Let’s assume you’ve got a website and business is positively booming from a domestic point of view. Now let’s throw the following statistic up in the air: only a quarter of the Earth’s population speak English…over 90 per cent of which do so as a second language.
There’s approaching two billion people online across the globe, 40 per cent of whom are in Asia alone. China has 30 per cent more internet users than the entire United States. Importantly, over half of all Google searches are in a language other than English.
This all points to one thing: the world is a massive marketplace that is there for the taking. Of course, language is a pretty mighty barrier for those not blessed with fluency in anything other than their native tongue. But as the saying goes fortune favours the bold and to go global, necessitates that you tackle the language and cultural barriers head on.
To transform your website for international markets requires a three step process: research, localise and optimise.
Research
There are hundreds of countries and thousands of languages for you to target, and you obviously can’t go for them all. So where to start? Well, the country that you target will depend on what it is you are selling…there’s little point trying to sell snowboards to consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The easiest and most cost-effective means of identifying what markets to target is simply to research online. See what countries have similar businesses to you and do your homework on these companies. Check how long they’ve been operating for, try and find out where they export to and what sort of revenue they’re turning over. Importantly, see what service isn’t being offered – you can then turn up and exploit this gap.
It’s also worth mentioning that if there are too many companies competing already in a country, then it can be difficult to gain a foothold and it’s best to look elsewhere.
Localise
There’s an often cited adage that to go global, you must think local. And you could do a lot worse than pay heed to this contemporary proverb.
Let’s start with language. Although French is spoken in France, Switzerland, Belgium and parts of Canada, this doesn’t mean you can adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to these markets. Check this table for some of the key differences between the French dialects:
The same principle applies to the various German, Portuguese, Spanish and even English dialects of the world: language is important, but so is the country-specific dialect.
So let’s assume you’ve arranged for your website to be translated into the languages/dialects of your key target markets. What next? Well, in the same way as you do with your English language website, you have to raise its online profile. There’s little point having a website if nobody can find it.
Optimise
Search engine optimisation underpins any online marketing strategy and whether you opt for paid-search such as Google AdWords or organic on-page and off-page optimisation techniques, the end goal is the same: your position on Google, Yahoo, Bing or Baidu will affect your business significantly. Anything less than a top 10 position for your industry’s key search terms won’t do, and even then it’s not ideal. You really want to be in the top few search results.
The one golden rule of multilingual SEO is this: don’t even attempt to translate your keywords from English.
A professionally qualified translator may do a great job of translating money saving tips’, motorcycle insurance’ or whatever other key terms you rank highly for on Google.co.uk or Google .com. But there’s a good chance it’s not what people use to search for your service or product locally.
Abbreviations, acronyms, synonyms or any other variation of the dictionary translation could be what people use to search for your services in your target country and it’s for this reason you must research your keywords for each market rather than import them directly as translations.
There is a lot more to the process of marketing your services online to global markets. But the very basics here will put you in a good position should you decide to venture forth and take your business to the global marketplace.
Christian Arno is founder of UK translation company Lingo24
