Your website may have taken your business or service global, but not getting the impact you hoped for isn’t something new. Most companies do not achieve the success they were hoping for because they are not following the best practices businesses must follow when going global. However, it is not difficult as long as you understand the ways of the most successful global web brands and aim to emulate them. So, if you are planning to have an impact on your global market, you must adopt the following practices:
30 or More Languages Support
The best and leading global websites have at least north of 30 language support. This is because when you take your website global, you are not just limited to your native language speakers but also catering to customers who speak different languages.
However, translating your website using “Google Translate” or Microsoft’s service won’t lead to high success. These services can only take your company so far. To ensure the success you seek, you need to opt for professional services that go beyond simple translation of the website and mold it to meet the culture of the different countries. Booking.com is an example of a popular travel website that supports over 40 languages.
If you are looking forward to increasing the number of language support on your website, here are the topmost spoken and supported languages, apart from English, by leading websites:
- French
- German
- Japanese
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Italian
- Spanish
- Russian
- Portuguese
- Korean
- Dutch
Improve the Visibility of Local Websites
Discovering the local website is not as easy on every website as on the leading global websites. Locating the local websites is an important aspect of attaining success. Customers who visit your webpage must be able to go to their locally supported webpage without any trouble for a better user experience. The best way to ensure it is easily locatable is to display a global icon on the front page where users can select their country/region and language. The best spot to place the icon is on the website’s header, which is clearly visible.
Support Country Codes
Having a country code on the website helps brand extension into newer markets more than those websites that don’t support them. It makes the website feel local; users will find the information more trustworthy if it has their country code. Users tend to be more loyal to these websites as well. The top websites in the world go out of their way to acquire country codes to ensure every local in different countries feels more attached to the website and has no problem locating their regional web pages.
Do Not Use Country Flags
Many leading websites have stopped using flags to represent countries. Using country flags has become far more challenging because of the people’s different cultural and geopolitical perspectives. For example, people in China can easily be offended by websites that have the Taiwanese flag because they consider it a part of China instead of a different country. Global online leaders, like Google and Facebook, avoid using flags altogether, and so should you if you want your website to fare well worldwide.
You can adopt many other practices to ensure you are on the right track. These will be enough to ensure your website is recognized globally and users visit your pages more frequently than others.