It’s a statistic we often repeat on this blog, but the fact is that online customers are four times more likely to buy from a website in their own language, so companies who have multilingual websites soon reap the rewards of the time and resource investment they make in website localisation.

Here’s how localisation of even just a few pages can power your export sales to new heights.

While the internet is a boon to international trade, many companies in English-speaking countries are failing to be forward-thinking by communicating internationally.

Localising websites entails adapting products and materials for a particular market and includes - but is not limited to - translating text into the markets’ relevant languages.

A fully localised website shows shows appreciation and respect towards a foreign culture and conveys that you are interested in your potential customers and their respective cultures. It likewise takes into account conventions and preferences specific to each country such as currencies, measurements and cultural differences.

The benefits of localisation are enormous and include penetrating overseas markets you most want to succeed in, increasing market share - and muscling out the competition. It also ensures you can be found in the most popular search engines in each specified market, country or language.

With English accounting for less than 30% of website content, closely followed by Chinese with 22.6% with ‘other languages’ making up 17.8% - the opportunities for growing your business via localisation are unprecedented.

Reaching out to customers in multiple languages brings both short and long term ‘wins’.  In addition to the immediate boost to sales, a multilingual website is excellent for testing new markets and opening new doors to international trade.

Summary of key tactics to achieve success

Localise your website - just a few pages will demonstrate serious intentions and improve your search engine ranking in the country you are targeting.

Always use a professional translation service - avoid being tempted to use a free machine translation which is not geared for translating marketing copy which has been carefully crafted to stimulate interest and sell to readers.

Focus on core products and services - launching a selection of your bestselling products or services increases your chances of success in a new market.

Conduct multilingual keyword research - pinning down what customers are actually searching for and adapting your website and online advertising accordingly is critical to ensure your site is the one they browse and then buy from.

Measure results - As you would with your UK site. Visitor statistics are invaluable in evaluating your return on investment and deciding where to concentrate further resources.

Are you planning to take advantage of international opportunities by localising your website? Then let’s talk - email sales[at]web-translations[dot]co[dot]uk or call +44 (0) 113 8150460.

Once you make the important decision to localise your website for a foreign market, and select a provider to deliver the project, your work is not quite yet done. It’s equally important to identify which sections of the website should be included in the localisation project, not least from a budgetary perspective.

We usually advise clients who are embarking on their first localisation to omit the following sections:

- News

- Meet the team, or equivalent

- All blog posts

The reason being that this type of contact can quickly become out of date, unless a strategy is in place to manage multilingual updates.

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In today’s competitive business environment, it pays to be the first company to market with a new product or service. Here are our tips on how to beat your competitors and take full advantage of global opportunities in your sector.

1. Be the early bird - get there first!
Localise your homepage for multiple markets - then you have the pick of where to focus your attention & resource rather than being forced out of the markets your competitors already operate in.

2. Forge your own path
China, Russia, and other fast-growing economies will compete with you in markets you hadn’t even begun to consider. Don’t follow the herd, but blaze your own trail. This takes confidence and a strong business plan but it is the only way to keep competitive advantage.

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New German site launched!

We met Amy Karim at the Internet Retailing Expo in March, where we spoke to her about expanding her online bridal accessories business internationally. She’d already decided to target Germany as a new market, and so our International Blast service was the ideal solution to get her started. (more…)

A lot of websites on the internet are available in more than one language, and some in a number of different languages.  This is a topic that features every now and then on this blog, as we comment on which languages are most popular, how the languages in which a website are available affect the traffic to a website, and so on.

One language that doesn’t get much press or attention is Maltese.  Maltese is a very interesting language; about half of its vocabulary is borrowed from Italian and Sicilian, and English words make up as much as 20% of its vocabulary.  (more…)

In this video, Daniel Rajkumar presents the case study of the South African Airways website localisation project delivered by Web-Translations.

South African Airways chose to use OpenCms as the content management system for their multilingual flight booking site. This video outlines the project, challenges that were faced and the fantastic results that were achieved.

It’s always good when a prominent figure echoes what we’ve been saying for years - expanding into foreign markets using your website is a great way to grow your business, and is a low-risk option in these difficult financial times. (more…)

“Only a couple of weeks after the relaunch of our website, we achieved our highest revenue ever from online sales! I’d expected it to take longer to achieve results, so am really impressed with the outcome.”

Benjamin Schubert, E-Commerce Project Manager – South African Airways

SEO is just as important for your foreign language sites as for your English one. Simply translating content and putting it online unfortunately does not mean that any of your potential customers will find the pages you have created for their benefit.

As Nataly Kelly of the Common Sense Advisory says:

“It just doesn’t work to assume that a target audience who has been linguistically underserved in the past will miraculously show up at your site in the months following the launch of your new content. [...] you need to publicize your new content and drive your target audience to the new site. Just as with your source language website, expect the traffic to build over time.” (more…)

This post is an explanation of how our International Blast service works, as it’s something we are often asked about.

International Blast was developed as a first step localisation for companies who wanted to begin trading internationally online, but preferred a cautious approach rather than investing a larger amount of money, time and resources in localising their whole website.

Even localising just one or two key pages of a website yields results, and often generates sales in a new target market. By pricing the service at £295, it is also an affordable option if a company wish to test several new markets at once. (more…)