When expanding into new markets, messaging can make or break your success. Translation plays an important role in global expansion, but on its own, translation is not enough to launch successfully overseas. To reach the right customers with the right content, your go-to-market plan must consider regional and cultural insights, preferences, and trends.
If you exclusively rely on translation to communicate with global customers, you might be leaving opportunities on the table. Localization examines the factors influencing culture, perception, and communication and facilitates the necessary adaptations to brand and product to resonate with target audiences. Core to this work is website localization, which enables your business to communicate with customers or leads authentically, positioning you as empathetic, attuned to clients’ needs, and ahead of the curve in your industry.
Try these five tips to localize your website effectively and convert global customers.
#1: Localize UX/UI
Successful website localization is more than just translating words and concepts. This process also considers local norms, requirements, and preferences for user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design.
For example, Arabic-speaking consumers read text from right to left. Some websites in China, Japan, and other East Asian countries opt for a vertical text orientation, depending on the content and context of the website. These adaptations require up-front planning and coordination with your design and development team, prompted by the advice of a localization partner.
Additionally, copy length impacts the feel of a website, but translations rarely yield the same number of characters as the source text. Spanish translations of English content tend to be longer, while Finnish translations from English tend to be shorter. Page designs and content modules on multilingual websites need to be flexible to accommodate variations.
Ideally, localization experts are included in the concept stages to help anticipate and plan for UX/UI needs that otherwise might go overlooked until the last minute.
The “F” Pattern in the Global Market
In the Western world, most users have become accustomed to a website flow called the “F” pattern. This refers to the practice of laying out your header, images, headers, and text blocks in an “F” shape throughout the page. Mimicking the reader’s natural sight pattern allows users to skim for keywords, promoting easier navigation through a website.
Although the “F” pattern is the norm in many English-speaking countries, it doesn’t translate into a positive user experience in bidirectional languages, such as Hebrew, Farsi, or Kurdish. While American users may prefer dropdown menus, other cultures may prefer grouped content.
Discussing these issues with a dual localization and UX expert will ensure these potential issues can be mitigated during the pre-project phase, rather than fixing them later, which invariably costs more.
#2: Don’t Take Shortcuts With Translations
Translation work is foundational to website localization. A survey of 8,709 consumers in 29 countries reports that 76 percent of consumers prefer to make purchases when information is available in their language. As many as forty percent said they would never consider a purchase in another language.
Machine translation has become increasingly widespread, but novice users should exercise caution. When used by professionals, machine translations (MT) expand output without compromising quality. However, when this technology is used without the supervision of an expert linguist, it is difficult to assess whether machine-translated content is accurate, culturally attuned, and launch-ready.
For example, take the Spanish saying, tirar la casa por la ventana. Word-for-word, the phrase “says” throw the house out the window, which would not resonate with an English-speaking audience in the same way as its true meaning: no expense spared. This type of mistake could slip through the cracks if a machine translation is used without the guidance of an expert linguist.
In other instances, certain turns of phrase may be too casual or too formal, depending on the context of your industry and website. A localization expert can help you make the right decisions.
#3: Adapt Your Visual Language for Global Audiences
Audiences experience online content in unique ways, which are largely driven by cultural norms. The differences between a US-English website and a UK-English website may be more subtle and vocabulary-driven, while the changes between a US-English and a Mandarin website ought to extend beyond syntax to consider visual presentation.
Researching visuals and symbolism in your target demographic can go a long way to ensuring the success of website localization. For example, color choices affect global audiences differently: yellow may evoke sunshine among US consumers, while it may lead to morbid thoughts for Mexican consumers. In China, red symbolizes good fortune and happiness, while other countries use red to signal danger. Ensuring your content is culturally aware of these differences can seem too minor to consider early on, but it is easier to plan proactively than fix retroactively.
#4: Update Your SEO Strategy with Local Keywords
Keywords can change from language to language, country to country, and even city to city. Understanding what your target market is looking for and how they seek it is vital.
Working with a localization partner not only helps you be culturally attuned—it can also drive more organic traffic to your multilingual website. Whether regional users prefer to type questions into search engines, use voice search, or opt for video results over text-based results, leveraging local keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) trends can remove friction points so potential customers can easily find your website.
Adapting your SEO strategy is a necessary step when translating into other languages, but don’t overlook the value of localizing English websites by region. Internet users seeking legal counsel in the United Kingdom are more likely to search for a solicitor, while a search originating in the United States is more likely to search for an attorney, lawyer, or abogado. Local keywords can make all the difference to your website performance, and your localization partner can help you build a keyword strategy to reflect consumer behavior.
#5: Link to Popular Social Channels
A localized website features social buttons that point to the most relevant social media channels for your target audiences. While the leading social channels in the US might be YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, your global customers might be hanging out on WeChat (China), Reddit (Germany), or WhatsApp (India). Do the research, as the most popular channels largely vary based on age and industry. Of course, only link to social channels you actively maintain for local audiences.
Learn More About Our Top-Rated Website Localization Services
Looking for a localization partner you can trust? PGLS brings valuable expertise to global go-to-market planning. Our experts can localize your website in over 200 languages and regional varieties, and our advanced solutions are compatible with any content management system.
Experience the difference with end-to-end website localization services, from content extraction, translation, and engineering to post-localization testing and refinement. Get in touch today.