I find it a bit surprising there are still people who don't optimize with internationalization in mind. Unless you offer a very narrow and local content or service, I think international visitors should always be granted with respect. If you don't want or can't support international visitors (because of commercial or logistic constraints), that's fine, but let them know as soon as possible!

Here in Quebec we are very sensitive and accustomed to this reality: we speak french while being surrounded by english culture. How many times to we end up on sites offering a french version assuming we are in France? How many times do we end up on a site to be abruptly abandoned after many promising steps to finally reach the lethal questions: state and zip code. Sorry "canadian", you are "persona non grata".

Just for the sake of discussion, while you show 70% traffic from the US, my blog, with similar interests, shows radically different geographic spread. US account only for 30% of my traffic!

All things being equal, notions like "foreign" and "overseas" don't make much sense anymore... we're all a bit "foreign" and, well, we're certainly all "overseas" somehow!

Stephane
http://shamel.blogspot.com

Stephane:

Due to your own experiences there in Quebec, you certainly understand how important it is to give some serious thought to how people from other areas will engage with your website!

Unfortunately, not everybody has the benefit of this type of experience. Here in the USA it tends to be much easier to slide into assuming all visitors to a website will be local.

But just as you point out, "notions like 'foreign' and 'overseas' don't make much sense anymore" because the internet is inherently global. Just as those websites you pointed out that assume you are in France lost your business, others are unwittingly losing business every day by not giving some thought to this matter.

- Meredith

I am looking for tips on how to optimize a site for international visitors. What are few specifics that need to be done to accomplish this strategy?

I would start by making sure your checkout form is compatible to global commerce, and not just USA.

One small example of this is that European credit cards normally have a "start date" in addition to the expiration date we are used to. You can hear about one person's trouble with this in the article "The London Eye Shopping Cart" by Robbin Steif over at LunaMetrics:
http://www.lunametrics.blogspot.com/