Planning and executing website localization correctly takes careful planning and execution, and to help your efforts pay off we have decided to provide our Best Practices in website localization so that your efforts in an international market remain recognized.
Don’t Hesitate to Launch the Multilingual Website
Step one in localizing your website should be to purchase an international domain immediately. Perhaps you have found yourself wondering whether this project should have started sooner – conversations with customers, working on advertisement campaigns to promote solutions or products are always more pressing priorities – this all matters in terms of client relationships.
Explore your nation. There could be customers waiting for you if you decide to start localizing your website – most customers from foreign nations prefer purchasing products from websites which speak their native tongue.
Prepare Your Website for Global Expansion
Your website localization planning should begin when choosing a CMS, which should be user-friendly and facilitate collaboration among teams. As your team expands both domestically and internationally, more members may require access to it; make sure it provides an intuitive interface which allows for permissions management as well as rights modification or alert management features.
Choosing a Professional Translation Services Vendor
Selecting your provider of localization carefully is one way to ensure your website meets internationalization. This involves carefully considering all of the pros and cons associated with each available option – there can be quite a few! One alternative would be hiring in-house translators but this should only be considered if localization will become part of your offerings; to estimate this, multiply 7 by the languages necessary and your content subjects for an estimate.
Graphics and Video Localization
Content on modern websites doesn’t just consist of text; oftentimes videos and images also comprise their entirety. Be mindful when considering professional translation services of such visual elements; localization firms typically also offer assistance when translating captions for captioned videos or images.
Localize Pricing
Be sure to change prices into the currency your customers are familiar with – for instance the Euro in most European countries and Pound sterling in Great Britain as well as Japanese yen for Japan. When localizing an e-commerce rep website it is also essential to take note of payment methods used – some areas prefer credit cards while others favor payment via alternatives such as PayPal. Some buyers may even prefer installment payments.
Tips to Ensure Successful Website Localization
Know Your Target Market
Localization can be an extensive and expensive undertaking, but you can lower costs by customizing the localization process to the audience you wish to target. It is vitally important to identify where most of your customers reside or look for services or products related to what you offer before adapting your website in that language for that area. Start with large percentages that don’t speak English first before progressing with smaller parts until localization of that region has been achieved.
Easy-to-Access Language Selection
Your website localization could become a time and money drain if clients can’t use its locally-friendly versions. Make sure that options for selecting regions, languages, currencies as well as any other settings are easily identifiable within sidebars, footers and headers of your site – as well as cookies to remember these settings when clients return to visit later on!
A Well-Constructed Localized Website
Be certain that your localized site lives up to the standards set forth by your main website. A consistent presence online reflects well on your business and increases customer trust – Google will reward this effort by elevating it on SERPs. To ensure high-quality localization, translate all banners, brochures or any other diagrams/images as well as content for each element and page of your localized website.
Do NOT Use a Free Online Translator
Machine translation and automated translation may seem cost-effective and efficient, yet they cannot provide 100% accuracy. Even if just 5 percent of words on an article don’t fit their context properly, you risk creating an inaccurate perception about your business.
Localization involves more than simply translating words between languages – it must also take account of cultural differences to avoid offending your target group of people.
When should you localize your website?
When You’re Branching Out
As Your Company Expands Congratulations on the success of your business! Are you expanding internationally to gain access to new markets abroad? Now would be an ideal time to localize your website so it serves all your target audiences efficiently.
When Your Company Has an Online Presence that Caters to Multiple Ethnic Groups
If your business doesn’t plan to expand internationally, it could already be catering to various ethnic groups in its local community or an area with diverse demographics. By localizing the website you are able to reach all demographics within your target audience and increase potential growth of your company. Make sure your website localized as soon as possible in order not to miss any opportunities!
