If you want to know how to drive more global traffic to your website, then website translation and localization are the way to go. This article will show you a strategy for enhancing UX with translation and localization benefits for more global traffic to your website. You can’t have one over the other, as translation and localization are inseparable tag teams.
Under the scope of user retention, the duo is vital for your website’s overall user experience. This article lets you know how a professional translation agency can be your best partner in crime. They will be able to meet your website translation and localization needs with strategy and benefits for enhancing UX. You’ll also get to know what are the top languages and internet user markets.
Enhancing UX with Website Translation & Localization
The Rapid Growth of Non-English Internet Users and Non-English Content
In fact, English is still the lingua franca of the Internet, but that may no longer be the case in the future. More people worldwide own more smartphones and have easier and faster Internet access. That trend then drives up the demand and supply of non-English content.
And those numbers are going up every single day. It’s quite hard to imagine it that way since we’re exposed to English content every day on social media and Google. This reality presents significant challenges to website owners now and more so shortly.
For that, they need professional translation services, specifically website translation. The same goes for website localization services. If you’re familiar with SEO strategies, you’ll know how difficult it is to optimize your website enough for it to rank well in Google’s list of search entries.
Getting Quality Website Translation From a Professional Translation Agency
Is Google Translate or other online language translator software enough for website translation? If it was that simple, why doesn’t everyone do it? That’s because website translation isn’t as straightforward as just plugging in the source text and copy-pasting the translated text.
That’s like saying professional translation is as simple as getting your bilingual/multilingual friend to translate for you. The reality is that professional translation requires advanced language skills beyond bilingual/multilingual abilities.
Indeed, machine translation and the latest AI translation software are doing wonders never seen before. However, they still cannot match the accuracy and quality of human translators, especially in critical and sensitive translation work.
Machines do not understand the cultural and social context. They don’t have the algorithms to decode context; humans naturally do—for most of us, anyway. That said, with a strategy to enhance the UX with the benefits of website translation and localization, you should hire a professional translation company for website translation services.
Any professional translation agency ensures that the translators they connect with have native-level language skills. Not only do they provide general translation services such as technical translation, but also niche and specialized translation services.
Why Website Localization is Critical For Your Multilingual UX
All website owners are looking for ways to attract and retain their audiences. But things get complicated when trying to retain a global multilingual audience. Indeed, website translation is a way of attracting them, but is it enough to retain them? Especially if you’re competing with established local websites?
What makes a good translated multilingual website is one that is localized. As said in the beginning, translation and localization are inseparable tag teams. Localization is simply adapting content suited for the target audience. But just like website translation, website localization isn’t as simple as its definition suggests.
Factors in Proper Website Translation Localization
Localization generally involves considering many factors specific to the target audience. Depending on your website, you should incorporate local currencies, time zones, units of measurement, etc. But other elements in the site localization translation strategy go beyond this.
These include linguistic nuances (dialect, slang, creative expressions), relevant cultural and social norms, aesthetic preferences (layout and color scheme), and religious and political norms.
The first three are reactive measures to make your website relevant and attractive to your target audience. Taking into account religious and political norms is a proactive measure. You don’t want to cite any of these in your website’s content. Depending on the subject, it would invite backlash and even hate from your target audience.
Getting even just these wrongs will most likely affect your website’s UX. You might even see a significant drop in website traffic. But of course, there are plenty of other reasons why your website isn’t holding up well.
Nevertheless, proper localization includes factors highly specific to each country, its culture, and its society. You can only learn so much by looking them up online. You must coordinate with your professional translation agency and request website localization services.
Top Languages And Global Internet User Markets
1- Chinese (Mandarin and Simplified Chinese script)
Apart from China having the world’s largest population, it has the world’s largest internet users. So, translating your website from English to Chinese is a fantastic way of making it accessible to an additional billion people. Most reside in mainland China, but many Chinese ex-pats and immigrant communities live abroad in the U.S. and Europe.
The catch is that reaching out to the mainland Chinese audience is tricky since Google is banned there. Baidu is the dominant search engine in mainland China. So, translating your website from English to Chinese won’t cut it. You’ll also have to submit your website to Baidu and adopt SEO strategies for the Baidu platform.
2- Hindi Website Translation and Localization
Coming in second is Hindi since India is the second-largest internet user audience. Just like China, India houses over a billion people, half of whom are Internet users. India is already rolling out more IT infrastructure to boost Internet access rates, especially in rural areas.
Also, more Indians are owning more smartphones every year. Thus, the country presents great opportunities for website owners. There is a catch, though. Although Hindi is the national language of India, it is just one of India’s regional languages.
India has more than 20 regional languages with millions of speakers and a couple hundred more with sizeable pockets of speakers. Nevertheless, translating your website from English to Hindi is a great way of reaching out to more than hundreds of millions of Hindi speakers worldwide, not just in India.
3- Spanish
The combined numbers of every Spanish-speaking country worldwide make the Spanish internet user another lucrative audience. You can reach audiences from Spain, Latin America, the Caribbean, and even the large Spanish immigrant population in the U.S.
You might be expecting another catch, and yes, there is one. While you can certainly get away with general English to Spanish translations, you’ll enjoy less success that way. You can maximize your retention rate if you localize to each Spanish-speaking country, as they have cultural and social norms.
4- German
If you want your website to have a following from Europe, then you should try translating it from English to German first. Germany has the largest number of internet users in Europe. You can also find German-speaking internet users in countries bordering Germany.
And yes, translating and localizing to the German audience also has a catch. Depending on your website, you should take note of the different cultural and social values, including color schemes that the German people react positively to.
These countries and languages were selected due to the number of their internet users. If they are your target audience, you can also find plenty of success with other languages, such as French, Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Korean.
Website Translation and Localization- Final Takeaway
The number of non-English internet users and non-English content isn’t slowing down at any given moment. In fact, website translation and localization are among the top priorities of many global industries.
It’ll continue to be so as we become more connected economically and digitally. We hope this article on the strategy for enhancing UX with translation and localization benefits for more global traffic to your website has been of help to you!
