Relation between website and localization

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The digital world has created some great conditions and opportunities about business growth and expansion, and having a decent website that represents your brand is one of the key factors to reach wider with your business whether it is small or big. A website is the center of attention in your online presence and it can be the instrument of manifesting your marketing strategies and make a worthwhile impact on them.

It’s important that your website hits your target markets and makes your products and services more appealing to them. To achieve this your site should be visually attractive, contain great content, be user friendly, functional, have a neat navigational design with qualitative graphics and images, apply the SEO principles etc.

It may seem like a lot of work but it is totally worth the investment, especially when you get brand recognition and distribution in social media making you reach to the global market and you start celebrating the fruits of your dedication, which eventually increases the sales.

Here we are going to discuss the importance and steps needed to be taken for setting website localization.

Creating brand recognition and tapping into the global market used to be a real struggle about businesses, especially when it came to reaching different demographics with which a respective knowledge on languages, and cultural expectations was needed. Today this factor still determines the perception and judgment of customers – which you want to be well received. However, the digital world is always evolving and introducing to us new trends and ways that make a lot of work easier.

Here comes the role of the website localization. Localization is key for a global business to succeed online. When you are developing a website for an international audience, you need to be sure that you get quality translation and localization services, so that you get the most out of your website. An efficient communication with an international audience is definitely key to keeping a global business competitive.

be sure that you get quality translation and localization services, so that you get the most out of your website. An efficient communication with an international audience is definitely key to keeping a global business competitive.

 

Localization in a nutshell

 Website localization is a procedure in which it translates the web content into the local language. It’s a method used to translate language, requirements, and culture of a locale. Localization is done in text, images, document, etc. The effectiveness of localization will aid the users to relate to your website in a way that makes it feel like a native to him or her. The number of internet users are increasing day by day. This increase in number does not imply that your website has an audience from each place of the world. Communication with every member of the globe requires localization. To gain more profit and traffic one must do website localization to gain wider audience.

Below we are unfolding 9 straightforward steps which a beginner should follow in order to perform the localization process.

Strategic steps toward localization

Step 1: In-depth Research

An in-depth research is vital for doing localization. The research should be conducted on the factors like culture, product, services, purchasing power, customer income and other related factors. You need to define your customer and need to do an in-depth research and analysis on it. Study your international potential buyers and try to get in their shoes. Try to find answers to as many questions a buyer will have while finding you. In this regard, try doing research on aspects of the market condition, in-demand products, purchasing power, entry barriers, laws, and regulations. To run a smooth business, one needs to identify and analyze its niche.

Step 2: Defining Project Goal

After deciding your customer category, you should consider the following step of defining the project, which means defining a number of languages, and deciding which of them you need to grab the attention of your buyer. Deciding the number of languages will make the localization process easier. After this decision find a person that provides with localization services. If you wanted to do the process on your own, you must be aware of programming languages. One must know the exact number of pages that need localization, marketing strategies, SEO and website design as well. You need a proper translator of language along with language programmer and that programmer should be aware of the latest technologies used while programming. Pay keen attention to setting a goal to avoid loss in future. You should possess a clear understanding of goal aid in setting a realistic budget for your project.

Step 3: Internationalization Time

Now is the step that starts the localization of your website to the international world. This is a procedure, in which the organic content of the website is translated into different languages and this makes it easier for a non-native person to understand the content. Developers do know about internationalization and need to put the higher effort in a coding website that best suits every country. For instance, they should add Hreflang Tags. These tags identify the language along with the country, for instance, consider Spanish spoken in Spain and Mexico as well. Therefore, the developer needs to localize it accordingly. Unicode (UTF-8) is another code that supports different language characters. Chinese and Arabic are catered by this code. The programmer needs to have knowledge of coding source to the translation string so that each time you add a new language that code does not break translation string. This step is the hardest but the ultimate results are fruitful.

Step 4: Website Design According To Language

Localization does not only stand with the language. It is also associated with the layout and design of your website too. As many languages are written in vertical form like Chinese and Korean also your website design should be aligned with the languages to give a good look. Adopting this language will demand a change in design too. In this regard, use a global gateway, and the website design according to the language version. If one is deciding to localize in many languages then it is best to have a drop-down menu for language selection and let the client decide its country and language selection.

Step 5: Best Translation

For localization, you need to have the best person to translate your website into another language. Hire a native translator, as he or she will be aware of language, culture, customs, and humor. This way you can grab the desired audience. Use a translation management software, to keep your translation in a well-organized manner and convert typing directly to the website.

Step 6: SEO Is The Key

SEO is a basic thing for ranking up your website. Besides localization process, SEO is also vital, as without it localization efforts will be wasted. Search keywords in accordance with the language for instance there lie a difference in spelling of UK and US English. So, cater these nitty-gritty details while doing SEO.

Step 7: Selection of Right Images

This step is important as for many cultures might feel encouraged by an image and then the same image turns out to be discouraging for others. So, choose an image that best suits the country’s culture. A practical suggestion in the context of localization, avoid info graphics or text image, as they will require an extra translation effort.

Step 8: Fast Website Speed is Vital

No matter how much effort you put in in all above steps, all will be in vain if your website loading time is slow. Speed is necessary as a customer does not like to wait for the web content to take lots of time while loading. To make your website load fast use images that are not big and do not mess with the websites with content. Use content delivery network, this provides the security that website is operated at higher speed around the globe.

Last Step 9: Try Testing as Much as You Want

Before launching localization, test your website as much as you can. This will aid in finding flaws and will save you losses, as the clients first impression depends upon it. Testing of localization will include a hyperlink, compatibility of hardware, broken links and complete functionality. Another language testing will include grammatical error check, typing mistakes, and taboos.

Conclusion

Despite the idea that adapting your website to a multilingual site may seem both expensive and daunting, it is worth understanding the many potential benefits that await you and your business through website localization. You should keep in mind that localization brings many benefits and that is why your competitors are using it. It is important for your website to be global friendly, build credibility, cause positive customer experience, enhance your brand’s identity, gain new customers/hit new targets and improve your SEO. After a solid execution of the above listed steps a major advancement shall be witnessed.


Rilind Elezaj is an experienced Digital Marketing Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry. Rilind possesses a strong entrepreneurial mindset and has devoted his career to enhancing the sphere of digital marketing. In his methodological approach, Rilind integrates web development and other digital marketing solutions to create hybrid strategies that bring the best results.