Multilingual search campaigns work great when you wish to attract clients from foreign locations. However, these campaigns have to be conducted differently than those search campaigns that you run in your home country.
Here are the 5 Sure-Fire Ways To Safeguard Your Multilingual Search Campaigns, which you must read before starting off:
1. Hire Mother-Tongue Linguists For Identifying Relevant Search Terms
Mother-tongue linguists are able to find out the exact search terms that the natives of your target area largely use while searching over the internet. Mostly, the mother-tongue linguists belong to the region whose natives you are targeting for your business.
These linguists also frequent the target zone often. Hence, they are capable of detecting the local search terms that are currently being used by the people of that location.
2. Respect Cultural Differences
When you wish to expand your business in a foreign land, gaining trust of your potential clients becomes the most crucial step. By giving a customized look to your website, you can generate trust among the foreign customers regarding your brand.
For instance, the text of your website should not use phrases that may be offensive to the target audience in the foreign land. The mother tongue linguists will take care on your behalf that only those phrases are used that are acceptable to the people and help establish your brand.
Similarly, you should refrain from using images that do not reflect the perspective of your foreign consumers. For instance, if you are targeting the Japanese market then using images featuring American models will not get you the support that your brand needs.
However, if you use pictures that have Japanese models, it will help the Japanese people relate to your brand faster and identify with the brand message effortlessly.
3.Go For a Tailor-Made URL
Most of the time, companies neglect the URL of the website that is meant for foreign customers. It happens when the translation team forgets to change the actual URL, which has English words in it.
Consequently, the target user notices the existence of the foreign words in the URL and experience disappointment. It may prove detrimental to your brand, especially if you are targeting a market that is not familiar with English at all. Your prospective client may think that the English URL will take him to an English site. Hence, he may choose to ignore your link completely.
Another disadvantage of having an English URL relates to the SEO of your website. With English words in the link, the site will fail to attain a good position in the search results conducted in the foreign language.
Hence, not only the content but also the link on your site should be tailor made to fit with the needs of your potential foreign clients.
4. Do Not Translate The Keywords
When you are trying to reach out to the natives of a region, you should never depend on the translation of the keywords. In majority of the cases, the words that are used as keywords or in key phrases of one language are not used that frequently in other languages. Hence, if you employ translation services from a company and give it a list of keywords, the output may not be of any use to you. You will only get the translated terms. Such words/phrases may not actually be preferred or used by your target audience. Therefore, you will only waste your time and money and will not achieve any commercial goals.
That is why the idea of employing mother tongue linguists is best. They have the resources to investigate and figure out the corresponding search terms in the foreign language. By using these terms, the visibility of your website will increase in the search results that are conducted in that language.
5. The Foreign Language Search Result Should Not Have an English Landing Page
When you are focusing on a foreign market, you should customize everything related to it. For instance, none of your foreign market search results should take your customers to an English webpage.
A consumer, who does not speak English, will be disappointed on reaching a webpage in English. He will return to the search result page and click on another link. Many clients may even refrain from clicking your link the next time.
You have to take similar care while conducting a PPC campaign. You should ensure that after clicking the advertisement in the foreign language, the visitor is taken to a landing page that has text in the same language.
In this way, he will not feel alienated and will rather be encouraged to purchase items from your company.