Issue 13
New Year New Markets: Promoting your Business Online to Foreign Markets
With the start of a New Year, perhaps you're thinking of finding new markets for your products or services. Promoting your business to an international audience & non-English speaking markets is much easier online, however, you do need to be careful how you go about it and take into consideration cultural differences as well as language differences. Having been involved in the promotion of foreign language websites in the past, I am aware of the pitfalls of breaking into foreign markets online. However, the decision to enter a foreign speaking market must not be taken lightly as there really are many things that must be considered first.
1. Translate your website
This may seem obvious, but some companies do not translate their website into the appropriate language, or just translate the home page, and have the rest in English. Using an online translation tool such as Babel Fish is not good enough, as often the translation is garbage. You need a native speaker of the country you are trying to break into, who also understands equivalent terms. By this I mean finding out in detail the equivalent of what you are trying to sell, and not just translating it straight into the language. For example, if you are selling financial services, such as 'contract hire' or 'hire purchase' agreements, how are these services sold in your target country. 'Contract hire' as we sell it may not be the same elsewhere.
2. Buy the local domain name
Even with a website nicely translated into the tongue of your target country, you won't get far trying to promote it on your .co.uk or .com website. To be successful, you must buy a local domain. Search engines filter websites into their countries according to language, their domain or IP address. So if your French pages are on your .com domain hosted in the UK, they won't have much chance of doing well in the French search results. With a standalone .fr website, translated into French, you will find your chances of ranking well will instantly improve just by doing this alone. You do need to be aware of restrictions of buying certain domains, however any reputable domain name company should be able to advise you.
3. Research your keyphrases
Researching your keyphrases in the native language of your target market is just as important as it is in English. Not only will you need to find out which key phrases the locals are using, but understand how they are searching too. However, this will also mean finding the tools for your keyword research. Overture now has quite a significant international coverage, so you should be able to find the search term suggestion tool in the language of your target market. Espotting also covers many European countries, as well as Google. There may also be local language search suggestion tools that you will need to research.
4. Find out the local search engines and directories
The next part of your campaign will be to research the local search engines and directories that are used in your target market. It is likely that locals will be using these and not just the international search engines, so you need to ensure that you cover everything. Finding these out to begin with can be time consuming, but ensure you use a native speaker who may already know, or can find out this information more easily. A good resource to start with is Search Engine Colossus. You will then need to research relevant directories for your industry sector, as well as websites you can request links from. Since most search engine algorithms are based on a combination of good key phrase rich content, and good incoming links amongst other things, you will need to cover these things off for your foreign search engines too.
5. Are you able to carry out online advertising locally?
Once your website is up and running, you will probably need to advertise locally online, perhaps with pay per click campaigns, or advertising on relevant websites. Are you able to manage these campaigns in the foreign language? Do you have the resources to do this?
6. What about customer service?
Finally, the enquiries and sales start to come in. Do you have someone who can respond in your target language? You may need to consider taking on native language speakers to be able to fulfil your sales and enquiries and obviously, ensure the service you provide to your new market is as good as the service you are already providing in English. Are you set up to sell in foreign currencies, and ensure your terms and conditions or contracts are legal?
If the above points are all taken into account, are well planned with the correct resources in place, there is no reason why your campaigns abroad should not be a success. It will take as much dedication as any English speaking campaign, but you should be set up to successfully enter new markets. Bonne chance!
Further Reading:
Population Explosion! From Clickz.com - these stats shows the number of internet users in most countries across the globe. This should give you some idea of the size of your new market.
See also
Home Web Use by Country, November 2004 - Further stats from Clickz.com for 11 selected countries
and
Google's search reach
