In today’s multicultural and increasingly international world, running a business provides more opportunities than ever before. However, taking advantage of these opportunities is somewhat dependent on good website design, which will need to be truly multilingual to reach its potential. Here are just a few things you’ll need to keep in mind when you’re building your multilingual website in order to push it to its maximum potential.
1. Don’t use Google Translate
This is one major mistake that many companies make, and by making this mistake a company can immediately come across as unprofessional, confusing, and potentially even offensive given the prospective translation errors. If you can ensure that the content of your website is translated well into every language it is hosted in, you can keep your international customers and prospective international expansion without any risk of losing them to bad wording.
2. Don’t forget the basics of web design
Whilst the multilingual features of your website are important, you need to remember that each user is only looking at one language. That means you need to impress them just as much as a monolingual website. Remembering the basics of design and ensuring that your website functions in an efficient and pleasing way are still as vital as ever. People rarely notice good web design, but letting it slip could be a major problem in the long run.
3. Use a global style and format
Similar to the point above, one thing that is key to your site is ensuring that your entire website has the same format across each language it’s translated into. Otherwise, you risk one part of the website falling behind the rest and deteriorating in quality. Plus, keeping a website with potentially dozens of formats up to date would take a lot of time which could be better spent on improving your single format.
4. Consider cultural differences
Cultures around the world are hugely variable. For example, in China, the number “4” is considered to be deeply unlucky, in the same way, that “13” is in the Anglosphere. Although this is a minor example, small issues like this need to be considered in order to avoid causing offence. Angering an entire culture with your banner would be unwise, to say the least, so being culturally sensitive in your design process is the best way to avoid these risks.
5. Ensuring your digital efforts reflect your export business development strategy
International business development is about designing and implementing an export strategy that results in the successful sale of your goods or services abroad. If you are looking to grow your company’s international business, then your multi-language website should be the digital reflection or your export strategy.
In order for your website to reflect your export business development strategy, you also need to make sure that all of the information on it is accurate, for example from the way you present, the tone of voice, relevant to distribution channels, client demographics and trade law/data compliance, through to customer service numbers in different countries.
