6 Reasons to Upgrade Your Website With More Languages

Websites are the new store fronts. Case in point –45 percent of first-time visitors search for a product or service while 26 percent compare prices or other differences between brands. If your website is English-only, you’re missing opportunities to convert global visitors into customers. That’s because 65 percent of people prefer content in their native language, and 40 percent won’t buy in other languages, according to CSA Research.

As more people begin the buying journey online, brands need multilingual websites to better serve global customers. Yet building one isn’t as simple as installing a translation feature such as Google Translate. A multilingual website typically requires a blend of human translation, machine translation, and localization to properly adapt content for the target market. For example, machine translation may work well for customer service content, but it won’t capture your unique brand voice—that normally requires human translation.

Although the process can be time-consuming and complex, brands that develop a multilingual website will reap the benefits of a larger and more loyal customer base. Here are just six reasons why you should upgrade your website with more languages.

1. Reach a Wider Audience

Only about 26 percent of internet users speak English. Fortunately, brands can significantly expand their reach by adding one or more languages to their website. For example, Chinese speakers make up about 19 percent of internet users and Spanish speakers make up about 8 percent. If a brand translates its website into those two languages, it potentially increases its worldwide audience by over 25 percent.

A multilingual website can even help increase sales in the domestic market. Most countries have one or more minority languages, and speakers often prefer to buy in their native tongue. In the U.S. for example, 13 percent of residents speak Spanish at home. By translating U.S.-based websites into Spanish, brands attract local customers who typically conduct online searches in that language.

2. Improve Brand Image

Globalization has enabled e-commerce to flourish. Yet brands don’t translate equally well in every market. A multilingual website allows you to take translation one step further by adapting your brand through a process known as localization. Sometimes abbreviated as L10n, localization involves changing elements of a website to match the linguistic and cultural norms of the target audience.

For example, let’s say a UK-based brand wants to translate its website into Arabic. This may involve:

Choosing a dialect, such as Egyptian.
Adapting the layout and functionality for Arabic characters.
Changing images to reflect the norms of modest dress in the Middle East.

Localization does take more time than translation alone, but it helps to give a website a native look and feel. It can also help brands comply with local regulations. This may include:

Adapting design elements and images for Islamic countries.
Providing information on data usage to comply with the GDPR in the European Union.
Meeting ADA accessibility requirements for websites that target a U.S.-based audience.

When combined, all these minor variations between website versions add up to a more personalized experience for multilingual audiences. And that leads us to the third benefit.

3. Provide a Customer-Centric User Experience (UX)

It’s no secret that user experience plays a key role in a brand’s success. In fact, 88 percent of online consumers are less likely to return to a website after a poor experience. However, translating a website is only part of it. A successful multilingual website should account for:

Local currencies
Payment methods
Units of measurement
Time and date formats
Address formats
Other country or region-specific elements

This shows customers that you care about their needs and preferences. For example, a brand that wants to do business in Brazil may add popular payment methods such as ELO and Hipercard. Even something as simple as using a Quebec flag icon for a French-Canadian audience, instead of a French one, can positively impact the user experience.

4. Increase Conversions

Visitors who can access information in their own language are more likely to complete the customer journey and make a purchase. By providing language options, brands not only make content easier to consume, but they also build trust with potential customers. This is especially true when a brand localizes its website and creates original multilingual content to appeal to different audiences.

An eCommerce website, for example, may feature different products based on a visitor’s language preference and location. Or it may use machine translation to automatically translate user reviews into additional languages. A brand that is well known for its blog may publish content in different languages and cover topics that are of local or regional interest. Small adjustments like these can boost buyer confidence and help increase sales.

5. Drive More Traffic with International SEO

A brand’s online success largely depends on its ability to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). By developing and optimizing a multilingual website, you can rank for keywords in more languages and improve your ranking. This will drive more traffic from other markets, which translates into more sales and profits.

However, international SEO requires more than translating on-page web content. It involves:

Researching keyword trends in the target language(s)
Translating all website content, including metadata
Creating unique URLs with language-specific subdomains and/or subdirectories

Although Google and Bing are popular worldwide, some countries prefer local or regional search engines. In China, Baidu makes up over 65 percent of the market while Google makes up only 2 percent. Yandex is a popular seach engine in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey.

Multilingual sites that target audiences in many countries should also be optimized for local search engines which can improve your online visibility in those locales.

6. Create Cost-Efficient Marketing

For most brands, their website is the focal point of a marketing strategy—and with good reason. Onsite content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional marketing and generates three times as many leads, according to Demand Metric. By translating your blog, videos, and promotional landing pages, your marketing budget will go even further.

Brands don’t need to stop with onsite content marketing either. Multilingual search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, and other localized marketing campaigns can all drive traffic back to your website and increase conversions.

Ready to Upgrade Your Website?

As you can see, a multilingual website more than pays for itself in the long run. However, building one can be a challenge. It requires a deep understanding of the target language and culture, translation and localization, and UX best practices. Vistatec has the expertise you need to ensure your multilingual website is a success.

At Vistatec, we take a partnership approach and work with you to develop a strategy that brings your vision to life. From website translation to digital marketing, we offer the end-to-end services you need at every stage of a localization project.

Ready to get started? Contact Vistatec today to learn more about how we can help.