Make Your Website Effective in New Markets with Website Localization
Effective Website Localization Includes Several Services
Whether a company wants to expand service offerings to deliver them in a foreign context, make their services more accessible to travelers from other countries, or use their website to market and sell products to consumers in international markets, website localization has become an important survival step in many industries. The imperative of having an internationally accessible website based on thorough localization services is clear to anyone conscious of how the rest of the world uses the internet to access information, products, and services.
But website localization is much more than simple translation. Several free internet services can do that in seconds. Localizing a website has to make the site able to do more than convey decently translated information. Firms looking to localize their website and unfamiliar with the process may be taken in by offers of a quick turnaround where the vendor simply translates the entire content of the site and leaves the implementation to the firm – the low cost-per-word is appealing. But as with other products that need to be localized to sell in a new market, a website will not succeed unless it appeals to potential customers in the new market.
Effective websites subtly play on shared cultural beliefs to influence visitors. For example, many environmental and food websites in the United States use designs with the colors green and purple to convey health, vitality, and environmental friendliness. Yet in Brazil, purple is the color of mourning, while green is considered a sign of technology in Japan and good luck in the Middle East. These details have a profound impact on a website’s ability to help a company achieve its goals, so website localization requires knowledge about the characteristics and beliefs of the target market as well the ability to manage at least basic website design.
These differences can affect the kinds of layouts visitors find comfortable, how they interact with learning new information and making purchases, and the kinds of language, images, and concepts that they find offensive. So to make website localization worth the investment, firms should avoid translation services that lack this level of depth and expertise.
Please contact us for more information; we are available by phone at 425.284.7800, or email us at adainfo@adaquest.com.
