The Internet has become a global market gathering almost 4.57 billion active users. The online realm and social media are rising unstoppably.
Simply put, your customers are online, whoever they may be.
For that reason, it’s incredibly important that businesses offer multilingual content on their websites and localize their products or services.
In simple terms, translation and localization can help your business attract a multinational audience, which expands your customer base and increases your revenue.
Regardless of whether you sell products or services, multilingual content can open doors and bring you to performance levels you didn’t even know were possible.
Here is how you can benefit from translation as a business:
Provide your customers with the opportunity to speak their native language
Marketing studies have shown that there are very small percentages of shoppers who will buy a product or pay for a service if they don’t understand their key features.
A higher level of understanding of products or services results in an increase in trust between you and your customer. Of course, trust comes with better sales.
When you decide to give your customers the opportunity to speak their native language, go all the way.
Don’t just translate or localize the key elements on your website, but everything: from product packaging, descriptions, social media pages to customer support.
At TranslationReport, you can find translation companies that offer this type of full language service.
Cooperate with them if you want to provide your customers with maximum professionalism and quality.
Expand your offer and grow your potential audience
Translation services for business are primarily used for these reasons.
If your business model allows the possibility of launching your products abroad, you shouldn’t think twice about doing it.
Here are just some of the figures that illustrate the power of translated business content:
- businesses around the world spend around 45 billion USD on translation services
- only about 25% of Internet users are English speakers
- almost half of global customers said they never bought a product that’s not in their native language
- language service providers report a consistent growth in revenue year after year
Improve your competitiveness
Part of your competition probably already has the capacity to offer their products or services to foreign language speakers.
This means that they automatically have a higher number of potential shoppers.
As a business, you need to keep up with your competition.
Isn’t it even smarter to out-perform them and translate, for example, your online store to more languages and reach more people?
Take a look at what your competitors are doing and how many foreign markets they have expanded to.
Are they reaching global audiences via their website or by using other channels, too?
Competition analysis is a great way to predict how the same process is going to work for you.
Localize, not just translate
It’s important to note that, as a business, your website should be localized, not just translated.
Unlike translation, localization (l10n) implies a full adaptation of a product or service so that it’s ready to be used in a different culture. In translation, cultural differences are often ignored or missed.
When you’re doing business in a foreign market, these kinds of mistakes can result in your product or service coming off as unnatural or unconvincing.
The main priority of the localization process is to adapt your product or service so that it looks like it was originally from that country.
Usually, the only localization providers that do this type of work on a professional level are agencies and companies.
Individuals might offer these services at a cheaper price, but you will end up spending more on quality control and testing.
The transcription service handles the entire localization process, quality control included.
If you’re serious about entering a foreign market, you should always pick a translation company that has a portfolio of previous projects like yours.
Work on your search engine presence
If your business website exists only in one language, it will appear exclusively in results that are under the domain of that search engine region.
You won’t be able to present your product or services to people around the world, or at least reduce your chances of getting notices.
After you localize your website, you will have the opportunity to expand your keyword strategy and achieve a stronger search engine presence.
Advertise in local outlets
If you translate your business website to other languages, you will get a wider portfolio of potential websites, news outlets, and media where you can advertise or sponsor posts.
Sometimes, the very act of localizing your business brand to a foreign language might be enough to get noticed and published.
Presence in local websites will give you better domain authority, better publicity, and brand recognition in your new market.
Conclusion
There are endless opportunities for your business when you decide to use translation services and expand to foreign markets.
This may sound time-consuming and hard – in the past, it definitely was – but, with the increased supply of translation services on the Internet, you can get a lot done without overstretching your budget.
Author’s Bio
Henry Mcdowell is a professional translator and localization expert.
Most of the time he works on localizing websites and apps, but he also does technical and academic translations.
Henry is also interested in the areas of business, entrepreneurship, and branding.