The Cost of Missing Out (COMO)
If you sell products or services online, and you are only making these available in a single language, you are missing opportunities. Do you rely on the idea that English is widely spoken in a large majority of countries?
In 2011, the European Commission published a report revealing European online language preferences that might be a huge shock to you. (Flash Eurobarometer, Flash EB Series #313, May 2011).
This report found that “although 9 in 10 internet users in the EU said that, when given a choice of languages, they always visited a website in their own language, a slim majority (53%) would accept using an English version of a website if it was not available in their own language”.
So, 53%? That isn’t bad, but note that 90% always visited a website in their own language when given a choice. If you’re selling in a market where content is available in the local language, you’re at a huge disadvantage.
Digging deeper into the country data in this report only 22% of respondents from France strongly agreed with this statement compared to 66% of respondents in Sweden. This might be seen to indicate that Swedish users are more willing to use the web in English, but only when local language versions are not available.
More interestingly the report also presents data on the frequency of using a language, other than the respondents own, for searching or buying products or services. Here’s a summary of the data from a selection of countries:
| Country | All the time | Frequently | Occasionally | Never |
| Germany | 3.3% | 10.4% | 42.7% | 43.0% |
| Spain | 5.9% | 17.7% | 37.7% | 38.0% |
| France | 1.7% | 12.5% | 38.6% | 47.1% |
| Italy | 6.2% | 19.6% | 38.7% | 33.5% |
| Netherlands | 2.1% | 13.0% | 39.9% | 44.8% |
| Sweden | 3.5% | 14.5% | 42.7% | 38.8% |
Note that Swedish and Dutch respondents are just as likely as the others to never search in English, and the percentage respondents that do so all the time is not any higher.
So if you’re still thinking about expanding into new markets, it looks like the level of English as a second language isn’t that significant. Perhaps you should factor in the translation of your website to really make the most of the opportunity?
Yes, But It Is Expensive, Right?
When translating your website, there are 3 basic methods or options available:
- Artificial machine language translations – Using this method, we would simply copy/paste your existing page content into a translation software – then paste the output into your new webpage and go on to the next page. This is without a doubt the most affordable and fastest way to get your website in front of a larger market, instantly.
- Combination of machine language/human translation – We would use the previous method above, but before we send the new content to you for publication, we would go though each page and correct any perceived miscommunications or translation errors. This takes a bit longer, costs a bit more, but these pages would have a better overall conversion rate than the 100% machine language pages would. We currently offer this service in English, Spanish, Chinese, Filipino and Italian.
- Human translation – With this approach, we study your existing content and create your new content as a native speaker of that language. The content will flow smoothly and adhere to be grammatically correct, as if the content was originally written in the user’s language. With this method, your content should immediately connect with the reader and your conversion rate should be as high as your original language content. We currently offer this service in English, Spanish and Filipino.
Let’s Get Started – Our Process
Ok, we’ve convinced you that you are missing out on opportunities – so what’s the next step? Here is what we do and the steps we will take to get your website or webpages in front of potential buyers.
- YOU – Determine which pages you want us to translate.
- YOU – Decide which languages you want translated to. If you want multiple languages, then multiple the number of pages x the number of languages and select that as your quantity.
- YOU – Place your order, make your payment for the number of pages and translation quality level.
- US – We will send you a receipt for your purchase. Our translation team will monitor our ticket system for your content.
- YOU – Send us a new ticket with the Translation Service category. We will communicate to you via this thread until we complete the service.
- US – If you have chosen the option that includes installation, upon successful of the translation of your pages we will login to your website and install your newly translated content. Otherwise, we will upload the newly translated pages, one text file per webpage. Please check these over as soon as possible in order to allow us to make any changes you might have.
Pre-Sales Questions
If you have any questions or concerns that are not covered here, please reach out to us here at our contact form. We try to reply to all queries within 24 hrs.
Take that next, important step and get your products and services in front of more people. Start Today!