Globalizing: Should I Translate My Website? with Anne Kennedy

In this video interview, Anne Kennedy discusses some of the factors that are important in making your website available for global marketing. You can’t just translate a website, it must be localized for the culture you are targeting. The Internet has globalized the opportunity for doing business overseas. The US market is now only 17% of all the global market users. The deciding factor on whether to do business overseas relates to whether shipping costs make it feasible. The idea of setting up a site for a different country is “localization,” not translation. It goes beyond the phrases and the words. To work with the web team, it’s best to find someone who grew up in the target culture, who is aware of all the various cultural differences. Even among English speakers, there are differences in spelling and vocabulary. There are also local concerns. For example, Germans are particularly concerned about security, while the Swedish are more focused on the quality of customer service. The Chinese are used to more cluttered websites than are in vogue in the US. Colors are important, too. Orange is a popular color in the Netherlands, but wrong to use in Serbia. In China and India, white is the color of death and mourning. Anne Kennedy is the CEO of Beyond Ink, an SEO firm with offices in Portland, ME and associates around the world. This interview was recorded at Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Francisco, August 17-18, 2010.

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