We are living in a melting pot of culture on our planet, so it stands to reason that if you have a global audience, that you look for the best ways to appeal to them. Your whole audience right now could speak English, but keeping your website that way could alienate users of other linguistic backgrounds. One day, you may want to grow your business into China, but if your website cannot be read in Chinese, you’re going to instantly put off people in that area. When you translate your website into the language to which you want to aim your business, you are going to be seen as a forward thinker, and that’s how you drum up new interest.
You may not be able to completely create a website in a new language just yet, but you can invest in professional translation services and toggle that to your site in the form of translated content. But why should you do this? Why should you invest in translating your website and your content as much as possible? Let’s dive in!
A Bigger Audience. You want to expand but you can’t, because a large slice of the internet pie is not familiar with English as a first or second language. It may feel like every website is English, but it’s just not the case! A multilingual website is going to open doors you didn’t know you could open and you’ll be able to invite a huge audience in. By offering your website in more than just English, you’re going to appeal to those in the country of your choice. It’s going to help you to grow your business better and you can grow as a result.
Native Traffic. When your website is being tested in a country that speaks another language, native speakers are going to be more likely to buy from you because you went to the effort of ensuring that you spoke their language. Users are more likely to follow through and convert their visit to a purchase if the content on the website is in their mother tongue. Chinese is the second most common language online, but so few websites use it to talk to others and advertise to others. You could make a difference here by ensuring that people use your site, simply by offering a translation option.
You Become More Accessible. Your business and what you offer are more attractive to those looking for what you’re saying. You are more accessible to people when you offer the right language. Making your site accessible makes your business more attractive, and that is a great way to build more conversions. People will trust and understand you better, and if you can speak their language they’ll tell other people the same thing – and that’s how word of mouth kicks in.
Improving SEO. The most important thing to remember is that you can massively improve your SEO strategy when you are multilingual. Google indexes and ranks their websites in a way that means your website can shoot to the top of the SERPs.