Discover the challenges and solutions to successfully implementing a multilingual strategy. Learn why multilingual website translation is important, how it enhances user engagement, increases revenue potential, and provides a competitive advantage.
Anyone who has been involved in growing a business knows how difficult it can be. But those who have boldly gone international understand that the challenges will ramp up quickly.
Entering a new market means understanding new language and cultural needs to connect with a different audience. This is a whole new level of complexity.
Fortunately, there are ways to make the journey a bit easier.
Why is multilingual website translation important
When you enter a new market, it becomes glaringly obvious that most of your potential customers won’t speak the language you normally use.
For example, English is often seen as the “business language,” however, only 1 in 5 people (18%) globally speak English.
Ignoring these other language speakers can significantly hurt your growth.
While some people may struggle through a foreign website with a bit of perseverance and some Google translate, data shows that at least 90% of users say they are more likely to buy from a website in their own language.
Selling-online or offline-is all about trust and engagement. It seems illogical for a company to spend millions on optimizing the customer experience from end to end, but then choose to create intentional barriers to understanding their services.
As products and services become more complex or specialized (or in other words, more lucrative), these barriers will become increasingly amplified.
Trust, safety, engagement, and buying propensity. All of this depends on the ability to deliver the right message to the right customer at the right time.
Let’s dig a little deeper into the key benefits that translation brings to the table.
Enhanced user engagement
As mentioned, users are more likely to engage with content that utilizes their native language.
But this preference doesn’t just extend to product descriptions and points of sale. Reviews, support content, tutorials, even social media updates – all play a huge role in the conversion process.
Research from CSA found that 73% of users want product reviews in their own language, while 40% will not buy from a website in a foreign language.
Increased revenue potential
People buy from brands they trust. According to Adobe research, 70% of customers will stop buying from a company if that company breaks their trust and trust is built on the accuracy of product information.
If customers can’t access or understand that information, they can’t trust you.
It is also important to remember that product knowledge is a two-way street. If you have a multinational sales or support team, having enhanced internal product knowledge will allow them to outperform with customers and prospects, significantly impacting conversions and retention.
Competitive advantage
Your website is your storefront and in a crowded market, standing out is essential. If your competitors are already providing a multilingual website, then you can level the playing field through multilingual translation.
Additionally, you can tap into softer benefits, positioning yourself as a user-centric brand that delivers seamless, enjoyable experiences to customers.
With so much to play for, translation seems like an obvious move. But many businesses struggle to implement it.
With so many types of content that need to be translated, the whole process can seem daunting. There are also some common misconceptions that contribute to this reluctance and can make it difficult to know where to begin. Let’s take a look at some of the more prevalent challenges and some practical solutions that can help.
Common Challenges with Multilingual Website Translation
Content Localization
A common misconception is that translation is simply converting from one language to another.
This literal approach to translation often falls short as it fails to account for cultural nuances and idiomatic expressions.
For example, a phrase that has perfect meaning in English can be confusing or even offensive in another language if translated word for word.
Effective translation involves localization, which means adapting content to align with the cultural context of the target audience.
Cultural Adaptation and Maintaining Consistency
Cultural adaptation goes hand in hand with maintaining consistency across your entire website.
It’s crucial to preserve brand voice and messaging while adapting content to different languages. This consistency builds trust and brand recognition.
To achieve this, create style guides and glossaries for translators to utilize. This ensures key terminology, tone, and style are preserved across all languages.
Practical Solutions
Utilizing a Translation Management System can significantly boost efficiency. Translation Management Systems centralize all translation work, streamlining and automating workflows, while helping maintain consistency.
It allows you to manage and track the entire translation process, ensuring everyone on the team is on the same page.
Combining human translation with machine translation can leverage the best of both worlds. Machine translation can quickly handle large volumes of content, resulting in cost savings and speed.
The quality of machine translation is continually improving. This combined with its accuracy can be ideal for high-volume content, such as automated customer service responses, real-time customer support, or user-generated reviews.
Human translators can then become the exception rather than the rule, taking on a guiding and training role for your machine translation tool to ensure continuous improvement.
Deploying Multilingual Website Translation
The success of your multilingual website translation begins with thorough research and planning.
Start by understanding your target audience and your competitors.
Knowing who your customers are and what languages they speak is crucial (Tools like the English Proficiency Index and your own market research can be incredibly helpful here).
You should also consider language prioritization based on market potential.
Focus on areas with high demand for your product and a large non-English speaking population.
For example, if you are targeting markets in East Asia, prioritizing languages like Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean could be beneficial. Assess the economic potential of each market to decide which languages to support first.
Understanding your competitors can also provide valuable insights. Analyze their multilingual strategies and identify gaps you can fill.
This research enables you to make informed decisions, ensuring your translation efforts align with your business goals and market opportunities.
Measuring Success
Ultimately, after making changes, you’ll certainly want to make sure that those changes are working as expected.
And while it’s always great to be able to just look at sales accelerating in a new market, there are many more granular metrics that can help you see the whole ROI. One of the more helpful approaches is to A/B test your translated content as you roll out your translation program.
Check top-of-funnel metrics like local SEO performance and website traffic for translated and untranslated versions of content, and be sure to track on-page activity. In addition to data, make sure you’re routinely surveying users, requesting qualitative feedback to give you a better picture of what’s working and what’s not.
Ideally, you’ll have pre-translation sentiment scores and benchmarks to compare against. By tracking these metrics and actively seeking user feedback, you can ensure your multilingual strategy effectively supports your business objectives.
Whether it’s boosting user engagement or generating new revenue, translating your website offers a range of clear benefits.
By utilizing the right Translation Management System and taking a nuanced approach, you can become more user-centric and provide a consistently better customer experience. Here, we’ve explored a glimpse into the benefits that website translation offers.
