How Fast Can You Internationalize A Website

Quick answers to…

Today’s question is:

How fast can you internationalize a website?

First, the short answer: It depends on two things:

• The extent to which you want to and can internationalize your website.
• How culturally specific your website is today.

Now, the long answer.

Let’s clarify a key point.

• What is an internationalized website?

On Get International Clients, I refer to two different types of websites:

• An International Website
• An Internationalized Website

Have a look at those links if you do not understand the difference.

Time To Go International

So, how fast can adapt your website for an international audience?

For an Internationalized Website, using your existing website, there are two options:

1 - A Few Days

It can take as little as a couple of days to have a small website “edited” to stop pushing away international visitors.

This involves:

• Smoothing over any strong culture-specific areas, and only when there are a few of them
• Reviewing content for clarity and consistency - simplifying the experience for everyone, domestic and international audiences alike

2 - A Few Weeks

It can take several weeks to do a comparative analysis between your domestic market and one primary foreign culture.

This involves:

• All of the steps above
• Identifying the appropriate cultural web tools and touches you can make
• Testing results on both your domestic website and your foreign markets
• Ongoing testing and tracking process as you develop your new markets

For an International Website -

Several Weeks To Several Months

It can take several weeks, and much longer, to create an International Website.

This involves:

• Creating a website, in some cases, from scratch

And, of course, the time you need depends on the:

• Complexity of the website you need
• Level of international business intelligence you have
• Scope of your project
• Place you start

However, given that most companies use their International Websites to develop the website templates they will use for planned Localized Websites, you also need to plan for additional strategy on how to create what will be your first international template.  This involves extra coordination between all of the team involved.

Read More On Website Internationalization

Website Internationalization Guide • How easy is it to set up an international website?Read about your international communication platform options.

More To Plan Your International Business Development

Guide 2 - Plan Your International Sales Road Map

What Is An Internationalized Website

Quick answers to…

Today’s question is:

What is an internationalized website?

An Internationalized Website is slightly different to an International Website.

An Internationalized Website sells primarily to a domestic audience. Its communication is targeted to this audience.

In addition, this communication is edited to appeal to international readers as much as it can without taking anything away from its domestic appeal.

These edits are usually very subtle.

The main difference, when compared to an International Website, is the Internationalized Website continues to communicate well with its original market.

Good Web Marketing = Good International Website

Sometimes you only need to improve the level of good web marketing practices on your website.

And, that’s all you need to stop pushing international visitors away.

Good web marketing practices provide you with a website with a strong communication.  This good communication usually increases the level of your online cross-cultural communication too.

Starting With A Strong Culture-Specific Website

Problems occur when the communication on your website is very strongly impregnated with your local culture.  This is usually done with:

• Local vocabulary and expressions
• Colors with particular significance
• Mention of local events, places and people
• Appealing to culturally specific emotional buttons

If you have culture-specific website, it is probably not be a good idea to revise your web content if it is working well in your domestic market. You will probably do best to target your international markets with a separate International Website. Or, country-specific websites if you have sufficient international business intelligence on your markets.

And, even if your website is not culture-specific, you may decide to keep your first website and create a second website for your international market.  You can then differentiate your communication and your marketing.

Cultural Web Tools

You also have another option…

If you only want to market to one or two foreign countries, you can add a few further modifications to appeal more to those cultures. When you know more about the cultures you are writing for, you can often tweak your Internationalized Website to trigger better responses from your international readers.  Use cultural web tools to increase your appeal to different cultures.

These modifications will apply to your website architecture.  You need to test and track results to really get your website to work for both your domestic market and one or two different countries.

And it does not always work.  Sometimes you will not be able to sell effectively to both your domestic market and your foreign markets from the same website. The cultures just might not mix well.

Your solution would be to create a second website for a broad international audience or to create localized websites for each foreign culture you are targeting.

Advantages

The main advantages of internationalizing your website are:

• You stop pushing international clients away
• It raises your website to good web marketing standards
• It is quick and easy to do…if your website is not too culture specific for your domestic audience

Internationalizing your website can be part of your overall website improvement strategy.

This is an option to promote communication with international readers if you have a very small budget.  You can the expand to

• Create country-specific sub-categories or sub domains on your main website.
• An International Website
• Or move directly to a Localized Website

Disadvantages

You really need to move onto more culturally targeted communication if you are serious about developing your international markets.  Plan for this as soon as you can.

Read More On Website Internationalization

Website Internationalization Guide • How easy is it to set up an international website?Read about your international communication platform options.

More To Plan Your International Business Development

Guide 2 - Plan Your International Sales Road Map