Which Languages Should I Localize My Website In 2023?
To get a place in the global market, localization is a must to ensure growth. People will only buy from you if they can locate your website or like what they find. Indeed when you make your website look more local, you guarantee users’ satisfaction as it will look native and easy to read.doing so, you raise brand affinity and SEO, which increases conversions and, eventually, returns on investment.
Here comes the rule of website localization services. Website localization aims to simplify web content management procedures for many languages. This issue brings together marketing, localization, and web development specialists. With their expertise in the localization process, their help will play a significant factor in gaining a place in the global market or the targeted country and language.
So in this article, let’s define website localization first, then see what you will need to consider to choose the languages to translate your website into.
What Does Website Localization Mean?
The process of adapting an existing website to the local language and culture of the target market is known as website localization. It involves translating content and a website into a distinct language and cultural context. While preserving the website’s integrity, this alteration procedure must consider particular linguistic and cultural preferences in the text, pictures, and general requirements of the site. Websites that have been culturally adjusted demand less cognitive work from users to comprehend content, which facilitates navigation and improves user perception of the website.
The new website’s stated objective and target market and audience in the new location must be considered when the website is modified. Website localization seeks to adapt a website such that, despite cultural variations between the designers and the audience, it appears “natural” to its visitors. Programming competence and linguistic/cultural understanding are two related aspects.
What Are The Considerations To Make While Attempting To Prioritize Which Languages When Localizing Your Website?
● Study The Users Of Your Website
You might be astonished to learn that even if your website is now only available in English, visitors worldwide are still visiting it. Even those with weak English proficiency will be willing to spend time striving to read it if the material is valuable enough. Some web browsers have built-in machine translation that may be configured to translate any website automatically if it isn’t in the user’s native tongue.
● Keep An Eye On Your Competitors
It makes sense to keep an eye on your competition and check in frequently to see how their web marketing strategy is changing, even though you don’t want to imitate everything they do. Included are the languages they have chosen to localize their websites if any.
However, keep in mind that only some languages are necessarily chosen for solely tactical reasons. The corporation took advantage of the experience of its workers because they were based in a non-English-speaking nation. They may have chosen to invest in a specific language because they have a significant investor or business partner from that nation. Another option is for a well-known public figure to endorse a business’ service and drive a surge in customers.
● Identifying Market Potential
Once you have a list of promising nations, you must further whittle it by eliminating countries where your goods are unlikely to find a market. For instance, in regions where it is chilly most of the year, you will only sell a small amount of summer clothing and vice versa.
Check to see if any laws, rules, tariffs, fees, or other restrictions would prevent customers from ordering and getting goods from your website as you come closer to creating a short list of potential nations. One choice is to contract with a worldwide law firm for this work.
● The Top Languages In The Use Online
The number of users of each language online is another sign of market potential. If you were to base your decisions on these figures, English would rank above Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, and so forth. You may prefer to focus on the top European languages for the time being since they will demand less work since complete localization into a middle-eastern or Asian language may not be viable for you right away.
● Research Potential
If your primary website is in English, translating it into other European languages should be easy and will require minimal site adjustments. To ensure the success of the localization process, however, significant changes will need to be made for specific locations, languages, and cultures.
- Sensitivity: Avoid insulting your audience to avoid alienating them. This can require you to change the text to make it more culturally suitable and translate it. Similarly, for photographs, you want to use photos that depict local people flatteringly in accordance with their cultural norms.
- Layout & Design: Different cultures have different standards for the information that should be displayed on the site, how densely it is presented, the size of the photos compared to the amount of text, and the use of color.
- Asian Languages: In several Asian languages, the same information may be expressed in much less room. Open space would be abundant if you were to replace the text.
- Languages of the Middle East: Some languages, including those of the Middle East, are written from right to left. It would be best if you minded it to make the user experience more friendly.
● Cost considerations
Here are a few elements that might affect how much translating your website into another language will cost.
- Geography: Hiring skilled native speakers to translate and edit texts into languages spoken primarily by persons residing in high-cost locations is frequently more expensive.
- Language: There is a sizable pool of competent copywriters and translators. In contrast, you will need to spend more if you deal with fewer frequent language pairings.
- Complication: You may need to pay more for a trained translator if your content is very specialized and technical. Additionally, this second individual will pay more than if the information were more inclusive. After the translation is complete, marketing-related content should be checked by a local copywriter so that any problematic passages may be adjusted to seem more natural to your target audience.
Conclusion
There are several things to consider if you’re considering making your company’s website bilingual. It would be best first to comprehend the distinction between translation and localization.
Choosing which languages to prioritize is the next step. You can look at the recent traffic to your website, examine the current localization efforts of your rivals, and evaluate the online popularity and commercial viability of various languages. Finally, you should analyze the economic aspects and determine whether localization can be implemented.
Doing all this market research will take time and tremendous effort, so do not hesitate to hire a good localization service because it will help you decide which language to choose.