The world has become a global village, and it is not restricted by boundaries. The products that are made in one corner of the world are made accessible to the entire world within seconds. This has become possible due to digitisation, but the customer wants products and services in their native language. Every country has a different culture and they speak different languages. To penetrate different markets, it is essential to translate your products and services according to the cultural and regional intricacies. The question is how this can be done. Here comes the concept of localization.
What is Localization
Is localization another word for translation? No! Localization is the process of resonating products and services to specific local markets. It is one step ahead of translation. The translation is the process of translating context from one language to another while localization possesses more than that. Localization is about using the formatting, colors, payment methods according to the culture of the region.
Why You Require Localisation
To show your presence and to sustain in the global world, you need to communicate with the target market in their way of communication. Let’s have a look at the benefits of localization.
Understanding Language Nuances
Localization is about adapting the product and service specification according to the requirements of the target market. No matter which language they speak and in which region they reside, localization ensures the same level of accuracy and understanding that you invest in your source language.
To attain business goals, a content strategy is used. The localization strategy resonates with content strategy to assist different languages and locals. Sometimes local content needs to be changed. For example, suppose a document is required by the employee in the departmental store regarding employee benefit. The version written for the United States should be different from the content written for Canadian employees. Apart from content changes, the company should also provide a translation in the Spanish language as a large Hispanic community resides in the USA. With the help of a localization strategy, you can forecast global market demands and make product specifications more authentic.
Facilitates Penetrating into New Markets
Entering a foreign market is a very difficult task, and you have to come across many barriers such as logistic hurdles, legal issues, and cultural and regional differences. These hurdles will slow you down. Although localization cannot overcome all these problems, it can help in overcoming cultural and regional nuances. It helps you to avoid embarrassing translation blunders. With a good localization strategy, you can penetrate the new market with ease.
Enhances Customer Loyalty
Your website gives the first impression of your business. It acts as a virtual office. If customers find your website appealing, then they will spend more time on your site and browse multiple pages. They get inquisitive about your business. If you localize your website by using the native language, then foreign customers will have a pleasant experience. If one customer enjoys a good browsing experience, he will spread positive word of mouth. In this way, more customers will come to browse your website. The better experience they have, the more are their chances of becoming loyal customers.
Gives You a Competitive Advantage
It has been researched that 75% of global consumers prefer to buy from a website that is in their native language. Customers are attracted to websites that have familiar imagery, colors, and text as per their country’s values and beliefs. If you are not localizing your website on time, then you will lag behind the competition.
Improves Ranking
The localization of your website helps to deliver the right message to the target audience. It also helps in optimizing your content for global search engines. While localization, you need to consider the culturally specific images, speed of the site, and the keywords that are mostly looked upon. It will increase your ranking. Let’s see how!
If you want to penetrate the global market of tourism, then you need to show your digital presence. If you don’t appear in the search results, then you need to say goodbye to the market. To continue with your business, you need to optimize your website with common keywords like holiday rentals or vacation rentals. Australians and Brits go on holidays, not on vacations so the appropriate words should be used on websites because people from different regions search differently. Moreover, not all countries use google or bing. In China, the largest search engine is Baidu. So localization at the SEO level needs to consider all these facts to improve ranking.
Wrapping Up
The objective of every business is to increase its sales and generate revenue. Whether you are running a small business or big business, localising your e-commerce site helps to reach potential customers as per their requirements. As a result, sales are enhanced and your business reaps high revenue. Localisation helps to identify new job opportunities in different markets of the world. So are you ready to grab the global business opportunities?