Localizing your website, whether it’s in anticipation of a new market launch or to accommodate global customers, is a lengthy process. It covers a huge range of different activities that are all as crucial as each other if you want to create a seamless, high-quality browsing experience for every customer, no matter their location.
Here are four ways to ensure your localization efforts pay off and your brand is well-loved around the world.
What is website localization?
Before we delve into how you can maximize your success in this process, let’s recap what it entails. Website localization is about adapting the content of a website to the needs, tastes, and preferences of a foreign market. And it’s more than just translating written text – it’s making cultural as well as linguistic changes so that viewers can navigate a site and consume its contents well.
So, now we can explore four methods to boost your localization efficiency.
Use a professional localization service
First up, you should be using professional website localization services. Unless you have expert translators, natives of your target market and website developers all in your internal team with experience localizing websites, leave this job up to the professionals. Localization experts will not only work better, but much more efficiently on your website – and you can trust there’ll be no corners cut here. With a deep understanding of your target audience and the inner mechanics of your website, you’ll be able to focus on running your business while they take care of the development side of things.
Work on one language at a time
If you have a large localization project that encompasses a number of different regions or cultures, it’s best to work on one site at a time. Trying to work on multiple languages at once means you won’t be able to get any of them live until they’re all completed. However, getting one completed and developed means that you’ll open your business up to millions of new users while the other websites are being worked on in the background – it just makes sense.
Focus on more than just translating
As we mentioned before, localization is much more than simply translating the text on your website. It’s about making said text – whether it’s blogs, product descriptions or homepage copy – easily accessible and digestible to your users. This includes using the right expressions, grammar and tone to make your users feel considered and comfortable with your brand.
Don’t forget non-text elements
Lastly, it’s important to not miss out on the non-text elements in your localization efforts. Think buttons, images and banners – they all need to be localized to perfection in order to create that all-important seamless user experience on your website. You might need to edit or even completely replace imagery that doesn’t align with the values or culture of your target market – as well as adjust elements of your branding if it causes similar clashes. Only then can you say that you’ve successfully, and efficiently, localized your website.
