Vernacular SEO: how to rank in regional languages in India

Vernacular SEO means making your website visible to people who search in their own language — Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi and others — not only in English. For many Indian businesses it is the cheapest growth left, because most competitors still publish in English only.

1. Pick languages by your customers, not by size

Start with the languages your customers actually use: the state you sell in, the languages in your WhatsApp enquiries, and the questions your staff answer on the phone. One well-done regional language beats five half-done ones.

2. Write native, not translated

Word-for-word machine translation reads badly and rarely ranks. Write each page the way a local customer would say it, keep brand and product names consistent, and have a native speaker check every page before it goes live.

3. Cover all three ways people search

The same customer may type "kannur solar", "കണ്ണൂർ സോളാർ" or "Kannur il solar panel". Use the native script in the page, mention the common English-letter spellings naturally, and keep English for technical terms people really type.

4. Get the technical basics right

• A separate address for each language (for example /ml/, /ta/), with hreflang links between them.
• The correct lang attribute and a font that shows the script properly on phones.
• Page titles and descriptions written in the regional language, within Google's length limits.
• A sitemap that lists every language version.

5. Measure per language

In Google Search Console, filter by page path to see impressions and clicks for each language separately. Grow the languages that bring enquiries; improve or pause the ones that do not.

Doondo does this for Indian businesses in 14 languages today. You can check how your own website does in about 30 seconds with our free SEO audit.