Localization is a wide and specialized process that not only means translating your web content, but also customizing it according to various targets’ familiarity. This process entails activities of adapting your website into, not only different languages but also a variety of cultural contexts. It addresses language, cultural preference of the content, overall design and images used. Research shows that a bigger potential market lies in the developing countries that have a variety of cultural preferences.
Localization and internationalization must be part of an online business that wishes to work globally. Localization can be achieved through the following ways;
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- Partnering with local service providers.
- Showing off some of your local clients in your portfolio or brochures.
- Publish an article in the local newspaper
- List your address and phone number on your site, as well as get listed in online Business Directories that are likely to search the internet for your services
- Choose on keywords to target, by researching on data about habits of locals
- Optimize your pages according to the localized keywords
Customers are more likely to see that you have their interest at heart rather than branding their business if you work to provide content that is clearly in their consideration. This can be achieved by making the content relevant to them and in a format that they can relate to. The following reasons illustrate why it is advisable to localize one’s online business;
- Local branding; one should consider their target audience in naming their domain. Having a local-related domain name is likely to sale your brand more as most people like to be associated with their locality. The major step in establishing a web presence is choosing an appropriate domain name. Online businesses may want to select domain names localized for their targeted markets. Using locally branded domain names increase their brand’s awareness, website address recall and impact scales and loyalty. This will be of benefit to them as most local search engines display locally relevant content by filtering search results to include country-code domains only.
- It builds the best user experience possible; it will attract online users back to your site for a subsequent visit even after they were there before. A localized website can increase web visitor retention because it speaks their language and culture.
- It will scale up your global business activity; developing a website considering your target audience’s cultural preference in your content is likely to increase your numbers. Localization is a fast, efficient and economical way to expand the size of your business activities. Content based on a company’s website if spread via the rising number of social media networks will increase conversations between the company and feedback from their audience.
- To reduce the risk of misinterpretation; publishing a website in a particular native language and in regards to various cultures will reduce the risk of the content being misinterpreted or misunderstood by the audience.
- Expanding your audience; for instance, a monolingual site only addresses issues for those who understand that single language, while there are 7,000 other languages globally. This locks out more than half of the potential clients.
In conclusion, a company’s website is its major digital marketing asset used by the organization to reach its prospective clients, whether to inform them of new or existing products. Therefore, brands should work to demonstrate local cultural sensitivity in regards to the particular culture they are targeting.
