Website localisation: three examples of best practice

Transcreation

David Ogilvy, the 20th century advertising executive widely hailed as ‘The Father of Advertising’, famously stated:

I don’t know the rules of grammar… If you’re trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular.

He was referring to the language people use in everyday conversations with each other. If a customer has to work to translate your message, you’ve lost them.

Therefore, communicating in your target market’s everyday language is key to achieving commercial success.

Transcreation, the process of adapting your brand’s identity and message for different cultures and audiences, is extremely important as different groups react differently to various symbols, messages, cues and even colours.

A message that has been successfully transcreated will directly translate into other languages and cultures, evoking the same emotions and carrying the same implications in the target language as it does in the source language.

Transcreation is an extremely important element of website or app localisation and brands that successfully transcreate their content typically have higher user engagement and conversion rates.

Country & language combinations

Where a user lives does not necessarily determine their native language. For instance, there are large expat communities in many countries such as Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Monaco.

These users may want their content in their native language but with prices displayed in the local currencies. Similarly, many countries such as Belgium, India and Switzerland are officially multi-lingual.

So, localised websites should allow for the country and language to be specified independently to suit the user’s preferred language.

Dates & times

Displaying dates and times in the preferred local formats is also recommended as it avoids confusion and allows for an improved user experience.

An obvious example of this is the difference between UK and US date formats. If your site promises to deliver goods on 11/12/13 then UK users would expect this to be 11 December 2013, while American users would think the delivery date is 12 November 2013.

Similarly, in Japan, the date is written with the year first, then month, then day, so presenting the date as shown above to a Japanese user would make them think their goods were being delivered in 2011.

Currency & payment options

For transactional ecommerce stores or sites that offer membership subscriptions, it is really important to display prices in the local currency.

When users arrive at your site, the last thing they will want to do is convert all the prices into values that they can use to make decisions.

Users in different countries also have different payment preferences. For instance, iDeal is the preferred payment method of online buyers in the Netherlands while users in China prefer Alipay, Tenpay and many prefer to pay cash on delivery.

If you don’t offer local payment methods on your transactional site, then you’re going to lose sales to your competitors.

International shipping

It stands to reason that if you want to sell goods internationally you need to offer international shipping.

However, the process of shipping goods internationally is not always straight forward. Many countries have complex regulations regarding customs and duty.

If retailers choose to offer international shipping, it is important that they have clear pricing which includes the cost of shipping and any charges associated with export duties or other taxes.

Local customer service

Businesses often fail to consider customer service as part of their site localisation strategy, often with tragic consequences. When users shop, they often have to request information about products and services and may have to return items after a sale has been completed.

In these situations, it is extremely important that these customers can communicate with a native speaker of the local language.

Local addresses and telephone numbers can also help customers feel confident that they have the necessary local customer service support to make purchasing decisions.

If your site has live chat installed on it you need to make sure that chat agents are native speakers of the customer’s language.

Finally, if your brand is successfully using social media for customer service, then your communities should be managed and moderated by staff with an intimate knowledge of local customs and practices to avoid any miscommunication and associated mishaps.

SEO

In order to successfully compete globally, your site should be well optimised for local search engines.

Site owners should ensure that they are either using the appropriate ccTLD for the target country or if they use subfolders or subdomains, then they should ensure that they use the geolocation targeting features in Google or Bing Webmaster Tools to specify the target country.

Pages should always include titles and meta descriptions in the local language, optimised for the key terms most likely to be used by customers in the target market. Pages should also include the appropriate language meta tags and where appropriate, the rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x” tag for links to articles or pages in other languages.

Canonical tags are recommended for pages likely to contain duplicate content (for instance American and British English language equivalent pages).

Brands should perform keyword research for every region and language separately. The keywords used for on-page SEO should be based on terms that customers are using to search for products and services within a given region, rather than literal translations of terms in the source language.

Here are some great examples of best practice localisation…

Apple

Transcreation

As can be expected, Apple does a great job at localising its site. The company maintains its brand values of innovation and simplicity across the different languages.

However, there are some strange translations of the key message for the iPad: “what will your verse be?” (Quelle sera votre rime?).

Here it should have used the correct translation of ‘verse’ which is ‘couplet’ in French.

Country & language combinations

While the options to change country and language are hidden in the footer and take some time to find, once selected the site is available in over 120 different countries, grouped into regions such as ‘Europe’, ‘Africa, Middle East and India’ and ‘Asia Pacific’.

For countries where more than one language is spoken, different language versions are presented. For instance, users in Belgium can choose between Dutch and French and users in Canada can select English or French.

Dates & times

Apple displays English dates in a format which makes them easy to understand for both UK and US customers, e.g. 19 Dec 2013.

Japanese dates are delivered in the format that Japanese customers are familiar with (YYYY/MM/DD).

SEO

Apple probably doesn’t have to rely much on SEO to drive sales, and it shows.

The site displays the brand name (Apple) and product names (e.g. iPhone 5) in most titles and meta descriptions are functional marketing messages much like you’d find in offline marketing material.

However, where appropriate, all titles and meta descriptions are translated into the local languages.

The site architecture is well structured for SEO with search-friendly URLs. However, all of the URLs are in English. For instance, the ‘Built-in Apps’ page (http://www.apple.com/fr/ipad-air/built-in-apps/) for the French market would be better presented in French with the keyterms ‘apps intégrées’ or the best performing related terms to capitalise on local searches in French.

The site includes canonical tags for pages that may contain duplicate content (for instance in UK and US English). Every page on the site includes the appropriate language meta tag.

Currency & payment options

Apple doesn’t offer the ability to specify country and currency independently. For instance, users who select China are presented with pricing in Renminbi without the ability to change it to an alternative currency.

Apple offers payment in the UK by debit card, credit card or bank transfer and the option of cash on delivery in countries where this option is popular, for instance Russia and China. However, Apple does not offer PayPal as a payment option in most countries but does in Germany.

So if this is successful, Apple may offer PayPal payments in other regions in the future.

International shipping

Apple maintains a bricks and mortar presence in many of the countries featured on the site. Where physical stores are not present, Apple offers international shipping.

The charges for shipping determined by the order value and shipping method to the customer’s address and are calculated beforehand and clearly explained.

Local customer service

Apple is renowned for its customer service and the website is no exception.

Local telephone numbers are presented in the header on every page and live chat options are presented in most languages during the checkout process.

ASOS

ASOS is often recognised by Econsultancy for its best practice approaches to content, SEO and user experience but how does it compare when it comes to localisation?