Running a successful business can be hard and keeping a website updated so visitors keep finding you can be even harder.
For customers, your website is generally a first port of call if they are looking for more information on your product or service. Therefore, it needs to be in a language they understand.
Indeed, according to Entrepreneur magazine, 70% of internet surfers aren’t native English speakers. In addition, Common Sense Advisory says 75% of them will not make important purchasing decisions unless the product description is in a language they can speak.
Consequently, for businesses looking to get a competitive edge, a multilingual website can be an impactful way of increasing traffic and winning their trust. Here is why a multilingual website is an important asset for a growing business.
1. Building more trust with your visitors
A translated website will naturally increase your visitors from foreign clients by improving their recognition of your brand.
For many users, making a purchase online from a website that is in a foreign language requires a lot of trust, especially when the website is written in a language that the user is not 100% proficient in. Thus, users tend to feel more comfortable when they are buying or reading a website in their native language.
Imagine that you are a Spanish medical surgeon who needs a specialized tool for an operation but you can only find it online on a British medical website.
How great would it be for our surgeon to click the Spanish flag and be able to read all the specific information about the tool? This is the way multilingual websites build trust and, more importantly, create sales.
2. Having a multilingual website makes your business customer-centric
The more languages you have translated on your website the better. It shows that your business is committed to putting the customer center stage. The extra effort shows that you care enough about your customers no matter where they are visiting from.
Just like most aspects of a business, if a customer thinks and sees that you care, then they are more likely to buy from you. Consider the mantra, know, like and trust and you will see that making your website multilingual can unlock new potential customers.
3. Cost-effective marketing
Compared with some of the other, more expensive ventures, translating your website is one of the most cost-effective and surefire ways of improving your sales.
Larger companies will tend to pour money into expensive marketing campaigns on social media, on PR firms to promote them or even on Google AdWords for competitive keywords. However, if you are a small business some of these won’t be within your considerably smaller budget. Indeed, these campaigns carry no guarantee in succeeding and could be expensive failures.
This is where translating your website can be so effective. It is much cheaper to do and maintain. Furthermore, it has already been used by thousands of other businesses to broaden their customer base. Not only is a robust multilingual website close to a sure thing but it doesn’t cost the earth.
4. Better SEO for your website
Implementing multilingual search engine optimisation (SEO) will give your business a competitive edge.
One of the major benefits of running a multilingual website is appearing higher on Google search results in different languages. We all know that ranking highly on Google is great for any business.
A website that has a specific country domain in the country’s native language will always trump a global website that is just in English.
5. Staying ahead of the competition
Translating your website into multiple languages will give you a running head start on the competition. Despite 74.7% of internet users (a cool 3 billion people) not speaking English as a native language, many websites are still operating on an “English is good enough” basis.
To illustrate, marketing specialist Neil Patel translated his website into 82 different languages and experienced a 47% increase in traffic within three weeks.
Now, translating and maintaining 82 different languages on your website might be not be a good idea for your profit margins. But, instead, you can identify a couple of markets in which you know there is a demand for your product or service and translate your website into their languages. That way you will already have one over any competitors looking to move in on your turf.
Last Thoughts
Now you’re aware of the benefits of creating a multilingual website it is not time to take some action and get more visitors to your business website. If you would like help to make your website multilingual then feel free to contact the team at WPML.
Or if you are unsure of where to turn next then please check our post, “7 steps to starting a business website”.
