How to Set Up Hreflang Tags for Multi-Region Websites

If you’re expanding your Brisbane business to the UK or the US, or perhaps you have a separate site specifically for our Kiwi neighbours across the ditch, you’ve likely run into a common SEO headache: duplicate content. Hreflang tags are the solution. They tell Google exactly which version of a page should be shown to users based on their location and language, ensuring your Aussie customers see prices in AUD while your American visitors see USD.

Without these tags, Google might get confused and rank your US site for Australian searches, or worse, penalise you for having identical content across different domains. This guide will walk you through setting them up correctly so you can scale your business globally without losing your local search rankings.

Prerequisites: What You’ll Need Before We Start

• A Sitemap or Access to your CMS: You'll need to be able to edit your website's section or upload a XML sitemap.
• A List of All URLs: You need the exact URLs for every regional version of a page (e.g., your .com.au page and your .co.nz equivalent).
• ISO Language and Region Codes: You’ll need to use specific codes like en-au for Australia or en-gb for the United Kingdom.
• A Spreadsheet: Trust me on this—trying to do this in your head is a recipe for a migraine. Use Excel or Google Sheets to map your URLs first.

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Step 1: Understand the Hreflang Syntax

Before we start copying and pasting, you need to understand what the tag actually looks like. It’s a small piece of code that sits in the backend of your site.

It looks like this:

• rel="alternate": Tells Google this is an alternative version of the page.
• hreflang="en-au": This is the language (English) and the region (Australia).
• href="...": This is the actual URL of that specific version.

Step 2: Map Your URLs in a Spreadsheet

This is where most people get stuck, and honestly, the interface of most SEO tools doesn't help much. You need to create a map where every page points to every other version of itself.

If you have an "About Us" page for Australia and one for New Zealand, the Australian page must point to the NZ page, and the NZ page must point back to the Australian page. This is called a "reciprocal link." If you forget to link back, Google will simply ignore the tags. It's like a digital handshake; both parties have to agree.

• Column A: The Australian URL
• Column B: The NZ URL
• Column C: The UK URL

Step 3: Choose Your Implementation Method

There are three ways to do this. For most Aussie small business owners, Method A is the easiest if you use WordPress, while Method B is better if you have a massive site with thousands of products.

Method A: The HTML (Easiest for small sites)

Method B: XML Sitemaps (Best for large sites)

Method C: HTTP Headers

Step 4: Define Your 'x-default' Page

This is a step many people miss. The x-default tag tells Google: "If the user is in a location I haven't specifically targeted, send them here."

For most Brisbane businesses expanding globally, your x-default will likely be your main .com or .com.au site. It’s the "catch-all" version.

Example code:

Step 5: Generate Your Tags

Don't try to write these manually; you'll almost certainly make a typo. Use a tool like the Aleyda Solis Hreflang Generator. You just plug in your URLs and the regions, and it spits out the code for you.

(Yes, this step is annoyingly fiddly if you have 100+ pages. Bear with it—getting this right now saves you months of SEO cleanup later.)

Step 6: Add the Tags to Your Site

If you're using the HTML method, you need to place the tags for all versions on every page.

So, your Australian "Contact Us" page will have three tags in the head:

• A tag pointing to itself (en-au)
• A tag pointing to the UK version (en-gb)
• An x-default tag