Your website is the gateway to your product or service. And, as first impressions are the ones that count, businesses make a big effort to stand out from other websites in their sector: having an appropriate and appealing design, being user friendly and displaying texts aimed at the target audience are some aspects to take into account.
Leveraging the invested time and money to internationalize your website is a great choice, as it opens the doors to your business all around the world. How important is a multilingual website? How many languages should you translate your website into?
Multilingual website: don’t only stick to English
A good translation service is essential to rank in a position that makes your site relevant and also transmits reliability and proximity to the target audience.
The language you probably first think of to translate your website into is English. No doubt this is the reference language at an international level, but it’s not the only one. Translating your website only into English is not a good idea if you really want to make your effort profitable. We’ll tell you why.
Localized content is a conversion factor
According to a study performed by the market research company CSA Research in June 2020, 76% of online buyers prefer to buy products with information in their native language.
This and other interesting data are gathered in the report about consumer preferences called Can’t Read, Won’t Buy - B2C, which also highlights that “(...) if a company does not localize the buying experience, it’s at risk of losing 40% or more of their target market: consumers would rather select and buy products on sites in their local language.”
Website translation is essential for expansion into international markets. Each business must analyze which are their target audience’s countries and prioritize the languages to translate and localize their website into. It’s an investment that will avoid being affected by the disadvantages of translating a website only into English. We’ll tell you about them next.
Disadvantages of translating your website only into English
This is what happens to your internationalization project if you only get the website translated into English.
- Poor user experience Consumers would rather shop in their own language. Despite many of them understanding English, online browsing is much more satisfactory if all the content is in their mother tongue and contextualized to the environment.
- Loss of business opportunities. Speaking the same language generates more solid relationships. Being able to interact in their language promotes customer loyalty and increases the probability of them coming back.
- Decreases good website ranking. Providing optimized content in different languages allows indexing your website favorably during searches carried out by the consumers of each country.
- Weakens brand image. A multilingual website gives your business more credibility. Adapting all the sections of the site to the language and culture of several countries is an effort that consumers appreciate, making them inclined to share their information and create a bond.
Translating your website into several languages makes it easier for you to be found anywhere in the world. Opt for quality website translation that is perfectly contextualized, like the one we offer at Linguaserve. We are experts in multilingual translation and communication.
