Success is a great motivator. Once your business grows to great heights in your own country, you will be more confident than ever to go international. Understandably because global trade means better potential returns, a broader platform to share your products or services, greater access to new talent, diverse company markets, and improved company reputation. No matter what, you can never go wrong with globalizing your business.
Reaping the benefits of international business is easy if you implement great strategies at the point of entering cross-border markets. In this article, we will focus on 4 things you can do when bringing your business to the international level. And by the time you finish reading this piece, you should be able to steer your company to the global stage right away. With that said, let’s highlight these all-important tips one by one:
Translate Your Site
To maximize sales, you need to make your website easily accessible to your target market by using their language. Today, many enterprises invest in localization and translation of their sites to tap into the large markets that exist outside of their geographical territories.
What are the benefits of having a multi-language website? One, it attracts more traffic given that people are more inclined to interact with an enterprise that uses their native language. Also, when search engines see that a site uses a language that is native to a particular region, they start offering it to people in that part of the world.
Better engagement is yet another advantage of having a multi-language site. Studies have concluded that at least 90 percent of internet users in the European Union will opt to visit a website in their native language. This view is most likely to be held by users across the globe thus showing that using the appropriate language boosts interaction with sites.
Most importantly, having a multi-language site will result in more conversions. To qualify this statement; studies show that 85 percent of customers will not do business with an enterprise if the information on their website is not readily available in their language.
That said, you ought to know that you can only reap the benefits of multilingual websites when you translate your information correctly. Merely using a plugin to convert your message will not cut the mustard. You, instead, need to use a service such as Translate.com to ensure that you get high-quality texts from a professional online translator. With Translate.com, you will also get access to their website localizer that comes with an array of useful functionalities as far as organizing translation goes.
Improve the Speed of Your Website
Delays in page-load time are not suitable for business. Losses in conversions, reduced customer satisfaction, and fewer page views are some of the negative impacts of having a slow site. On any day, you need a fast website to ensure that your website ranks highly on search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.) in addition to realizing good profits. According to Google, good load time is 3 seconds- a figure most sites do not get near to.
So, how can you speed up your website? The first thing you can do is to follow the benchmarks and recommendations put forth by Google– the largest search engine. Its standards for achieving the ideal site speed are worth implementing if you are to realize acceptable load-time. As you make the changes Google stipulates, you will boost your website’s load-speed and, in turn, improve the user experience.
Apart from that, you can also increase site speed by using a Content Delivery Network (CDN.) This feature allows you to cache your website on a worldwide network of servers. As such, whenever a user uses their browser to request files from your site, their prompt will be routed to a server that is closest to them. With this, loading lags are reduced thus giving the user faster results. MaxCDN and Cloudflare are excellent CDNs you can use right away.
The third thing you can do to boost website speed is to optimize for mobile. Let’s digress a bit. According to Statista, 47.9 percent of web page visits globally came from mobile devices. This statistic alone makes a strong case on the importance of targeting mobile phone users. And what better way than to provide them with a better experience by optimizing your site on mobile? You can improve the experience of mobile device visitors by reducing redirects and monitoring mobile page speed. As far as web page loading speed on mobile goes, you can use Test My Site by Google to evaluate your page speed before you make necessary adjustments.
Implement the Best SEO Tactics
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an essential digital marketing tool. It will help you immensely as you scale up your business on the global stage. SEO comprises of various elements and comprehending what they are and how they work is crucial for realizing success. But before, we highlight these all-important elements, here is what SEO can do: it makes your site more visible; SEO shines in converting prospects into customers; it boosts traffic on your site.
That said, here are the different SEO elements:
- Keywords research: It is the process of discovering the phrases and words that prospects use to find content, products, or services online.
- Meta tags: These are brief texts that describe a web page’s content. They provide search engines and site visitors with information on what the website contains.
- Unique content: Refers to the information on a website used for reaching and engaging with the target audience.
- Hreflang tags: Refers to a method of marking up pages that have the same message but aimed for different regions/ language.
Use Market Finder from Google
Market Finder is a tool that helps you navigate international markets easily by providing you with useful strategies. In addition to identifying the best markets for your services and products, this tool provides you with helpful insight such as the disposable income of your target customers as well as their internet behavior. The information learned from Market Finder can also help you determine the language to use and the devices to target.
Wrapping It Up
The tips highlighted in this article are sure to help you get into and navigate the international market effectively. Start with what you can do now, in essence, translating your pages and then proceed to do the rest.
