Does My Business Need A Multilingual Website?

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It’s 2018. How Can You Not Have a Website Yet?

If your business doesn’t have a multilingual website you could be missing out on a potentially lucrative international market for your product or service. Many SME owners fail to recognize the importance of connecting with their foreign language consumers, yet creating a high-quality user experience in your customers’ own tongue could make an enormous difference to your conversions and profits. So, does this mean that you should look at translating your website?

If you thought that translating your site would be sufficient to appeal to international consumers, you need to think again. A site that has only been directly translated without careful consideration to lingual and cultural differences will feel unnatural, will use strange vocabulary and stilted sentences, and may make little sense in the context of your culture. When customers are given the choice of a company with a poorly translated message or a high-quality multilingual website, they will naturally choose the organization that has put the time and effort into creating a site that speaks their language.

Are you wondering why you should make the investment in a multilingual website? Then read on to learn the top benefits of multinational localization.

You’ll Communicate Better

It isn’t too surprising that a multilingual website will improve the way you communicate with your audience. English still dominates the web, however, not everybody is keen to make a purchase from an English-speaking site. In fact, a survey carried out by the Common Sense Advisory recently found three-quarters of online shoppers with a first language other than English preferred to purchase products from a site in their home language. Since over 50% of internet users come from the Asia/Pacific region, it’s clear that localizing your site will make a huge difference to the way your business communicates globally.

You’ll Reach A Greater Audience

Under 20% of internet traffic is from America. If you only market products to English-speaking customers, you’ll be missing out on a much wider audience across the world. People around the globe share similar needs and wants, so maximize your sales potential by making your site multilingual.

Improved Client Satisfaction

A localized website will increase client satisfaction. As long as your site is localized properly and offers an excellent user experience, you can show a multinational audience that you care and that you’re prepared to tailor your services and products to suit their unique needs. As a result, you’ll gain better reviews, more clients, repeat business and, overall, a win/win situation.

A Boost On The Search Engines

SERP rankings make a big difference for any business, and improving your SEO can be as simple as localizing your site into several different languages. This will improve your local SERP rankings worldwide. You’ll be optimizing your site for keywords in diverse countries, translating it into different languages and listening to what users want. As a result, you’ll rise up the rankings and your business will be noticed more easily.

Staying Competitive

At the moment, many businesses have yet to realize the importance of multilingual websites. Yet, soon, they are sure to catch on and recognize that localization couldn’t be more essential to increasing sales and improving reputation. If you make the move to a multilingual website now, you can have a competitive advantage over your rivals.

Increased Conversions And Sales

Many business owners hesitate to invest money and time into a multilingual website as they fail to recognize how much difference it can make when it comes to higher conversions or increased sales. Yet, rest assured that, as long as your site has been localized to a high standard, you will benefit from an increased ROI. This is excellent news for any business owner, whether you’re running a large or small enterprise since it all adds up to higher profits.

How To Choose Languages

There are more than 7,000 languages in the world, and obviously, it would be unrealistic to expect to create a website in every single one of those languages. So, how do you go about choosing which ones to localize your site into? You’ll need to do your research to narrow down your focus. Decide where the demand for your product or service is most likely to be greater. Find out who is visiting your site and carry out customer profiling. Armed with this information, you will then be able to determine which are the best languages for your site to maximize localization ROI. Bear in mind that in the European Union, 90% of internet users agree that websites should be available in their home language. If you take a look at the figures, that means 9 out of 10 European consumers are going to appreciate the efforts you make to localize your website and make it multilingual to meet their needs.

How To Create A Multilingual Website

As we’ve already mentioned, creating a multilingual website isn’t just about translation. It’s about determining cultural nuances, linguistic differences and localized turns of phrase that apply in each country. Check out this complete guide on how to build a multilingual website and you’ll discover the subtle changes that need to be implemented between websites for different markets.

Now you’re aware of the benefits of making your website a multilingual one, it’s time to take action. Investing time, money and effort into creating a multilingual site today can make an enormous difference to your profits tomorrow.

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John is a serial entrepreneur and writer who is passionate about helping small businesses launch and grow. His work has been featured in Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.