If you have a business with aspirations to flourish, you must be able to communicate with the widest possible range of people. Your website is one of the primary forms of communication with your market. You may wonder why you would ever need to translate your website to other languages if you are serving a local community. However, here in America and in many other regions, you will find that communities are becoming more and more diverse with people who speak several different languages outside of English. This means that even if you are trying to market your services locally, there may still be language barriers that you must overcome in order to maximize your site traffic and revenue. Thanks to technology, there are a number of tools and resources that make it possible for you to translate your website content.
Here is a list of reasons you should consider making your website multilingual:
Gain a larger audience
Though the majority of content found online is written in English, it ranks only third in the number of highest native speakers among all languages. People like to shop for products and services in their native language if they can. Even if you plan to only cover local and regional markets now, you may be cutting yourself off from entering new markets in the future if your website is only available in English.
In many areas of the United States, you’ll hear many languages in stores, schools and parks. Adapting to the global nature of your community will allow you to provide services to any home or property owner.
Improve your SEO rankings
As a website owner, you rely on key words to help improve your rankings on search engine results pages. Translating your website will require you to add relevant key words in other languages too. While this may be time-consuming and involve a bit of waiting time to see results, you will find that it is totally worth it once your website sees an increased number of new and most importantly, organic website visitors.
Outdo your competition to win more business
There is a great chance that competitors in your market have not thought about translating their website into other languages. This gives you the upper hand over your competition as it shows your customers that you’re taking the extra step to give them the most comfortable experience in regard to how you communicate with them.
Increase your customers’ trust
Most users won’t return to a website if they have a confusing or otherwise negative experience. Taking the time to adapt your website to several languages makes your customers more confident in your business. In addition to a need for your products or an admiration of your branding and messaging, a multilingual website will only add another layer of reasoning for a customer to choose you.
Increase your revenue/conversion rates
Ultimately, your overall objective is to make a sale. All the other benefits are set up for you to achieve the final goal of turning a potential customer into a regular customer. According to a survey conducted by Common Sense Advisory, users are more likely to buy from a website or online store if content is written in their native language. Their findings show:
- 55% of users prefer to shop online in their native language.
- 53% of users consider content to be more convenient if it is in their native language.
- 60% of users rarely or never buy at English-only websites.
- 74% of customers are more likely to purchase a second time if support is provided in their native language.
It is true that website translation can cost a great deal of money. Thanks to the introduction of website translation plugins and tools, it will be an investment in which you will continuously see return. At the very least, having a website that can be translated into many languages is simply feature that will help you stand out from the rest. Not to mention it will encourage your site visitors to remember your business when they are looking for a product or service. If none of these reasons are convincing, it may be beneficial to know that there are zero hazards attached to creating a multilingual website. Take advantage of one of the very few risk-free ways to expand your business and reach new customers.
Learn more about using your website to grow you business with our guide on website traffic.
