Staying relevant in online business is a constant exercise in reinvention. Offering a stellar website user experience is a critical part of that strategy—and frequent website redesigns play a key role in that.
Redesigns are an ideal time for companies to leverage the best-possible technologies and practices to serve their customers and boost on-site engagement. That’s why savvy companies often use this opportunity to localize their websites for international customers, too.
Thanks to elegant, money-saving solutions, website localization is now cost-effective and easy to integrate alongside a website redesign project. And the world-class user experiences they deliver to global customers often generate previously untapped conversions and revenue.
The Value of Website Translation
International customers now expect online content—and the ability to transact online—in their preferred languages. Localizing your website can have a positive impact on business performance, such as increased conversions, revenue and repeat business from satisfied global customers.
Translating your site also:
- Improves local-market brand awareness through localized SEO keywords
- Improves communication with global customers, partners and distributors
- Supports regional sales reps on your products or services
Why Pair Localization with a Redesign?
With the right solution, website translation projects can be deployed in about 45 days or less. The best approaches also leverage technologies and smart optimizations to dramatically reduce translation costs.
This means the spend for website translation is small compared to the budget required for a redesign, and can be easily implemented before—or during—your redesign begins.
Fully turn-key solutions exist that can ensure that your IT team is barely impacted by the translation project. These solutions operate independently of your website’s design or CMS, which means your site’s structure and supporting technologies can always be updated at any time, and your multilingual site will seamlessly operate throughout the process.
These solutions are future-proofed for redesigns or re-platforms, for years to come.
Where to Start with Website Translation
If you’re keen to see the benefits of combining website translation with your redesign project, the next step is to identify which markets to serve—and in which languages to serve them. Here are some questions that can help guide the decision-making process:
Where do you already have an existing customer base?
Examine your transaction and conversion metrics to determine if you’re already serving international customers with your primary website. Identify the markets that are generating the most conversions. Consider localizing the site for customers living in those markets, in their preferred languages.
Which languages do your visitors prefer?
Your website analytics can list visits filtered by your users’ language preference settings. This data can confirm the need to localize your website for a specific language, or suggest possible global markets to serve.
Where is there potential business?
Use your analytics to examine the geographic sources of your website traffic. High traffic from a region, combined with high bounce rates and low engagement, indicates global visitors are interested in your brand or offering, but leave when they can’t consume your content in their preferred languages.
Are there potential markets with a shared language?
You can smartly serve several international markets at once, if they all speak the same language. Consider Spanish. Localizing your site in this language can attract and serve customers in the U.S., Latin America and Europe.
Again, examine existing analytics or resources to find evidence for where your international customers may be living (and what languages they’re speaking). Other helpful information sources include order fulfillment reports, social media audience research, third-party data and expert consultants.
Next Steps: Conducting Market Research
After identifying which regions present the most business potential, consider conducting further research to confirm the attractiveness and accessibility of these markets. Look for factors such as:
Preferred language(s), and the ease or difficulty of serving customers in-language
Determine your ability to serve customers beyond your localized website content. Will you dedicate resources for local support or sales personnel? Many locals expect these aspects of the customer experience to be conducted in their preferred languages.
Also be sure to consider any cultural barriers or nuances that may make the market more complex to serve. Content, imagery or products may need to be altered or removed to accommodate local cultural norms.
Payment and fulfillment
Research what payment methods are commonly used in the markets you wish to serve, and determine which ones you can readily accept. Also evaluate your company’s ability to meet fulfillment needs, such as shipping, warehouses, technologies and other infrastructure.
Ease and affordability to enter and operate in the market
Carefully evaluate the investments required to establish business in the potential market, as well as time needed to accommodate licensing, laws and other requirements. You may also need to establish relationships with a local partner, as well as local tax, payroll and banking providers.
Conclusion
Combining website translation with a redesign project is a time- and cost-saving way to expand your renewed brand vision and business strategy to new markets. Launch an investigation into your untapped global potential and seek partnership with an advanced website translation solution.
Look for an approach that guarantees a practically effortless approach that won’t add to the complexity of a redesign; delivers high-quality, cost-effective translations; and offers future-proof technology that works with any code, technology or platform now—and in the future.
Last updated on March 15, 2019
