7 Reasons To Translate Your Website And Unlock The Globe
Seeing your website as a window display for your target audience helps a lot when it comes to increasing sales. The way your target audience sees through this window matters a lot and it is crucial you help them view things in the right way. Taking the steps to translate your website plays an important role when it comes to developing your brand’s international growth. Breaking the language barrier raises your business prospects of going global.
Website translation is the first vital step to gaining an audience from other nations. Research shows every website needs at least 10 languages in order to reach 87% of internet users. So, if you are at the point of “How do I translate my website into multiple languages?”, or “I need to translate my website!” such a decision should be well planned out. The act of creating and maintaining multiple languages on your website does not come easy as it poses different challenges, but the rewards for doing it right are always enormous.
Is it important to get my website translated?
Still not convinced translating your website might be a good idea? Below are 9 reasons you should get your site translated.
1 – Competitive advantage
If your rivals do not own a multilingual website, translating yours may provide that competitive edge to better assist more customers. By doing so, translating may aid setting you apart and staying ahead of rivals. If it turns out they have, you probably do not want them to use this leverage on you for the same reason.
2 – Better User Experience
Establishing a more emotional connection across the globe with your target audience can be achieved with website translation for a tailored user experience. Users are much more likely to engage in their native language. This would ensure visitors spend more time on the site and come back on a regular basis.
3 – SEO performance
When a website translation is done well, a global SEO strategy should be in place in order to increase your website’s ranking and visibility globally. For example, when translating your site into German you should ensure that your content is tailored to target key search terms on search engines such as google.de
4 – Cater for existing international visitors
All websites should be making use of Google Analytics or another similar solution in order to make sense of your existing traffic. A quick overview of your Audience tab may reveal out you enjoy a considerable amount of foreign visitors already. Based on their location and language you can prioritise the pages and languages required. Improving the experience for these existing users is an easy win for getting more conversions.
4 – It Makes Your Brand Stronger.
Your website’s first impressions always matter. Without a doubt, customers would always judge based on what they can access. With website translation, you get to provide tailored messages, in addition to feelings that resonate with foreign cultures. Translation would aid you in creating credibility and trust alongside enhancing your global presence.
5 – Maintaining And Increasing Growth In New Markets
If your website traffic is pretty stagnant for the local market or even if you are reaching No.1 on Google but there doesn’t seem to be enough traffic to convert, steering towards the addition of foreign markets for product or service becomes a good idea to aid in Maintaining and Increasing Growth. Especially as this can be tailored to markets where they may be less competition if your research is through.
6 – Selling your Brand abroad.
If you are planning to operate in foreign marketplaces anytime soon, then it makes perfect sense to make available products or services information in the appropriate language(s) of your current and potential target audience. You would be amazed how many companies only translate specific product releases and don’t think about the web pages that would also help give a customer long-term added value such as FAQ pages and multi-lingual landing pages to entice new visitors.
7 – Non-English markets are growing
Quite simply put, some of the biggest markets in the world are non-English speaking. China, India, Japan and Russia, all potentially a market for your products but you are unlikely to be the first choice if a client can’t easily find you online and even if they do they can’t engage effectively with your website.
Which Languages should I get my website translated into?
The global economy has stretched out every potential marketplace in ways not visible ten years earlier. Such expansion has brought a comparatively level playing field for both large and small businesses. One major issue accompanying this expansion is the problem of language, especially in handling multicultural customers for your products and services.
When it comes to picking a language to add to your website. There are few approaches to take in determining which language to choose. Based on statistics, if your site is purely English, you only attract 27% of the entire global marketplace. Also, about 73% of the global marketplace favours website content in their native language even if they are fluent in other languages. If your target and potential customers do not comprehend with your website content, you cannot hope to increase sales.
So, to determine which translation languages to choose for your visitors with the option of a localised experience, the following are the best approach to take:
Using Google Analytics tracking code: As already mentioned above, a quick look over your audience tab may point out you enjoy a considerable amount of foreign visitors. Based on their location, you can determine which language translation would help navigate and improve sales on your site alongside providing support services.
Using A/B tests: Using A/B tests on few of your most popular landing pages can help in comparing your conversion rates amongst these variants. Taking this approach, you can better assess which language to choose and be effective in improving your overall website.
Don’t fall down the trap of using an automated translation tool or plugin do translate this content for you. It may get visitors to understand the general idea of your website or page but won’t be accurate enough to make them feel engaged and valued. We talk about Google Translate and Machine translation in this blog post.
Should I get my website translated?
The bottom line remains, having your website localised is amongst the most cost-efficient methods to opening up your products and services to new marketplaces. It is also important for any business who wishes to grow globally in today’s digital world. The possibilities are endless whenever and however you plan to do this. Hopefully, this blog post has gone to way to encourage you to plan your website translation and start looking for more global opportunities.