Website Localisation
Website localisation is so important for global brands, or any
business/organisation wishing to make their services or products available to
foreign markets. If you wanted to buy widgets that you know are made in Germany,
but there web page was only available in German, then you would probably look
for another supplier. That's what your competitors do! Here are a few facts:
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English speakers accounted for 27.3% of users in 2010; the second most used
language? Chinese, at 22.6%, that's less than 5% difference.
Internet World Stats
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More than a third of queries are submitted in a European language other than English, (Google, the Google Zeitgeist, June 2003).
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Annual net-influenced sales rose to more than €20 billion across Europe in December 2002 and contributed €5 billion in Germany alone (Forrester Research).
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Visitors to a site are more than four times as likely to buy from a website with content in their own language and spend twice as long on the page (Independent research).
The easiest way to localise your site is to do a straight translation of the
text and link to it from your main site. However, research shows that this can
be confusing to non-English cultures.
Website localisation means conveying the sense of
the message, not just translating word by word, a.k.a transliteration. It also
includes the spelling. For instance, "localisation" is properly spelt with an
"s" in English UK, but with a "z" in the USA. Likewise you wouldn't talk about
an escalator, but an elevator. You can see how linguistic differences can
present a barrier to your potential market, simply by not being familiar enough
with their linguistic styles. And we share the same language. Translating, word
by word into a foreign language produces gibberish.
There are often other issues to consider. For instance, translating from
English in some European languages can mean that the amount of text increases
(by 16% in the case of Spanish, German is often larger). This can be a problem
if you have a template system already in place. So we will work with you to
ensure that the website translation we provide addresses as many issues as
possible - and deliver on time and to budget.
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