SEO and multi-language site

[MLu]

We have a .com site hosted in UK, but translated into 8 different languages throughout Europe. Our Google ranking is miserable, and I recently found out that only 2 pages were indexed with Google. Today we get more than 95% of visitors from ppc - too expensive :angry:

 

- What strategies do I use to get good rankings in the local Google searched, for example Germany?

- Should I separate out the different language versions in subdomains such as de.mysite.com, es.mysite.com or is this not needed, and if yes how is this done?

- Which contributions can be recommended for a multilingual site?

- Do I need to install some kind of SEO friendly url-contrib?

 

Thanks for any inspiration!