Localisation: Preparing Your Online Shop to Sell Abroad

Your online business is growing and you’re ready to expand into new international markets. Localisation is the key to globalising. However, opening your business in a new country requires more than just creating a new domain and using some translation tools. Today, we’ll look at a few things to consider when localising your online business for a new audience.

If you want the short version of this article, be sure to download our localisation checklist:

Localising your online business for a new market

So much goes into localisation, but what does it mean exactly?

Localisation refers to the adaptation of a product or service for a specific market by taking factors like language, culture, traditions, expectations and legal requirements in mind.

Language

Language is the most obvious first step when it comes to localisation.

English is a good starting point when selling abroad, but if you really want to find success in a new market, it makes sense to create a site in the local language.

If you already know the market you want to break into, you’ll know which language to focus on. However, the language might help you decide which market(s) to expand to next.

According to Statista, English dominates the “languages most frequently used for web content” (by share of websites). However, the top 10 might be of interest to you:

English (52.1%)
Spanish (5.5%)
German (4.8%)
Russian (4.5%)
Japanese (4.3%)
French (4.3%)
Portuguese (3.1%)
Italian (2.3%)
Turkish (2.1%)
Dutch, Flemish (1.8%)

Keep in mind that some languages exist in multiple markets (e.g. Spanish in Latin America) so there may be some extra localisation required for some words and phrases.

Although user experience is one big reason to localise your website, SEO is another huge factor to consider.

Ranking in search engines for your most important keywords is important for driving traffic to your site, so you should definitely consider using a native speaker to do your translation work. Even better, if they have some SEO knowledge and can incorporate that into your site.

Culture

Keeping your brand image harmonised across markets is ideal, but there may be small things to consider changing when localising to your new market.

For example, is this new market more culturally diverse? Maybe it’s more conservative. Perhaps your website images should reflect those differences.

Certain colours may carry some significance in your new market. Does your brand name mean something else in the local language?

You may even want to consider a new brand name. Research what your company might translate to in the new market’s language. OSRAM, a German-based lighting manufacturer, has a very unfortunate name in the Polish market (read this Quora thread on your next coffee break).

These are just a few of the things to research before going live in a new market.

Currency, payment options, and logistics

It probably goes without saying that you’ll want to localise the currency to fit your new market. Some shops let you pick your language and currency when browsing the site, while others localise the site automatically based on the user’s location.

When it comes to payment options, make sure you have the most popular methods available for your new market. Most markets are PayPal-friendly, but there may be a unique alternative that you’ve never heard of in some markets.

The same goes for logistics. Different users have different preferences when it comes to logistics providers, so make sure you have a few options and keep the most popular ones in mind for each market.

Check the competition

You can research many of the previous points by visiting more established sites in the respective market. Besides payments and logistics, you might discover some other nuances that make the market unique.

Perhaps you’ll notice a trend in imagery and layout options. Japanese sites are famous for having totally different page layouts compared to what is considered standard on western sites.

Customer trust is a universal topic

If a user has never heard of you, they will automatically be a bit sceptical when visiting your online shop for the first time. In fact, this may even be the case in your home market.

When users visit unfamiliar shops, they will look for elements of trust.

This could include many different things, depending on the consumer tendencies of the market.

In Europe (particularly in Germany), many consumers are familiar with privacy laws (i.e. GDPR regulations), so they may visit your legal pages.

Other users may look at your About Us page.

Some users may look for contact information on your site. Is it easily accessible in the navigation and/or footer of your website?

However, one element is universal for shoppers around the globe: customer reviews.

Customer reviews are more or less a given for e-commerce businesses these days. There are many benefits to implementing customer reviews into your website. Besides receiving genuine feedback, reviews are a great marketing tool to build trust with new users.

By using a Google-certified reviews platform, you’ll also be able to display your star ratings throughout Google, therefore improving your online reputation.

Don’t forget: many users will research your company on Google before completing a purchase. The impression your company makes on search engines is vital to your success.

Besides offering Google-certified service and product reviews, companies can also earn the Trustmark with the (30-day Buyer Protection) to help improve customer trust even more. Learn more about the Trusted Shops solutions.

Future Shop has done a great job building trust directly on its website. Between contact information and other clearly visible trust-building elements, they’ve found great success with both new and returning customers. Check out the case study to see how they’ve taken things a step further by clicking below:

SEO & technical settings

We touched on SEO a bit earlier when discussing language localisation. However, there are a few technical elements to consider as well.

Site structure (URLs)

When creating a second domain for your online business, you’ll have a few options for the URL itself:

Different ccTLDs for the root domain
gTLD with subdomains
gTLD with subfolders

Different ccTLDs for the root domain

Country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) tell Google which country your website is targeting. In that regard, CCTLDs are considered the strongest indicators for search engines because they lead to more accurate results.

You’re probably familiar with ccTLDs. Shop might have different endings to their URLs to indicate the target market. For example:

United Kingdom: your-business.co.uk
France: your-business.fr
Germany: your-business.de
The Netherlands: your-business.nl

The negative aspects of ccTLDs are that they are more expensive since you will have an extra domain. It also requires more maintenance because it is an entirely new website. Finally, you will have to gather new backlinks for the new domain to have a strong presence online.

gTLD with subdomains

gTLD stands for generic top-level domain. When using a subdomain with your gTLD, you will keep the .com domain (e.g. your-business.com) and with the respective market’s country code before the domain name. This is referred to as a subdomain.

You may have come across sites like this before. For example:

United Kingdom: uk.your-business.com
France: fr.your-business.com
Germany: de.your-business.com
The Netherlands: nl.your-business.com

It’s worth noting that this method can be considered more complicated than the next option.

gTLD with subfolders

Using gTLD with subfolders may well be the easiest version to implement. Not only that, but there are SEO benefits to this as well. Since the domain is shared, every language variant can benefit from ranking boosts from the other versions.

This is also fairly common. Your sites might look something like this:

United Kingdom: your-business.com/uk/
France: your-business.com/fr/
Germany: your-business.com/de/
The Netherlands: your-business.com/nl/

It’s also worth remembering that having too many subfolders in a URL can impact your ranking negatively. If you offer a large array of products (and have many product categories), you may want to avoid using the gTLD with subfolders method.

Shutterstock/etraveler

Hreflang tags

An hreflang tag is a small line of code in the head of your HTML that tells search engines that the page is a multi-language variant version of another website page.

Using hreflang tags can benefit your SEO as well. Google recognises you are essentially trying to improve the user experience, especially if the user’s search term is different from the native language of the country the user is in (e.g. A German user searches for something in German on a device located in France will still show a German page).

The key here is to be consistent when using them. To learn more about hreflang tags and how to let Google know about the localised versions of your pages, visit this page.

Free Google tools for localisation

There are a number of tools out there that can help you when it comes to expanding to new markets. They can provide great insights to help you understand what is unique to each country. Let’s briefly explore a few of the tools available to you (for free!):

Think With Google is a great site for e-commerce businesses looking for insights, ideas, and inspiration. In fact, that’s exactly what you see at the top of their page.

You’ll find all kinds of interesting articles and you have the option to change your region to get different information and different articles.

Within Think With Google, you can find the Consumer Insights section that shares interesting data, articles, and case studies for different regions around the world.

If you need help deciding on which markets to expand into next, use the Market Finder tool, which is also a part of Think With Google.

Then, there are some of the other Google tools you may already be familiar with:

Google Trends can give you great insights into different trending topics and how they develop seasonally in different markets.
Google Analytics can provide you with country and language reports to see who already visits your site.
Google Keyword Planner lets you research the search volume for keywords in different countries and language settings.

Conclusion

Localising your online business for international marketing can help your business grow exponentially. However, it requires research and the expertise of locals to help you enter the market as smoothly as possible.

Don’t forget to download our localisation checklist, which summarises the most important points in an easy-to-follow PDF:

17/07/24