Internationalize Your Website 3 - Show The World Your Location

Last Updated 17 August 2008

Decent cross cultural communication depends on breaking down the natural barriers of mistrust inherent in all inter cultural relationships.

Good cross cultural communication is built once trust has been built between the two cultures.

First Steps To Website Internationalization

One of the key elements of internationalizing your website is trust.

First you have to look at all of the different barriers to trust on your website. One very simple barrier and very big barrier to trust in cross cultural communication is an absence of stating your location.

What is the one of the first things two people do when they meet each other? They ask where they are from. This question comes up even faster when you know you are speaking to someone from another country. The question is inevitable.

Tell The world Where You Are From

Some companies don’t put their address online. Some companies do not put it up clearly. Some companies think they have their address clearly indicated online, and yet their international readers don’t find it quickly enough.

Internationalizing your website means making your website friendlier to all international visitors. You need to put up your address and then need to find it when it suits them.

First let’s look at what not to do.

What Companies Do Wrong In Communicating Their Real Address

Some companies seem to avoid stating their real address. Here are things companies do that lack clarity. Their address is:

• In very small print somewhere difficult to find
• Not located where your visitors go to look for it
• With a postal address
• With a different company name and address
• With a “better” false or misleading address
• Only a partial address – they forget to put in the country
• Totally absent

Reasons Why Companies Avoid Doing It Right

There are several common reasons why companies do not indicate their address clearly enough online.

Forget: The first obvious reason is because they forget.

They also very often forget to put the country at the end of their address. This is almost as bad as not putting an address up.

Lack Of Prestige: Some companies think their address is not prestigious enough. These companies are only looking at their immediate local market prejudices. They may or may not have a legitimate reason to be embarrassed about their actual physical address.

It is highly unlikely the majority of their international clients will have the same prejudices about their address.

Fear Of Spam And Hackers: This is a bit contradictory. You are either an online business or you are not. If this is a real concern of yours, find other ways of combating it other than hiding your address.

Clarity Is Critical To Building Trust

So why is it important to clearly put up your real address online?
An easy to find, real address is critical to build trust and credibility in the minds of all of your international readers.

All online businesses need to actively build trust with their visitors. Trust is a key factor in making more sales.

In cross cultural business relationships trust is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Any lack of trust becomes a major source of multicultural miscommunication.

A key component of building trust is clarity. Actively developing clarity in your international relationships will make them flourish.

Any perceived absence of clarity is a deal breaker.

If your physical address is perceived as not being clearly indicated in any way this is taken as a lack of clarity.

In most cases, any reason to not indicate your real address clearly on your website becomes insignificant when compared to the value of putting it up.

Foreigners Are Curious

Remember, people are curious. Your international prospects are curious.

If there is one thing a foreign prospect or business partner will be, it is curious. He will want to have clarity. He will want to know who he is buying from, who he is doing business with.

Online research makes it very easy to see if you are fully up front with your address.

Foreign Visitors Want To Visualize Your Location

It is only natural. Curiosity in your location leads to visualizing where you are actually located.

People travel. World news is available all over the world. Your visitors will want to be able to visualize where you are.

This may be the first time they have heard of your town, or the city next door to you. Help them visualize where you are, and don’t automatically assume they know where that is.

Make Your Location Work For You

This natural curiosity about your location can be used to your advantage. With an online international business just about any location can be presented in a way that is nothing but advantageous.

Use a snapshot of a map to include your location with a city most foreigners would immediately recognize. Your international readers will appreciate it. Your company will have more credibility.

Do your international clients know where you are located? Put your full physical address on display and make yourself easy to find. You will bring yourself closer in the minds of your international readers. Clarity is your strongest ally in building trust.

Simply Give Your Real Address

The most important thing to remember here is:

• Give you real physical address.

Use the address where you can actually be found.

Put your address online in a place where your target market expects to find it. In cross cultural marketing you will find that some cultures will respond better if they can see your address in a more prominent position. Put your address where your readers want to find it.

If you live in an area unfamiliar to anyone on the other side of the world, consider adding a short description or map to help all of your visitors visualize where you are located.

If you have several addresses, give those addresses and present them in a way that people clearly understand what is done at each address.

If an online business does not clearly state it’s full address, this brings other questions and assumptions to the minds of international visitors. And they are not good about your business.

This article is part of a series to Internationalize Your Website. Here are the other articles in this series:

• 7 Easy Tips to Internationalize Your Website
• Internationalize Your Website 1 - Make Your Website Easy To Read For All Of Your Readers
  
• Internationalize Your Website 2 - Be Reachable By Phone To Everyone
• Internationalize Your Website 4 - Create Clarity With A Consistent Vocabulary
• Internationalize Your Website 5 - Use The Right Order Forms For International Sales
• Internationalize Your Website 6 - Publish A Glossary For Clarity And Consistency
• Internationalize Your Website 7 - Welcome Your International Visitors