How Website Localization Helps Increase Your Sales

The paradox of globalization is that it is achieved through localization. The more the world is headed towards globalization, the more heavily localized it becomes, products and services are offered in more languages and adapted for more cultures and locations. The reason for this is that that global does not mean uniform, leading us to conclusion that the paradox of globalization is not really a paradox at all.

Regardless if it is an interactive presentation of a brick and mortar company or if it is the interface of an online service, website is the main channel of communication of contemporary world. Thus, the fastest, safest and the most efficient way to reach the global customers and expand your business globally is through website localization.

But how exactly localization helps you increase your sales? Let’s take a look:

Your Message is sent to Bigger Audiences

English is undoubtedly the dominant language of the internet, business, politics and virtually everything else. More than 1 billion people speak and understand English to a certain degree, but there is still a great majority of people who speak other languages. Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Russian and other languages are mother tongues of your potential international clients. Having your website localized to other languages means sending your corporate message to larger audiences in a language they can understand perfectly well, which in turn means more clients and customers.

You Develop a Deeper Connection with Your Clients

I recently saw “Hungarian Rhapsody: Queen Live in Budapest” on Blu-ray and what made this concert footage particularly interesting was Freddie Mercury singing a Hungarian folk song – in Hungarian. Rock stars usually learn a few phrases such as “Thank you”, “Hello” or “Goodbye” in the language of the country where they play, but Mercury went much further having learnt an entire song and I suppose it did wonders to Queen’s brand identity in Hungary.

This is the principle that can be perfectly applied to website localization – people will always like and trust you more if you express respect for their culture and present your work in their first language. Your localized product or service will become something your foreign clients like and trust – and buy. This is what all major companies do and this is what the great Freddie Mercury did. Be smart. Be like them.

You Reduce Risks

Your web content and marketing campaigns may be impeccably designed – in English. At the same time they may be misunderstood on the foreign markets, or, even worse, they may offend your foreign clients and make an irreparable damage to your corporate identity.

We often say that localization is more than website translation as it also includes technical, legal and cultural adaptation of all textual and non-textual elements (images, colors, titles etc.) to the environment of the target market.

However, it is even more than that – you can translate and localize content and it may still make no sense to the foreign audiences whatsoever because different markets demand different approach and different content.

Localization helps you present your company in the way the foreign audience will completely understand, thus eliminating the risk of bad publicity and enabling you to create a strong, positive and successful presence on the global markets.

You Reduce SEO Competition

There are millions of companies similar to yours on the Internet with their content primarily written in English, which means that achieving a high ranking on search engines is a tough and long job with uncertain results.

However, having your website properly localized means achieving an almost instant visibility on the local search engines covering local, comparatively smaller markets with lower competition. Thoroughly researched keywords related to your business in the language of the target market will bring local clients to your website faster, which, naturally means higher conversion rates.

Great, but what’s the Price?

Investing in website localization means investing in a positive global presence and reaching out to larger audiences, new clients and customers. While the price of localization is easily measurable, it generates a long-term ROI that is essentially immeasurable, meaning that is always cheap.