site exist, and I'll tell you what I can already see from outside.

The audit. A full crawl of every version, read against Search Console's international reports and the page code. One to two weeks from access.

The fixes. In your own code and templates, each one checked in URL Inspection before the next. Hreflang mistakes usually live in a template, so a long list of errors is often one change.

The re-check. Four to eight weeks later, when the right versions start appearing in the right countries. I report that from your own Search Console.

Proof, and the honest limit

I don't have a published international SEO case study yet, and I'd rather say that than imply one. What you can check: the technical SEO work behind the published ecommerce result on the case studies page, where crawl, index and speed fixes were part of the job, and this site, which I built and which passes its own automated checks on structured data, sitemaps and links on every deploy. hreflang is the same discipline applied across versions: precise tags, checked by machine, verified in Search Console.

What it costs

The audit with the 30 day plan is USD 249, about NPR 34,000. If the fixes are large, a redesign comes with them, or there are many markets, the four week sprint at USD 899 (about NPR 122,000) covers the implementation. Ongoing international work sits inside the retainer at USD 1,800 a month (about NPR 245,000). What each tier leaves out is on the pricing page. The first call is free.

Questions about international SEO

Do I need hreflang if my site is only in English?

Only if you have separate English pages for separate countries, for example one for Australia and one for the UK. One English site serving everyone needs no hreflang at all. It needs consistent country signals and the right targeting in Search Console.

Should I use .com.np or .com for buyers abroad?

A .com.np domain tells Google the site is for Nepal, which is a problem if most of your buyers are abroad. The usual answer is a .com with country folders, but moving a domain costs rankings for a while, so I only recommend it when the current domain is actively holding you back. The audit says which case you are in.

Should Nepali and English be on the same page or on separate pages?

Separate pages, one language each, linked with hreflang. Mixed language on one page confuses language detection and ranks for neither. The exception is a short bilingual contact or address block, which is fine.

Does Google understand Nepali?

Yes. Google indexes and ranks Devanagari content, and a growing share of searches in Nepal are typed in Nepali or Roman Nepali. The Nepali pages need their own titles, descriptions and hreflang, not a translated copy of the English metadata.

How long until the right version shows?

Google has to recrawl every version and read the new tags, so four to eight weeks is typical for the results to settle, longer on a large site. I report the change from Search Console rather than guessing.

When are you not the right person?

If you need the content translated, I'll help you brief a translator, but I don't translate. If you have fifty markets and a legal team per country, you need an enterprise international SEO team. And if you don't yet sell outside Nepal, fix local search first.

All services · Technical SEO · SEO expert in Nepal · Technology companies · SEO for trekking and hospitality · Pricing.

Tell me which countries you sell to

Send me the site and the markets. I'll tell you from outside whether you have wired the versions correctly, whether or not you hire me.

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