The words ‘export’ and ‘localisation’ should always go hand in hand. Any business with an international target market needs to properly address the cultural nuances that are inherent across the world, and it all begins with a company’s website.

Sure, translation plays an important part in converting a website for the global market, but there is a lot more to the localisation process than simply translating a piece of text verbatim.

Organisations that fail to localise their website, adapting it for different countries and cultures, are missing a trick. By using inappropriate tone, terminology and style, core messages are often lost and overall confidence in the brand diminishes.

Seemingly trivial points can cause major confusion. For example, in the UK ‘commas’ are used in numbers as ‘thousands’ separators (1,000), but in many parts of Europe (e.g. Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Italy), a decimal point is used (1.000). In Switzerland, an apostrophe is used (1’000). Some countries don’t use any thousands separator at all. There are many such examples within the relatively small confines of Europe, let alone the rest of the world.

Keyword research and SEO is an important part of website localisation. Often the dictionary translations aren’t what people use to search for products or services online. Furthermore, some terms won’t need translated at all – Germany, for example, often use English terminology, especially with technical and web related subjects.

The only sure way a business can be confident its website has been fully and properly localised is to use a professionally qualified, native-speaking translator, living in the country for which the translation is intended. Cutting corners can be counterproductive, as customers need be confident in a brand.

tags: Export, Localisation