Reaching out to customers in Europe and further afield means you need a well-designed and competently translated online presence.
Translation tips
In Issue 267, we saw how translation can increase the word count on your webpages and how this might affect overall site design.
Here are some more factors that can affect the look and feel of your foreign-language website design:
1. Is the language you're translating into read from right to left or from left to right? This will affect how end-users eye-track across your site. For example, on English-language sites, users tend to first look at the upper right-hand corner of the page for the most important information and drop-down menus (including language menus), but on Arabic websites this information needs to be positioned in the top left-hand corner.
2. The ability to deal with non-Latin character sets can affect character limits in web forms, for example, in languages like Simplified Chinese in which a single character can be an entire word.
3. If you're going to offer different versions of your site in a variety of languages, remember to present the list of available languages in their respective translations, not in English.
4. Avoid using flags to signify languages as this can confuse - and even offend - some users. For example, a Canadian flag could confuse French-Canadians who want to view the French-language version of your site.
5. Use a stand-alone URL for translated versions of your site, for example, myglobalcompany/francais. This will help when it comes to marketing and will also make it easier for your site to be found in local search engines.
Overseas payments
There's no point creating a swish foreign-language site if you don't follow that up by localising the payment process for your overseas customers.
Getting this aspect right requires some specific knowledge of local preferences in your target market. For example, while credit and debit cards are used for the vast majority of online payments in the UK, an e-wallet known as iDEAL is the payment method of choice in the Netherlands, according to a report by online payments specialist Innopay.
Innopay's 'Online Payments 2010' report also says that cash-on-delivery is the favoured method of payment in most Eastern European countries, that Germans prefer the direct debit method ELV, and that Danes like to pay for online transactions with their debit card.
While offering payment by credit card is pretty much standard across the EU, one way to minimise the difficulties associated with dealing with foreign currencies and payment methods is to use an online payment system like PayPal, which offers automatic conversion in 17 currencies across 190 countries. Make sure to research the PayPal experiences of companies in similar markets before you choose this method, however, as PayPal is not a great match for every company.
Looking ahead, bear in mind that 'the future is mobile', and soon enough customers will not only want to browse your webstore from their phone, they'll want to make purchases too. Companies such as Irish-based Carapay, set up by Realex Payments' Colm Lyon, are preparing to enter this space and promising to make it easy to accept mobile payments.
Also, keep in mind that you will need to provide adequate - preferably native language -customer support to your foreign-language customers. This will make it much easier to deal with any issues that arise during the purchasing process and will make returns and other queries easier to handle.
Remember to check your legal requirements when conducting business in another jurisdiction. At the very least, there will be some forms to fill in. There may also be local taxes and duties to pay. Remember to inform your foreign-language customers of any additional costs when they visit your website if your pricing is affected by these charges.
Currency risk
If your business starts generating revenues in other currencies, you need to think about the issue of currency risk - fluctuations between the euro (in the case of Irish businesses) and other currencies.
Some 36 percent of UK SME business leaders cite "currency fluctuations" as their number one concern when doing business overseas, according to a survey by American Express FX International Payments in 2009. Despite this, 56 percent of SMEs admitted that they do not manage their financial risk at all, and just 44 percent are currently protecting their margins against fluctuating exchange rates.
Keep a close eye on the currency markets and remember to keep your prices relative to the current exchange rate. Displaying one price for a product on your Irish site and an inflated price - one that appears to ask for much more than postage and packaging, for example - on your foreign-language site could risk alienating potential customers.
Also, keep in mind that overseas payments can take a while to appear in your bank account.
In the next issue, we'll look at how you can align your localisation and social media efforts and share some tips for optimising your foreign-language site for search engines.