Expanding an e-commerce website to appeal to an international audience is a huge step forward in building your customer base. As the e-commerce market continues to expand, with expectations for it to surpass $5.55 trillion in 2022, your company has the potential to grow significantly. But that can’t happen without the right website, content, and copy to sell and market effectively to your potential customers. Companies like Amazon, IKEA, and Nike have mastered the ability to sell to a global audience by creating user-friendly, multilingual e-commerce websites fueled by translation and localization. As your company aims to achieve global success, here are eight common mistakes to watch out for when translating e-commerce websites.
1. Relying on automated translation tools
Today, there are plenty of automated translation tools available. From WordPress‘s translation feature to Google Translate, these solutions present a quick and easy way to translate your website’s copy at the click of a button. While the convenience of these options is tempting, automated translators have serious limitations. Since they are powered by technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, translation tools often miss the mark with non-standard language and idiomatic expressions. That’s why they will quite often generate literal translations that may have a different meaning than what you intended—and could even be offensive to your audience.
2. Neglecting multilingual SEO
E-commerce websites rely heavily on traffic generated by search engine optimization (SEO), the process of improving the quality and volume of website traffic by using keywords to help your website rank higher in online searches. This entails researching and using terms and phrases that can help improve your website’s visibility on results pages from search engines such as Google and Bing. When translating e-commerce websites, it’s essential to research which keywords are most effective in a target location and language. Neglecting to do so can hamper globalization efforts and make it difficult to get your brand in front of new audiences.
3. Forgetting to localize product details
Translation would be simpler if all countries used a standardized measurement for things like sizing and currency—but that’s just not the case. A woman’s size 4 in the UK, for instance, is equivalent to a size 0 in the US. The US uses the dollar for currency, while 27 EU states use the euro. When translating e-commerce websites for a global audience, you must take into account your target customers’ local standards to be certain they have the correct information to shop hassle-free. Depending on your website and provider, you may be able to automatically localize currency, sizes, and more for customers in different regions, based on their IP address.
4. Failing to provide customer support in the customer’s language
Technical issues and product or service questions are sure to arise for online merchants. To provide your global customer base with adequate support, FAQs and customer service assistance should be available in languages other than your own. Multilingual agents, chatbots, translated FAQs, and local support numbers ensure that your customers get the help and service they need when shopping with your brand.
5. Not updating product names and descriptions
Translating e-commerce websites is more than updating sizes and currency; it’s also making sure that product descriptions are appropriate and relatable. This may include changing a product’s name to something more suitable for a global audience, depending on the item’s use or the name’s literal translation. Words have different interpretations and connotations across languages and cultures, so it’s important to consider how consumers will perceive them. For example, when the Japanese game Pac-Man was localized for promotion in the American market, Nintendo feared that the original Japanese title, which translated to “Puck-Man” in English, could be offensive to American consumers. They changed the name and the game has enjoyed more than 40 years of popularity.
6. Abandoning your brand’s identity
A company’s brand and image should be consistent in e-commerce—no matter the location. Literal translations of branding material can take away from your brand’s personality and image. When translating and localizing website copy and content, consider how global customers will perceive your brand and how it aligns with your originally-intended vision and values.
McDonald’s approach to localizing its menu and marketing is the perfect example of how to adapt to different regions successfully. The company, primarily known for its beef burgers throughout much of the world, doesn’t sell pork or beef in India; this practice generally appeals to its Muslim and Hindu customers in that country. However, McDonald’s has retained its core values of providing fast service and cleanliness at its locations in India and all other countries.
7. Translating only portions of your website
You already updated your FAQs, product names, and descriptions, but what about your terms of use, privacy policies, and return and exchange policies? This information is essential to online shopping customers and is critical to maintaining their trust and confidence in your business. Be sure to cover all your bases and do the necessary translations for your global audience to avoid any misunderstandings and other similar messaging problems in the future.
Not only can failure to translate your website in its entirety confuse your customers, but it can also confuse search engines. A website with content in a mix of languages can hamper SEO efforts and lead to lower search rankings.
8. Failing to hire a professional translation service provider
Translating content yourself or relying on automated translation tools can be a recipe for disaster. At best, it can be labor intensive and frustrating. At worst, it can lead to confusing, unclear, and even offensive errors that negatively impact your business and sales. Qualified professional translation service providers have the background and experience needed for accurate and precise translations that resonate with your target audience.
Translation is a complex process that is crucial to simplifying the shopping experience for customers in other countries, but you certainly don’t have to handle it on your own! Our team of specialists here at TrueLanguage can help you avoid all these common mistakes. We have extensive knowledge of cultural nuances, SEO expertise to improve website visibility, and insight into how your customers write and speak. Additionally, we use innovative translation technology like translation memory (TM) and computer-assisted technology (CAT) to guarantee consistent, timely, and accurate translations.
Contact us today if you’re ready to take your e-commerce website to the next level and create the ideal experience that keeps your customers coming back for more.
