India, a country with thousands of languages and dialects is becoming the largest market for localisation. Businesses often struggle to reach customers, as most of their products and services use English. Out of the 1.3 billion Indians, only around 100 million speak English.
As the Indian language user base grows, online businesses need to communicate effectively with the right users across all messaging channels.
One of the key interactions that can influence a customer’s decision is the website – one of your strongest digital assets. This highlights the importance of website localisation. About 70% of Indian internet customers trust local language content. With so many languages and buying preferences, offering a personalised, local experience to your customers will help you win their loyalty and increase customer engagement. In this article, we’re going to discuss 5 key website localisation steps that will help you streamline the localisation process.
What is Website Localisation?
Website localisation refers to the process of adapting an existing website to the language, cultural norms, and preferences of a specific target market. For instance, you want to expand your business into the local markets of India, say Gujarat. Then, you might want to translate your website into Gujarati, as it is the most spoken language in that region.
Unlike mere translation, localisation involves modifying numerous elements of the site. This ensures that the website resonates with local users. This may include:
- Translating texts
- Adapting images and colours
- Modifying layouts to suit cultural preferences
- Ensuring that all functionalities are compatible with local standards
The goal of localising a website is to create a seamless and engaging experience for users in different regions. This makes them feel that your website is designed specifically for them.
How to Localise a Website?
Localising a website can be time-intensive and may seem overwhelming at first. However, it becomes manageable and rewarding by following a structured approach. Read on to discover the 5 steps to get your website localisation started.
Stay ahead of the competition by following these five website localisation steps to get your website localisation started.
1. Analyse your target market:
Determine your localisation strategy before spending on localising your content. Start identifying the target region where your product or services will be most successful.Ask the following questions about your target market:
- What is the growth rate of the target market?
- What is the literacy rate?
- Is there an interest in your product?
- How much is the competition?
- What are the preferred languages?
- What are consumers’ buying habits?
Exploring these questions will help you decide on a cost-effective website localisation strategy. Website localisation ROI depends significantly on how well the local users accept your message maintaining the same wit and wisdom as the original. At the preliminary stage, start with 1 or 2 languages to test the performance of your multilingual website.
2. Chalk out your multilingual SEO strategy
After identifying your target market and language, couple your localisation efforts with a robust multilingual SEO strategy. Each language has its own set of words, expressions, and phrases. Choose the right keywords and avoid direct translation of keywords, as this leads to misinterpretation of the website message.
For example, in the banking industry, terms like fund, loan, deposit, and account statement have different SEO values and meanings in other languages, and so on. Your content should be tailored to the local audience and the way they communicate. With the rise in popularity of voice searches, which are more conversational than desktop searches, it’s crucial to choose the right keywords for your target market.
Customers are constantly searching for websites in their native language, so it’s important to keep developing your SEO strategy. Assign a local SEO specialist to prepare keyword lists and provide your translators with a comprehensive glossary of keywords for accurate translation right context.
3. Choose the right Localisation partner
The most crucial step in the website localisation process is choosing the right localisation partner. This choice will make your localisation faster and more cost-effective. Here are some options to consider:
1. Manual Localisation:
Many businesses believe having an in-house localisation team is convenient and cost-effective. They can quickly respond to changes due to their understanding of organisational needs.
However, this comes with many complexities. A business requires a centralised setup to translate and manage daily operations efficiently to manage website localisation. The manual process also requires significant resources, effort, and expertise. It may take longer to launch your website if you don’t have the right infrastructure.
For example, suppose, you have a large volume of content to localise and your team lacks experience with the target audience or industry. They might struggle to resonate with the local audience, which may lead to higher error rates. In addition, hiring expensive localisation experts will lead to increased long-term costs. As the complexity of the project grows, it can become more challenging to meet deadlines and maintain quality.
Website localisation is an ongoing process that requires consistent effort and commitment. You must make updates in real time alongside new content on the source site, once your multilingual site is live. Manual localisation is a continuous and typically costly process, which makes an automated solution a better option.
2. Language technologies:
After understanding the complexities of in-house localisation, you should look for a faster, easier method. An automated multilingual website localisation platform can simplify the process of localising, hosting, publishing, and launching a website in multiple Indian languages. Reverie’s Anuvadak is one such platform. It automates various tasks, including translating, hosting, and scaling localised websites. This allows real-time changes and helps in building an SEO presence in Indian languages.
Anuvadak offers detailed analytics, rapid localisation with Reverie’s neural machine translation engine, and integration with Prabhandhak, a unified translation management system.
As an automated platform, Anuvadak is user-friendly and minimises functions with minimal user intervention. This keeps your localised presence updated with minimal effort.
The platform can scale down website localisation time by 40% and save as much as 60% of the localisation and content management costs.
With Reverie’s Anuvadak 2.0, the entire user journey across dynamic websites like e-commerce sites can now be localised:
- Anuvadak integrates with AI-enabled translation management, reducing translation time significantly and delivering visually appealing translations.
- Anuvadak reduces the dependency on IT, with no coding required to launch new languages.
- Unlike on-demand Indic language plug-ins, Anuvadak ensures SEO compatibility for localised webpages, which means that a company’s localised website will start showing up in search queries as Indians increasingly search in their language.
- Anuvadak’s ability to localise dynamic content on the fly, without server dependency, means businesses can go multilingual faster.
- Language-wise, in-depth analytics with the custom timeline is now available as well.
Aunvadak can be integrated with any translation management platform, including Reverie NMT, Prabandhak, Google NMT, and Microsoft NMT, or it can also work with manual translators.
Along with the evolving demand for localised content consumption, investing in an automated localisation process would help you achieve faster results at lower costs. Easily manage your website projects and streamline localisation with Anuvadak 2.0. Read more on Anuvadak’s capabilities in detail.
4. Test before launch
The next step is to test your localised website and linguistic content before it is launched. Localisation testing verifies the accuracy and functionality of a localised version of your region’s website. The testing includes (but is not limited to) inspecting:
- Date and time formats (including numeric formats),
- Interactive text input based on different locales,
- Colour schemes, symbols, and icons supporting various regions,
- Text and graphics appropriateness.
The objective of this testing is to ensure that all components of the website are region-specific.
Another testing is linguistic testing, which verifies the context and language to ensure that the words fit your target audience. The testing includes (but is not limited to) inspecting:
- Typographical errors,
- Grammatical mistakes,
- Presence of cultural taboos,
- Inappropriate texts,
- Misuse of keywords,
- Usability of the UI,
- Untranslated strings.
These tests ensure that your website meets the cultural, visual, social, and linguistic needs of local customers.
5. Track tangible metrics on your multilingual website
Once you have effectively localised your website, the next step is to track your audience engagement and navigation across your multilingual website. Then, compare to analyse how each language’s user base is served and identify areas for improvement. You can analyse some of the important metrics like:
- Language-wise usage,
- Translation progress,
- No. of visitors,
- No.of page views,
- No.of word count, and more.
For instance, If a language has lower engagement across pages, it may need better, more personalised content for its users.
The data collected through analytics can perpetuate your market research, enhance user experience, reduce bounce rates, and increase conversions.
Professional Website Localisation Services
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Reverie: Elevating Your Website Localisation Efforts
Choosing professional website localisation services can significantly streamline the website localisation process. It also helps in ensuring high-quality results. Reverie is a leading language technology company that offers comprehensive localisation solutions with a focus on Indian languages. These solutions are tailored to various business needs. The expertise and innovative tools offered by Reverie ensure that your website resonates with global audiences.
Reverie’s suite of products, including Anuvadak for website localisation, and services empower businesses to seamlessly localise their digital content. Anuvadak is a website localisaiton and translation management platform designed to simplify and accelerate the locaisation process.
Final Thoughts
90% of Indian language internet users consume content in their native languages. This upward trend is expected to continue; localising your website will assist your business in meeting immediate market demands. Anuvadak, a multilingual website management platform, simplifies and enhances localised content management across web platforms while prioritising scale, speed, and ease of use.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I localise my website?
Localising a website involves translating the content, adapting design, and ensuring cultural relevance. Here are the steps you can follow to get started:
- Analysing the target market
- Planning SEO
- Testing thoroughly before launch
How long does it take to localise a website?
Typically, a thorough website localisation can take a few weeks and even months. There are various factors that influence the time required to localise a website:
- Website’s size
- Complexity
- Target languages
How to localise a web application?
To localise a web application, translate interface elements, adapt functionality for different regions, and ensure cultural relevance. In addition, testing and user feedback are essential for a successful localisation process.
How would you structure the localisation process?
You can structure the localisation process by:
- Analysing the target market
- Developing a multilingual SEO strategy
- Choosing a localisation partner
- Testing before launch
- Tracking key metrics post-launch
How much do localization services cost?
The costs for localisation services can vary depending on the complexity and content volume of the project. To get a fair estimate of the localisation costs for your requirements, get in touch with the team by clicking here.
