Website localization is essential to adapting an existing website to local culture and language. It plays a significant role in increasing a firm’s target audience. Localization may seem daunting and expensive, but it’s worth it in the long term. There are various benefits of website localization: it builds credibility, increases market share, boosts consumer brand identity, search engine optimization benefits, and increases customer engagement. Below are 7 steps to successful website localization that you cannot miss:
1. Determine Your Target Audience
Identifying your target market is an essential aspect of market research. A website is a powerful tool for driving organic and foot traffic of targeted leads. The target audience can be dictated by an array of aspects, including:
– Income
– Age
– Gender
– Interests
– Location
Targeting the right audience will increase your return on investment due to increased sales. In addition, it will help you understand the underlying problems of your potential customers and their solutions. Create a strategy that will fulfill your target customers’ tastes and preferences. Ensure a positive market growth rate and healthy competition in your target market.
2. Keyword Research
Keyword research helps you understand the critical terms that your target audience uses to search for services and products. Keyword research has various benefits: attracting your target audience, determining consumer behavior insights, increasing conversion rates, and improving organic ranking. Quality keyword research comprises five phases:
– Baseline keywords
– Keyword expansion
– Keyword filtering
– Keyword selection
– Keyword mapping
Incorporating key phrases and best terms in your localized website will help your content appear in relevant searches. When doing keyword research, direct translation isn’t recommended. It would help if you determined how your target audience talks about your service or product. Localization goes hand-in-hand with search engine optimization techniques. This plays a vital role in reducing your costs in the long term and increasing traffic.
3. Translate Your Web Pages
Translation plays a remarkable role in the website localization process. It would help if you converted your web pages to the target language. Website localization and translation require professionalism and skills; therefore, you should invest in the correct website localization services. Experts will use efficient technology that suits your business needs. In addition, the proper translation management system will save time and money. Below are features of a solid translation management system:
– Automatic quality checks
– An application programming interface
– In-context translation
– Collaboration functions
– Support dozens of file formats
– Built-in term bases or glossaries
– Translation memory
– Tools for automating localization tasks
There are three methods of translation: professional translators, machine translation, and localization software. Professional translators have in-depth knowledge of multiple languages. Machine translation uses software to convert content from the source to the target language. Finally, localization software blends human and machine translation to achieve top-notch content in the target language.
4. Localize Website Design
Your website should adopt a design that’s suitable for the target market. A perfect design will create a solid first impression, increase revenue, improve brand credibility and consistency, minimize the bounce rate, and improve your ranking. You may opt to replace various images, modify elements, and use an impressive color scheme to enhance the attractiveness of your localized website. In addition, use a responsive web design to make your web pages render well on all screens and resolutions. Below are various aspects of a responsive design:
– Content readability and visibility
– Easily adaptable to the display on different devices
– Content accessibility
– No need to resize web pages on the used device
Focus on the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). A great user experience will play a significant role in the success of your product. In addition, ensure you evaluate how your target audience utilizes the internet. Here you need to consider the internet speed of your potential customers.
5. Add a Language Selection Option
Customers are looking forward to top-notch customer service. A language selection option should be straightforward and easily accessible to your target audience. It enables your potential customers to find the translated version of your content. In addition, ensure you use cache to save your potential customer’s language preferences. This is an excellent approach because it prevents web visitors from selecting their language more than once. Therefore, you’ll have more odds of converting potential customers into loyal customers.
6. Test your Localized Website Before Launching
There are two types of localization testing: linguistic and functional localization testing. Before launching your localized website, test whether it performs according to the adapted features and specifications. Also, evaluate the translated words to ensure they fit the target language. The final version of your content should be functional with a zero margin of technical errors.
a. Linguistic Website Localization Testing
Focuses on the accuracy of the linguistics. It deals with various aspects:
– Misuse of keyword phrases and terms
– Cultural appropriateness
– Grammar and spelling errors
– Untranslated strings
– Punctuation errors
– Readability of the message
b. Functional Website Localization Testing
This type of website localization testing deals with the technical functions of the localized website. It deals with a wide range of aspects, including:
– Hyperlinks
– Encryption algorithms
– Broken strings
– Hardware compatibility
– Form functionality
– Image appropriateness
Other aspects include loading time, entry fields, downloads, upgrades, measurements, time, names, dates, shopping cart, and payment processing.
7. Market Your Localized Website
When marketing your localized website, ensure you clearly understand the target audience’s cultural norms and buying behavior. Using the right marketing strategy will increase the demand for your product and the traffic of targeted leads. Localizing your website to an array of languages is an excellent way to increase your brand awareness. Speak the language of your target audience to convert them into loyal customers.
Conclusion
The main objective of a business is to optimize profit and minimize operational costs. This is because your brand will obtain a significant market share. Website localization is a great way to maximize your return on investment and increase sales.