Why Should Your Website Be Multilingual?

In today’s modern economy a website forms the face of your business; it is the main source of information and creates sales leads. It is the hub of all modern business and marketing activities. So why do the overwhelming majority of websites limit themselves to just one language?

The majority of the internet’s content is in English and the result is that it is also one of the most competitive languages to market in. There are other huge markets to be targeted that are much less saturated and provide more cost effective marketing opportunities. Spanish and Portuguese, for example, are the fastest growing European languages due to the economic growth in Latin America. Overall content and websites provision for these languages has yet to catch up with the expanding markets and presents a rare and valuable marketing opportunity for all business.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should form the backbone of modern internet marketing and the golden rule of which is to win on a few search terms, as 95% of traffic runs to the first page of Google. Having your webpage in four different languages allows for four different versions of keyword targeting. Foreign languages such as Portuguese and Spanish are significantly less competitive that their English counterparts and this means that you can achieve great results on key terms but with less resources. Why spend a huge amount of money and not get the results you want when for less you can achieve more?

Many companies assume that everyone has some level of English, or enough to navigate a website. This is generally not the case, and many will be disengaged by sites that do not facilitate access through foreign languages. Making your site accessible to those without a good level of English can greatly expand your client base and generate sales leads.

Demonstrating that your company is mature and developed enough to handle business in multiple languages not only opens up your potential for sales but creates a strong, adaptable and sensitive corporate image. In today’s economy it is essential that companies learn how to conduct themselves in a diverse range of cultures and languages.

There is a world wide web of languages for your business to target, so why limit yourself to just one?