Do you need to translate your entire website if you want to do business globally…?
Depends who you ask.
Conversions rose when Virginia Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau translated their entire website according to a MarketingSherpa case study. (Free access until about June 3, then paid.)
But Multilanguage Search Engine Optimization and Submission (MSEO) says all you need to translate is a search engine optimized page that links to the English language site. Serious customers, they say, will do business with you in English.
Search engine requirements are different in each country says MSEO, and it is necessary to work with search engine optimizers (SEOs) who are familiar with the requirements in their native language. Google has different SEO requirements in different countries, and so do other major search engines. There is huge opportunity for good placement on the foreign web, they maintain, because keyword density on foreign web is like it was in the US in 1995. It is far less competitive and easier to achieve high rankings.
Whichever options you choose, one thing is painfully obvious: not everyone speaks English.
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Since your post sits on the fence, I’ll take a stand – websites should be translated into any language that’s important for their global business. The quote you reference about “serious customers” points out the extent that this company sees multilingual SEO as a traffic-inducing tactic (bad) rather than part of a customer relationship strategy (good).
BL — Thanks for the hotlink and mention. However I must point out that our case study specifically said you should NOT translate your entire site. Instead you should provide foreign language content that’s highly relevant and updated to those readers. For example, VBFun.com includes offers and factoids that only French Canadians care about in their French Canadian section – but no where else.
Peter: I can’t see how one page in another language will index or SEO an entire site. I think that the important parts of the site should be translated.
Anne: Thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding of the case study. That makes more sense.
Okay … I just finished an article on this very same issue. Here’s what I wrote and when the article is officially published, I’ll be sure to share it with everyone:
“Begin with the end in mind: Know your audience. And then design your site for overseas markets with multiple languages but start slowly with one market and one language. Be consistent and offer MORE than just a few pages of translated content. After all, your customer needs to understand your message and without that happening, there is no basis for business.”
Hope that helps.