10 Steps to Take Your Website Global

Making a website accessible to the entire world is not just a matter of translating its content into different languages. Each country has distinct buying habits, payment preferences, search engine preferences, and expectations regarding the site’s content. One message may deliver outstanding results in one region while being completely unsuitable for another.

A localization strategy will give a company the basis for developing its site for different areas of the world. It comprises language translation, local keywords, web design, usability, infrastructure setups, and cultural needs.

Step 1: Strategic Planning and Preparing Your Website Localization Strategy

What Is a Localization Strategy?

A localization strategy is a method that helps modify a website to comply with the requirements of the visitors from a certain country. It specifies target markets, content modification needs, people responsible for implementation, and methods of evaluating the results.

For example, if a software company needs to attract clients from Germany and Japan, the localization strategy may include translation of the site’s pages, analysis of search terms, price adjustment, and provision of support in local languages.

Website Localization vs. Website Translation

Website translation is the process of converting written text from one language to another while preserving its meaning. Website localization incorporates more changes to adapt the entire website for a specific market. Translation is a part of localization. The larger process may involve changing currencies, dates, pictures, examples, forms, ways of payment, and calls to action.

Website Localization: 5 Key Benefits for International Brands

Website localization benefits global businesses:

Improved user experience: Customers are able to read about the product, navigate the webpage, and follow the instructions in their own language.

More relevant search traffic: Local keywords research enables companies to create web pages according to the way in which people search in the given market. Learning how to translate your website into multiple languages and rank on Google starts with this research.

Better customer trust: Using clear language and a familiar format makes the company more trustworthy.

Better conversion: When customers can understand the offer, prices, and their actions.

Better international expansion: An adapted website allows businesses to enter new markets and establish relationships.

Step 2: Market Research for Global Website Localization

The market research helps to determine the place from where you will start and what the target audience needs in return. It’s not advisable to select a country only based on its population size and growth rate. Your product should also be appropriate for the customers of a given market, and there should be a way to service your clients properly.

Collect information on your website traffic, customer inquiries, sales, and what customers in other countries want. Analyze your competitors operating in your appealing location and see how they present their products.

When considering the market of potential choice, it is important to pay attention to some practical points as well, such as shipping, payment method, local law, demand for a particular good, etc. Budget is another practical point, so estimate the website translation cost for each shortlisted market early.

Step 3: Build a Dedicated Team for a Multilingual Web Localization Project

A website localization project involves various types of work, which is why it is almost impossible for one person to possess all the required competencies to carry out the project. As a result, many people are usually involved in this process. If you outsource part of this team, the questions in how to choose a website localization company can help you compare partners.

The team may include a project manager, translators, local-language reviewers, SEO specialists, developers, designers, and marketers. It may also require the presence of legal or compliance experts in case of compliance with certain requirements in the market.

Each of the members should be aware of their responsibilities. Thus, translators are dealing with language aspects, local reviewers are checking the appropriateness of the content, whilst SEO specialists are researching the search behavior, and developers are taking care of the technical aspects of the localization process. The role of project managers is to supervise the process of meeting deadlines and approvals.

Step 4: Keyword Research for Local Search Intent

A literal translation of a keyword into another language might not be the term that the average user will type into a search bar. Local keyword study can reveal the preferred search terms of future clients.

The first step is to define the ideal areas, goods, and services you offer on your page. Study how your target products are referred to in local markets. Use search results for locals, keyword planners, competitors’ websites, and customer queries for this purpose. Remember about queries’ intents as well. There are people looking for information, comparing, or about to purchase something they want.

Step 5: Automate the Website Localization Process

Thanks to automation, it becomes easier to manage the localization of a website, especially for those that have a lot of pages or constantly updated content. Automation helps move text from system to system and allocate translation tasks and supervision. 

Creating a Localization Workflow

A lot of systems provide visibility of content transformation during processes starting from the original website to its final localized version. The process involves selecting pages to be localized. Once the pages are selected, the team prepares the source content, sends it for translation, conducts a linguistic review of the content, and checks the content in its final design. After the content is approved by the client, it will be published. 

Make sure there is a person responsible for every stage of the process and for managing changes along the way. For instance, if some changes were made on the original product page, the workflow should show which localized versions were approved. 

Step 6: Use the Right Translation Management System

A translation management system (TMS) assists with managing multilingual materials as well as associated personnel. According to the specific system, it can connect the translation memos, translators, terminology databases, and the machine translation systems. Translation memories store the translation of some text, which will be useful for translating similar texts in the future. The terminology database is used for the already translated terms and product names.

When choosing a TMS, one should consider the number of various languages, the size of the website, what software tools are already available, and how often the content is updated. It is important to check whether the required formats and the operating system are supported by the TMS. It also helps to map your translation workflow first, so the TMS supports the way your team already reviews and approves content.

Step 7: Prepare Website Internationalization Before Localization

Internationalization is the stage at which a website is prepared in a way that enables it to work with many languages and meet specific cultural requirements with a minimal number of changes to its basic structure. This step should ideally take place prior to the process of localization. In case a website does not have such an option as accommodating texts that are long, written in different symbols, or written from right to left, the developers will have to deal with a rather complicated process of modifying the website.

Managing Multilingual Versions of Your Site

Every version of the localized website should have its specific structure for the users and the search engine crawler to know which language is used. Companies may have different country-oriented domains, subdomains, or folders depending on the language in use.

Step 8: Localize UX, UI, and Global Content for Local Buyers

The functionality and clarity of a website are the two features that should be of utmost significance. When it comes to UX and UI, the former represents the overall usability experience, while the latter refers to the interface’s digital components that users encounter during their visit. The customer-facing website should consider all issues in the content it is translated into. In the case of a longer translation, elements such as buttons, menu items, or headings must be placed correctly.

There are some specific cultural attitudes that need to be taken into account. For example, if you’re planning on a webstore, proper currencies should be displayed, and shipping and refunds should be explained clearly.

Step 9: Test Before Launching Localized Website Pages

Testing identifies all issues related to language, design, technical aspects, and functionality prior to user interaction. Do not solely depend on the translated documents. Verify contents on the website where design or functionality could alter perception.

Get qualified language reviewers to check grammar, meaning, terminology, and tone of the content. After that, verify the layout across various screens and browsers, looking for missing text, characters, links, or messages that have not been translated. If your team lacks testing capacity, compare localization testing providers that check layout and functionality before launch.

Test functional parts such as forms, search bar, navigation, or purchase process. Verify price, date format, contacts, and legal links information.

Step 10: Market, Measure, and Optimize Your Localized Website

It is incorrect to assume that developing a website in a target language is the final step towards international expansion. Customers in the country should learn about the website, its benefits, and what to do next.

Disseminate information about your localized web pages using proper channels like local SEO, e-mail campaigns, social networks, paid advertisements, and useful partners. Make sure to alter advertising messages depending on the local market and not to translate the ad text into another language.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the web pages in different languages one by one. Take into account both organic traffic from search engines and keyword positions, as well as engagement, conversion rates, inquiries, sales, and loyal audience in case the objectives require those metrics. Visibility in AI answers is becoming another metric to watch, so make your localized content ready for AI search as well.

Conclusion

To localize an effective website, companies must plan ahead, conduct market research, be knowledgeable of the languages involved, and prepare technically, while also continuing with improvements. Translation of words is thus merely part of the process. Companies need to look at search patterns in their local area, user experience, local issues, and customers’ needs. Website localization services can support each of these stages, from market research to post-launch updates.

By following the ten steps described below, teams can create a straightforward procedure for entering new markets. They should first focus on areas with the highest potential, properly preparing the website and testing localization beforehand.

Frequently Asked Questions