With the advancement of our global economy, it has become imperative for corporations to build their online presence. The more you expand your business, the more successful your business will be. The most powerful, coefficient, and cost-effective way to grow your business and reach your international audience is by building a company’s website.
A website is an effective way to appeal to and connect with our audience. But if we look around, one of the biggest challenges every entrepreneur is facing while expanding their business internationally is language and cultural barriers. According to research, the English language had 25% of internet users worldwide. But still, a dominant language on the internet, many other languages such as Madrid and Spanish closely rank and grow.
Turning your current business website into a multilingual website is an efficient way of communication and growth strategy. Website localization has become the most important way in which businesses are diversifying and spreading their success.
What is Website Localization?
When it comes to website localization, it is known as the modification of the existing website into the culture and language we want to cover.
In other words, Website localization is the process of purifying website content through language, culture, and flow to serve the most useful and relevant user experience. It is not just about translating websites, it is much more than that.
While localizing your website you need to adjust your overall content, images, color schemes, and user interface according to the specific language and cultural preferences of the given target market. If you want to translate website content, it is necessary to explain all the content into the targeted language, meaning focusing on punctuation, grammar, and word selection. A wrong text or image for the localized website can make your business suffer.
Why is website localization important?
The way of communication with your customers is a significant factor for success. Speaking to your customers, in the way they understand best can lead your business to success. No matter how good your website is, still, 65% of the international audience would prefer to read the content in their first language.
According to Education First’s English Proficiency Index, some promising markets such as Srilanka, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico, have low English penetration levels. It shows how important it is to translate your content at the start of your marketing strategy for foreign markets.
Speaking to an international audience in a language they understand is key to taking advantage of huge market potential. If you’re running your website to market your products, then you must reach your customers where they live. According to research, 75% of consumers state that they would choose a product that’s marketed and created in their language over a generic substitute of the same quality.
The process of website localization makes sure that each page of the website is sensible in the cultural and linguistic context of specific countries. In a few cases, a sentence that makes sense in one language can be offensive in another language, meaning localizing your website also helps in differentiating between gaining or losing a client.
Localizing your marketplace is the best move that has the potential to increase your traffic and your customer base. Website localization helps in enhancing customer engagement and conversions by communicating with them in the way they used to. The more your brand has in common with your customers, the more your trust will build.
Benefits of website localization:
Build Trust and Credibility:
One of the biggest reasons for creating a bilingual website is to build trust and credibility among customers. The ability of your website visitors to access content in their native language is significant to building this unusual approach.
When it comes to earning customer loyalty and navigating new markets, language is a powerful tool. Developing a website in local languages and making content that is tailored to them, will increase your brand awareness, and boost trust and intimacy among the international audience. Speaking their languages will make new customers identify with you, remember you, and eventually trust you.
Visitors won’t be having a good experience if they’re not able to understand what you have written.Just make sure you don’t spend all of your time on additional features of the website instead, start with fundamentals and make sure that the content that you’re serving is understandable and agreeable to foreigners.
Engage Audience:
Most audiences want to consume content in their native language. Research shows that 72% of consumers said that they spend all or most of their time on websites in their native language. This means converting your website into a bilingual website will lead to catering to a wider audience.
When your website builds trust and credibility, clients start increasing their collaboration with your brand. As they found out what they are searching for on your website on their first visit, they would be more likely to visit your site again and again and even recommend others also.
Expand your business:
A localized website serves as a key that opens the door to the global market everywhere. Marketing your products and services is no longer restricted to major corporations.
Spending time building a website in one language is not enough, it is important to consider other languages too. As per the research, only 4.8% of people speak English as a native language or a second language, which means there is a huge opportunity gap in the internet world to engage the remaining.
By localizing your website you can enter the target market and promote your products to those new markets and increase your customer base every time you approach a specific region. By expanding your business into new markets you create a huge and connected network of customers across borders.
SEO Perks:
We all know that the need for SEO relevancy is getting higher than ever with corporations striving to find the perfect combination of SEO keywords to increase traffic to their website. Due to little content generated in other languages, there is less competition in SEO in other languages.
In this case, expanding SEO strategies in other languages will positively impact the ranking of all sites. Website localization can help you to increase search engine ranking. SEO works best when the website is optimized for specific languages and regions. If you’re ranking well for keywords in other languages then you’re more likely to increase in domain authority, helping you to rank well for keywords in your local language, thus supporting your SEO efforts more.
As evidence, a well-known marketing consultant, Neil Patel noticed an increase in search traffic by 47% in 21 days after he converted his content to 82 languages. He also noticed that impressions for search queries are increasingly consequently growing his anticipations.
A cost-effective solution for global business:
Those days are gone when you need to make a huge investment to build a shop in an international market to expand your business globally which is not the best approach to gain global market share.
Building a multilingual website allows you to examine and dabble in the new market without investing a vast amount in a new team, permitting them to avoid the additional cost of building a physical presence in the global market.
The moment you localize your site, you would see how the target market would react to your marketing efforts or your ads. In this way, you will cut the cost of investing in hiring new people, building offices, and much more. Once you see that your sales of a localized website are increasing, then you can go with further investment to build a physical presence.
Key Takeaways:
There’s no doubt that website localization solidifies the entrance of a new global market without any expense. It is an essential step to take your online presence to the next level. The greatest part of localization is that its results can be measured, tested, and tracked and you can easily determine which language can resonate with your target demographics.
Considering the above-given benefits of website localization, it’s not a big deal to invest some money and try it out. Just make sure you do it correctly.
