It can be a challenge to localize your website into many different languages, but it can be more than worth it. Making it more appealing to those potential customers from all around the world takes devotion, skills, and effort.
If done right, pursuing opportunities for sales engagement and adapting it to different markets can benefit your business.
If you are not sure how to start localizing your content, here are the five tips for website localization. They will help you make sure that your website is accessible to everyone and learn how your business can profit from it.
Overcome common challenges
First, you need to know that there are a lot of difficulties you need to face when localizing your website. Challenges are normal, and they often occur with translation, website functionality, your design, and so on. Keeping the quality high is not an easy task.
In the beginning, you can select a few languages, make more relevant content a priority when localizing, and bear in mind the differences between American and English spelling.
Those things, however small and subtle, can benefit your website’s user experience if you do them properly. Also, beware of the length of your posts when translating the content, and be prepared to lengthen or shorten your posts and modify them to look appealing in every language.
Moreover, one of the challenges is to create unique and original content. Using a plagiarism checker can help with that. Just copy and paste your content into this tool and you can get an accurate analysis and prevent any risk of plagiarism.
Maintain high content quality
Website localization is not just translating content, it also means adapting it to different languages and cultures. You have to be careful to customize your content to everyone, changing the images to match the native demographics and look appealing.
You need to be aware of the cultural differences and create locally relevant content that will be interesting and useful to all of those who read your blog posts.
When presenting your website to people who are not from your culture, you should make it look professional. If you succeed in maintaining high-quality content, your website will gain credibility and have the trust and respect of local potential customers.
Conduct research
You need to have a plan on how to develop a strategy to successfully localize your website, and the first step of it is detailed research. Your target audience is not the same as your native culture, and you need answers to these questions to get your localization right.
What are the cultural nuances of your target audience and what languages do you want to translate your content into?
– What are their prejudices and priorities?
– How much your potential customers can afford?
– What are their payment options?
– What do they think of your product?
To understand your target audience in other countries, you can explore trending apps and learn everything about them (for example, do research about Weibo for the Chinese social market). Also, certain color schemes can do wonders in one culture and be a disaster in another. Beware of those differences because they can make or break your website’s success.
Ensure accurate translations
It’s essential to make your translations professional and high quality. Having your website translated by Google Translate will not benefit your business at all. Poor translations look unprofessional and you can end up losing your customers.
You can start by translating all parts of your website, including text, images, design, and everything else that can be translated. Using a website localization tool will make the translating process faster because doing it manually is almost an impossible job. This will give you an option to translate long blog posts, and include slang and cultural differences.
Implementing multilingual search engine optimization (SEO) in your website can also help. When a website is searchable in different markets, people can find your website more easily and it will rank higher in international research.
Test your website regularly
When you do your research, plan your localization strategy, and complete the translations, you need to test your website. This ensures that nothing is missing and your performance runs smoothly. When testing, you will see what is working well and what needs fixing.
For this, consider employing a localization tester who is fluent in your target language. They will help you look at every part of your website and provide information on any words and phrases that need improvement.
Besides that, be sure that your content layout doesn’t need any more changes. In addition, review your color scheme, and when you get feedback on your website, improve it right away.
Final words
By sticking to these five tips on how to make your localization successful, your business will expand internationally and you will get new potential customers who used to be unreachable.
Don’t forget to keep your message clear in translation, and also keep communication with your customers at a high level. Getting their feedback is vital for your business, so ask them about their likes and dislikes, and continue to search for current trends as they tend to change from time to time.
The more information you can provide, the better your website will be, and this will make your business thrive.
