How to Localize Your Site: 11 Practical Tips

How to Localize Your Website: 11 Practical Tips and Tricks

Website localization is the process of adapting your website to fit the needs, preferences, and expectations of a specific target audience. It goes beyond simply translating the content into another language, but also involves adjusting the design, functionality, and cultural aspects of your website to make it more appealing and user-friendly for your potential customers.

Website localization can help you expand your reach, increase your conversions, and boost your brand reputation in the global market. However, it can also be a challenging and complex task that requires careful planning, execution, and evaluation. To help you succeed in your website localization project, here are 11 practical tips and tricks that you can follow:

1. Identify your goals and KPIs for website localization

Before you start localizing your website, you need to have a clear idea of why you are doing it and what you want to achieve. What are the specific markets or regions that you want to target? What are the benefits and challenges of entering those markets? How will you measure the success of your website localization project?

By defining your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for website localization, you can align your strategy with your business objectives, allocate your resources effectively, and track your progress and results.

2. Conduct a thorough market research

To localize your website effectively, you need to understand the characteristics, preferences, and expectations of your target audience. You can conduct a thorough market research to gather relevant data and insights about your potential customers, such as their demographics, behaviors, needs, pain points, values, culture, language, and online habits.

By conducting a market research, you can tailor your website content, design, and functionality to suit the needs and preferences of your target audience. You can also identify the best practices and standards for website localization in each market or region.

3. Choose the right languages for your website

One of the most important decisions you need to make for your website localization project is choosing the right languages for your website. You need to consider several factors when selecting the languages for your website, such as:

The size and potential of the market or region
The demand and competition for your products or services
The language preferences and proficiency of your target audience
The availability and cost of translation resources
The legal and regulatory requirements for each language

You can use tools like Google Analytics or Bing Webmaster Tools to analyze the traffic sources and locations of your website visitors. You can also use tools like Bing Search or Google Trends to find out the popularity and trends of keywords related to your niche in different languages.

4. Use a professional translation service

While there are many tools and platforms that offer automated or machine translation for websites, they are not reliable or accurate enough for professional purposes. Machine translation can result in errors, inconsistencies, or mistranslations that can damage your brand image and reputation.

Therefore, it is advisable to use a professional translation service for your website localization project. A professional translation service can provide high-quality, accurate, and culturally appropriate translations for your website content. A professional translation service can also handle different types of content formats, such as text, images, videos, audio, or code.

You can choose from different types of professional translation services depending on your needs and budget:

Human translation: This is the most traditional and reliable type of translation service that involves human translators who are native speakers of the target language. Human translation can ensure accuracy, quality, and cultural relevance for your website content.
Machine translation with human post-editing: This is a hybrid type of translation service that combines machine translation with human post-editing. Machine translation can provide fast and cost-effective translations for large volumes of content. Human post-editing can improve the quality and accuracy of machine translations by correcting errors or inconsistencies.
Crowdsourced translation: This is a type of translation service that involves crowdsourcing or outsourcing translations to a large network of translators who work online. Crowdsourced translation can provide fast and affordable translations for simple or low-priority content. However, crowdsourced translation may not guarantee quality or consistency for complex or high-priority content.

5. Create a translation style guide for each language

A translation style guide is a document that defines the rules and guidelines for translating your website content into a specific language. A translation style guide can help you maintain consistency, quality, and brand voice across different languages and platforms.

A translation style guide should contain information such as:

The tone, style, and voice of your brand
The terminology, vocabulary, and expressions to use or avoid
The grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization rules
The date, time, number, currency, and measurement formats
The cultural references, symbols, colors, images, or icons to use or avoid

You should create a separate translation style guide for each language that you want to localize your website in. You should also update your translation style guide regularly to reflect any changes or updates in your website content or brand guidelines.

6. Use a content management system and a translation management system

A content management system (CMS) is a software or platform that allows you to create, manage, and publish your website content. A CMS can help you streamline your website localization process by:

Separating your content from your code
Storing your content in an external resource
Using tokens or variables to display strings from an external resource
Supporting different languages and character sets
Allowing language switching and redirection

Some examples of popular CMS platforms are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Shopify, or Wix.

A translation management system (TMS) is a software or platform that allows you to manage your translation projects and workflows. A TMS can help you automate and optimize your website localization process by:

Integrating with your CMS and other tools
Extracting and importing your content for translation
Assigning and tracking your translation tasks and resources
Providing quality assurance and review tools
Exporting and publishing your translated content

Some examples of popular TMS platforms are Smartling, Transifex, Lokalise, Crowdin, or Phrase.

7. Design for multiple languages and cultures

Website localization is not only about translating the content, but also about adapting the design and functionality of your website to fit the needs and preferences of your target audience. You need to consider the following aspects when designing your website for multiple languages and cultures:

Layout: You need to design your layout to accommodate different text lengths, font sizes, orientations, and directions. For example, some languages may require more space than others, some languages may use larger or smaller fonts than others, some languages may read from right to left or top to bottom instead of left to right or bottom to top.
Images: You need to use images that are relevant, appropriate, and appealing for your target audience. For example, some images may have different meanings or connotations in different cultures, some images may contain text that needs to be translated or removed, some images may not be suitable for certain markets or regions due to legal or ethical reasons.
Colors: You need to use colors that are consistent, attractive, and meaningful for your target audience. For example, some colors may have different associations or emotions in different cultures, some colors may be more visible or accessible than others, some colors may be reserved for certain purposes or occasions in certain cultures.
Symbols: You need to use symbols that are clear, recognizable, and understandable for your target audience. For example, some symbols may have different interpretations or implications in different cultures, some symbols may be more familiar or intuitive than others, some symbols may be offensive or inappropriate in certain cultures.

8. Localize your SEO strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of your website on search engines like Google or Bing. SEO can help you drive more organic traffic and conversions to your website. However, SEO is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. You need to localize your SEO strategy for each market or region that you want to target.

To localize your SEO strategy, you need to consider the following aspects:

Keywords: You need to conduct keyword research for each language and market that you want to target. You need to find out the most relevant and popular keywords that your target audience uses to search for your products or services. You need to use those keywords in your website content, titles, headings, meta tags, URLs, and links.
Content: You need to create content that is informative, engaging, and valuable for your target audience. You need to use the language, tone, style, and voice that suits your brand and audience. You need to provide content that answers the questions, solves the problems, or fulfills the needs of your target audience.
Links: You need to build links that are relevant, authoritative, and trustworthy for your target audience. You need to link to other websites that are related to your niche and market. You need to get links from other websites that have high domain authority and traffic in your target market.
Localization signals: You need to provide localization signals that help search engines understand the location and language of your website. You need to use hreflang tags to indicate the language and region of each page of your website. You need to use geo-targeting tools like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools to specify the country or region that you want to target.

9. Test and optimize your localized website

After you have localized your website content, design, functionality, and SEO strategy for each market or region that you want to target, you need to test and optimize your localized website for quality assurance and performance improvement.

You can test and optimize your localized website by using the following methods:

User testing: This is the method of testing your localized website with real users who belong