Website Localization
You have finally decided to take the plunge and work on making your website more visible so you can go after more international sales.
Your main web pages are ready for the foreign market you are targeting. You have looked at the differences in culture and adjusted your communication. And now you are ready for your foreign target market to see your website.
Here are 4 ideas to get more international visibility:
1. Get your domain name in the target country
There are a lot of people that remain with the .com site, and this is respected in many countries. It is worthwhile to have the local domain when you consider the cost involved. Getting a domain name and having you site hosted will not cost you a fortune.
You can have you country website designed so that it displays what is on your primary site if you are not ready to have 2 running sites. Consider having your foreign website designed as a sales blog, pointing to you primary sales blog.
2. Make subscription options in the target language available and obvious
RSS icons are pretty much standard in appearance, so use one. If you are not ready to have your feeds in the foreign language you can at least put the comment lines in the local language inviting people to sign up for the “English Language Feeds”. Making the offer in the local language will help you see to what point translating will be useful.
Make your subscriptions obvious, and ask for them. You should put the sign up option on each post and on the front page of your site.
3. Write articles for your niche in the local language
Knowing what your client wants and knowing your niche is the key to success on the web. Starting sales in the foreign market is a niche in itself, and you need to provide quality and useful information to that niche.
The ideal goal is to deliver content created for the specific needs of your foreign market.
In the beginning you could simply use the automatic translation widgets available for websites. This is better than having absolutely no local language content at all. And these computer translation programs are getting better.
Generally the more “professional” computerized translation tools are used by companies with very large quantities of content to translate. Again this kind of translation software is getting better. Today their real use is to help professional translators work faster. If you feel the need to use this type of translation tool, include the original language after the translation and begin each post with a comment “Translated online by…
Although you could pay for translations of your current materials, a much better alternative would be to find a local writer with marketing or sales experience in your market.
Spend time to find someone you can work with over a long period of time. This will allow the writer to become familiar with your products and how they translate into his own country. His work will be better. And having a local writer can provide you invaluable feedback.
4. Start a series of posts
The wonderful thing about having a series of articles on a related subject is that it makes the reader want to come back for more. This can help get subscribers who don’t miss out on the next in the series.
Your article series written for your foreign target market can easily be re-purposed. The cost of foreign language translation can be leveraged if you ask your local writer to plan for this right from the start.
After you are done with one article series on one subject, let it rest for a while, then you can email the series as part of a local newsletter to be used online and offline in your foreign market.
You can also convert the series into one long article that you can distribute to foreign online directories, advertising your foreign offer in the ‘author resources’ section.
The opportunities for repurposing the same foreign language content are multiple. This can be easy and light on your budget if you plan for it in advance.
If you follow a few of these ideas you will make a website for your international markets more appealing.
