Technology and logistics are developing rapidly. If previously most users had the opportunity to order goods only in local online stores, today the situation has changed. Earlier, the delivery of goods from abroad took a long time, and its cost often exceeded the amount of the purchase itself.
Today, thanks to automation and business optimization, online stores have the opportunity to reach a new level of profitability and offer users to use delivery at their own expense. The rapid development of transport infrastructure and technology in logistics makes the delivery of goods from abroad simple and quick as never before.
In these conditions, it would be foolish to lose a huge segment of the potential target audience from other countries. What is more, all you need to do for this is to turn your site into a multilingual platform, and possibly localize the products a bit and adapt the product lines to the needs of users. In this article, we will explain why you should start by translating content on your site and what benefits you will get from this.
Keeping Up With Trends
We already said above that technology and logistics are developing, which means that global online shopping is becoming a trend. Some brands have already realized this, and have implemented multilingualism on their website. Modern customers really love global shopping, and brands, in their turn, are becoming more prudent, analyzing current needs and predicting future ones.
These are the real trends of modern online shopping, but it all starts with the first visit to the site. If the user has the opportunity to get the first experience in their native language, then you can use all the modern trends to your advantage.
Gaining A Competitive Edge
Global trends with a worldwide reputation have long understood the advantage of a multilingual site. However, not all local companies have reached this task in their business strategy. Therefore, while they are thinking, you have the opportunity to act and gain a competitive advantage earlier. When you have already taken the first step towards creating a global business, you will already leave many competitors behind.
Satisfying Customer Needs
Satisfying customer needs is of course not only about the language of the pages and product descriptions on your site. This is a global task, without which the business loses its meaning. But if you narrow down this concept only to the point of interacting with the brand in the user’s native language, you can be sure that this is exactly what they need so that your interaction is even more mutually beneficial.
This is confirmed by research. 72% of potential buyers said that they want to buy products that have a description in their native language. Just be aware of this figure. This is actually a huge coverage that you lose by continuing to work only in English, for example.
And what is more, buyers want this description to be written correctly so that it can be easily read and understood. As an example, let’s recall the user experience on AliExpress.
If you choose some kind of intuitive product, such as a dress or non-slip cell phone grip, then in principle you will understand even a clumsy description. But to understand the full strength of the lack of a competent translation, just take some highly specialized product, for example, laser engravers, and try to translate its description from Chinese into English using an auto-translator. In the best case, you will understand separate words taken out of context.
Thus, the translation of your site should be of high quality, for example, using The Word Point. By the way, there is an opportunity not only for a literal translation but also for localization of content taking into account the needs of users.
Getting More Exposure
And continuing the thought from the previous paragraph, it is worth saying that a multilingual site means a large audience. The more languages you have – the more segments of potential buyers you cover. How does this happen?
First of all, this is due to SEO optimization. However, in this context, it is important not only to translate the content but also to localize your semantic core. This means the need to revise current keywords and make an analysis of how users from other countries will search for a particular product. A thorough translation here may not work, the most accurate localization is needed in this case.
If you have successfully completed this task and provide valuable content, your site will gradually rise in the top of the list for each request in each language. Needless to say, the volumes of targeted traffic will grow exponentially.
Being Professional
A multilingual website is a pretty significant indicator that its owner is serious about his business and takes into account the needs of each of the target groups. This is also a good indicator of business success because if a product is sold in several countries and bought by people of different mentalities and worldviews, it means that it is able to solve universal problems. And this is serious social evidence that works in your favor.
The fact that many different people choose a particular product helps to subconsciously strengthen the confidence of a potential buyer that he also needs it.
Thus, you gradually turn your local brand into a global one. And the life of global brands is, of course, more difficult in terms of maintaining the entire infrastructure, but the profits are also formed from slightly different numbers than those that you are used to in your homeland.
Saving Money
In fact, it’s not so difficult to translate and localize the content and site’s SEO. You will need to do the bulk of the work only once, and then only maintain the operability of each of the language versions, and gradually localize new content that you will add to your blog, for example.
This is a one-time investment with a very good percentage of return. If you do everything right, a multilingual site will work for you almost without your direct participation.
What is more, it is actually not very expensive. Paying employees, marketing expenses, maintaining a site or application in working condition every day costs your business much more than one quality service for translating and localizing content. Review your business goals in the near future and try to allocate a certain part of the budget for the implementation of this task, and the result will not be long in coming.
Conclusion
We recommend not to wait for the grass to grow. And finally, we will give you some statistics to think about. There are one and a half billion websites in the world. 80% of them are designed in English. And at this time, for 70% of the audience, English is not their native language, or they just do not know it. Now just think about what opportunities you are ignoring while users are just sitting and waiting for when at least someone will give them what they need in their native language? Why do not you foresee the need and develop a counteroffer?
Published As A Guest Post From Anna Medina
Anna likes writing from her university years. When she graduated from the Interpreters Department, she realized that translation was not so interesting, as writing was. She trains her skills now working as a freelance writer on different topics. Always she does her best in the posts and articles.
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