Many websites cater to a global audience and not everyone speaks English. This goes on to say that English-based websites often have to translate their website content into many different languages. This is required so that all their users can have a good experience and also for the users to get comfortable while using the website. Having said that, many websites owners are muddled with the thought – If it is really necessary to present your website in more than one language?
Adding even one new language to your website can have a significant impact in terms of growing the audience. This especially holds true for the online stores. If they provide more than one language to select from at least for the prominent product pages and checkout page, it is can be extremely beneficial for international sales. This is just one example; however there are many other websites that can leverage the benefits of having a multilingual website.
In this article we will provide a deeper insight about the point – whether you should consider adding more languages to your website or not.
When your website comprises of more than one language, basically you open doors for new audiences. If your website is new, having it in English is the perfect start and you can keep running your website in English for sometime; but as your audience grows, your need to transform your website as well. Unless you only cater to the local or national audience, for many other websites, it makes sense to cater to different types of audience from all the regions of the world.
Amazon is a great example of an ecommerce website that caters to international audience. Amazon offers the option to choose from multiple other languages thus making users all over the world to get comfortable with shopping from Amazon.
To state the truth, if you own a website that features products or services on an international scale, providing a wide range of products in not enough, you need to go a step ahead with making the people feel that your website is native for them.
Adding more languages to your website will come at a cost and you must make this investment at the right time. If your website is still in infancy, it will be ideal to wait until your website is making more income and then consider making it multilingual.
Additionally, it is important to bear in mind that translating the entire website can be a complicated and time consuming process. The more content you have on your website, the more time and money will be required to translate it in different languages. This is the reason why you don’t come across many multilingual blogs as it wouldn’t be practical to translate all that content.
A smart move will be to start with adding just one more language to your website if you think you need to offer more languages. You can plan adding more languages to your website at a later point of time.
Ways In Which You Can Add More Languages To Your Website:
Translating Your Website Manually
This approach involves translating the complete website manually – the content and the other aspects of your websites. If your website is small in terms of number of pages and content, you can go by this method. This approach involves a lot of time and effort but if you decide to go by this approach you will save up on the professional translation costs, have complete control on the translation process and you can move ahead at your own pace.
It cannot be said that this approach is free because you will need a small team to work on the translation process, you cannot do everything by yourself. Additionally, in manual translation of your website you are restricted to the number of languages you know. If you are not fluent in the language that you are working on, you might end up making a lot of mistakes and it will look unprofessional.
Hiring Professional Translating Services
Hiring professionals to translate your website is the most apt and straightforward approach for translating your website. However, you have to rightly invest in it. The best thing about this approach is that you don’t have to do anything by yourself and you can be assured of getting the best results with a complete professional translation. There is certainly a high cost involved in this approach but it is worth the investment. The more content there is on your website, the bigger your budget needs to be.
Using Machine Translation
This approach utilizes a software for translating the content automatically from one language to another. You will find many free and paid software online for translating massive chunks of content. The best thing about machine translation is that you can translate your website content in almost every type of language in the world. Before using any software for translating your content, it is important to research about it and read reviews posted by the people who have used it before. You need to be sure about the accuracy if the translation because your content shouldn’t look unprofessional.
If you have a considerable number of audience and if you are into providing products and services internationally; here is a quick insight on what a multilingual website can offer you:
A Surge In Sales
When you offer different languages on your website, your website almost becomes local for audience around the world. When the potential customers are able to read the information given on your website in their own language, they will be more comfortable and delighted to go through your website. There is more likelihood of prospects getting converted in customers.
Websites Perform Better In Online Searches
A multi lingual website has more possibilities of getting found in the online searches. Even Google search is available in multiple languages. Many people around the world make use of their native language while searching something on Google. It is not necessary to localize your website for all the languages but having some prominent languages on your website will be helpful for your prospects and for your search engine rankings as well.
Improved Brand Awareness
When your website is just limited to one language, you are limiting its exposure as well. A multilingual website attracts attention from international market. Your business brand gets the recognition of global brand and this elevates your reputation. There is a greater trust factor on international brands.
Effective Communication And Marketing
The aim behind creating a marketing strategy is to achieve more customers. When you have a website that is available in more than one prominent language, you attract new customers and you have better potential to tap into a whole new market that would have been a difficult task if your website was only available in one language.
Conclusion
If you have a new website than having it only in English is perfectly fine. However, if you are looking at creating your mark internationally, then having more than one languages is an important step that can help you cater to international market. Research where your website traffic is coming from and start by adding one more language, and then go on to adding more languages if required. Having a multilingual website is going to surely help you create a superior brand image.
