Are you interested in better sales, improving customer service, and targeting your marketing initiatives via your organization's various country-specific websites? Localizing your website helps you effectively reach a more global audience - at a local level.

But, there is more to selling your goods and services to a global audience online than translating your website. In addition to language differences, consider the cultures and the laws and regulations of the countries/regions you are hope to expand to. Other issues at play include appropriate uses of colors and images, as well as internationalization factors such as currencies, fonts, and more.

In the '90s, many small businesses went global unintentionally as search engines directed foreign customers to their websites. Global Communicator offers the following things to consider as your organization strives to intentionally reach some of the 1.3 billion non-English speakers online. (Internet World Stats, 2010).

• Make a Business Case. Why should your site be in languages A, B, or C, and is there a business case that justifies the cost of doing so? After determining the appropriate markets to target, you then will develop the sites thorough proper localization that accounts for the differences across languages and local cultures.
• Translation. It is not enough to have someone who is fluent in the language haphazardly replace the English copy with the target language. You need someone who can professionally write in the language and about your industry or product specialty.
• Transcreation. Often, the text and images are transcreated in order to convey the marketing meaning appropriately. In other words, the copy is adapted and crafted to the culture, rather than literally translated from English to language X. Direct translations and usage of general market strategies tend to miss the emotional and culturally relevant elements.
• Culture. Effective localization, from data to design, also requires an understanding of the cultural nuances. When a company decides to localize its site, it often learns the colors to use or avoid (e.g. yellow is viewed as a feminine color in Japan) and appropriate dress codes of a given culture. The web text is translated (or portions of it), and the company launches the site. But cultural differences run deeper than colors and language; they reflect beliefs and values. Consider incorporating the nuances of a culture's social hierarchy, tendency toward individualism or groups, and gender roles.
• Design. According to Frank Gaine, senior consultant at Usability by Design, in our left-to-right culture we know that the top right and bottom left of any screen are usually cold spots and that important controls in them can be missed. The opposite is true in right-to-left cultures, and even minor changes (like the order a row of buttons appear in) can radically improve usability there.
• Internationalization. Users from other countries have special needs related to entry fields for names and addresses, measurements and dates, and information about regional product standards. Internationalized code is written to ensure that the date/times, currency, numbers, page formats, fonts, user interface, etc., all work in the new local market.
• Laws and regulations. Legal information such as privacy policies, disclaimers, and copyright information must adhere to local market regulations and laws.

As you move forward with the localization of your website, a great partner resource can be a language or translation agency that can consult on the local nuances of the language in multiple locations and any cultural issues that might be seen as offensive. They can either work alongside your creative agency, or even serve directly as a consultant due to their extended access to resources around the world.

The benefits of working with a strong language provider include:

• They are equipped with on-the-ground resources that can provide feedback on acceptable style, tone, and terminology for the local market which is also in line with your target segment. (e.g. Are you approaching tweens or stay-at-home moms? Do you need to address them formally, given your product or service, or should you take a trendier approach?)


• From a management perspective, it is more efficient to hand over one file to one person and get 10 localized versions of it back, customized for the languages and cultural nuances of that country rather than to scramble to find resources (that might not be reliable) and collect all feedback yourself.

When you receive the localized versions back, do have them sense-checked by your local offices, distributors, or a trusted customer in the target country. They might have exclusive insight on how the localized versions register given your preferred terminology and the way you want to convey your brand overseas.

Website localization is a multi-step process that must account for a wide range of details, such as localization, technology, design, and more. Working with a knowledgeable partner will make the end results more accurate and productive.

Not sure about which language(s) and locations to start with? See the top languages online at World Internet Statistics' 2010 rankings report, "Top 10 Languages Used on the Web." Or, view one of GLS' website localization projects, by visiting www.studyusa.com - a multilingual education guide for international students seeking information about universities, colleges, and intensive English programs in the U.S.

For more information about professional translation and website localization into 100+ languages, contact us.

Sources:

• Insights from Human Factors International
• Gaine, Frank. "The cultural importance of usability testing," e-consultancy.com, February 2005.
• Internet World Stats, 2010