Translating your site into multiple different languages can bring you many benefits, even if you’re not currently engaging those corresponding markets. If you’re planning to expand internationally in the near future, this can give you a good head start and can allow you to iron out any issues with your presentation well before you actually start deploying your multilanguage content.
Increased Exposure
The most obvious benefit of translating your website into a new language is that you immediately get additional exposure. Even if you don’t currently offer your product or service in that country, you can still gain a lot from building some momentum and getting noticed on the local market.
If you play your cards right, you can carry this momentum forward and utilize it once you actually do start to expand into those new markets. This can allow you to focus your efforts on improving your services and identifying specific issues that need to be addressed in your expansion into those markets.
Understand New Markets as Early as Possible
That brings us to the next important point. You will be able to develop some understanding of those new markets before actually engaging them. This can be very helpful if you’re entering unfamiliar territory, especially if you’re doing it with a product with inherent risks. For example, if there is any possibility for a cultural clash, you’re going to want to resolve that before it’s actually become a problem.
Develop a Sensible Multi-language SEO Plan
SEO is already challenging enough when you’re doing it in your own native language. Things can get really messy once you throw translation into the mix. You have to make sure that you have a solid underlying foundation for every foreign language that you want to support, and it takes some time to build that.
This is why it’s recommended to explore localization as early as possible. You can play with different optimization techniques behind the scenes and then make your site public only once you feel ready to show it to the world. That way, you’ll be able to maximize the impact of your SEO efforts without losing any critical time while your project is already live.
Investigate Which Markets Are Worth Pursuing
Depending on the type of product you’re selling, it may not always be worth investing time and resources into specific markets. Your efforts might be better utilized in other parts of the world. By focusing on bringing your content to an international audience as early as possible, you will be able to identify which markets are actually worth going after, and which ones you can probably ignore for now.
Make sure to track the results of that research! In the long run, you’ll benefit from having an objective overview of the shortcomings of different markets with regard to your product. Once you have that list, you can use it as guidance for expanding your business to new territories.
Improve Customer Relations
As we said above, you don’t necessarily need to serve specific markets to take advantage of your increased presence in them. Once you’ve started to gain some exposure, this can benefit you even without having an actual presence in those corresponding markets. You will be able to improve your relations with your customers, especially if you also offer support services in a localized format.
This can also work towards the previous point. It can give you a good idea of which markets deserve special attention and which ones could be more problematic for your business model. Improving your customer relations on the global market will always impact your local performance. If you manage to get featured in news reports or something along those lines, this can be a great marketing point back home.
Meet Legal Obligations
Making your content available in certain countries sometimes comes with legal obligations. For example, you might be required to provide an imprint for your business if its website is available in some parts of the world. Failing to do that might not have any immediate repercussions if you don’t currently have any presence on those markets.
But if you do decide to expand towards them, you might run into the uncomfortable situation of having to deal with problems arising from your past noncompliance. It’s best to sort out these issues from as early as possible if you have even the slightest idea of taking your business global. Otherwise, the costs associated with fixing these issues can prove threatening to your entire operation.
Of course, this requires not only the services of a competent translation agency, but also working with a good attorney with specific experience in the areas you want to target. Always make sure that you have your legal fronts covered before making any significant expansions to your business.
Lay the Groundwork for Future Localization Efforts
Last but not least, translating your website into a different language will help you work on any future localization plans much more easily. You’ll already have some of the work cut out for you, and you’ll just have to essentially tick boxes off a list.
Good localization can make or break an international business, and its importance can’t be understated. That’s why anything you can do to help yourself out in this regard is always welcome. You might not see the benefits straight away, but you’ll definitely appreciate putting in all that effort at some point in the future.
Conclusion
Translating a company’s website into different languages is usually not an immediate priority for most businesses. Many companies tend to wait until they actually start to expand on the global scene before they put any effort into that. However, this can lead to various problems down the road and can significantly impede your future progress.
It’s best to start preparing for your future global expansion as early as possible if you want to maximize your chances of success. And taking the time to work with a competent translation agency to have your site translated into different languages is one of the best ways to approach that.
