Online marketing, localization, and SEO

Making the foreign language Internet pay

Philadelphia department store pioneer John Wanamaker
famously said, “Half of the money I spend on advertising is
wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half.”

Indeed, measuring and understanding consumer response to
advertising has always been notoriously difficult, making the
advertising business inherently unpredictable.

Online marketing, in terms of expenditure overtook television
advertising in the UK in 2009, changes this by making it possible
for a business to know exactly what aspect of their marketing
campaign is working. It offers the opportunity to target relevant
customers in a specific and profitable manner, which could only
be dreamt of in the days of traditional advertising.

One of the advantages of online marketing is that it takes many
forms, increasing the opportunities of finding the right customers:
e-mail campaigns, classified adverts, display ads, and search
marketing are just some of the many methods of online advertising.

Online marketing nevertheless retains the fundamental tenet of
advertising - targeting customers in ways which will be of interest
and relevance to their specific needs. There is no easy way of
making an advertising campaign match all the needs of all customers,
but online marketing does enable businesses to know exactly what
certain customers are looking for.

Key to targeting relevant customers successfully is understanding
that, although the internet has made the world a much smaller
place, customers’ needs are locally distinct. This means that a
business needs to appreciate the local, cultural, and linguistic
nature of the market it is targeting. Adapting online marketing
strategies to suit the nature of different markets is the essence
of localization - and language is central to the concept.

Language has always been an essential component of advertising,
which explains why highly-acclaimed writers such as Fay Weldon
and Don DeLillo started off working in the advertising industry.
Customers respond immediately to language; it is the part of
advertising which draws them in and persuades them that a
product is relevant to their needs. It can also make a customer
feel more comfortable and at ease through using everyday
language that the customer is familiar with.

It is easy to assume that English is the lingua franca of the Internet
age and that there is no need to use any other language in online
advertising. However, although the majority of websites are written
in English, over half of all Google searches are in languages other
than English. Moreover, research has shown that customers are
four times more likely to buy from a website written in their own
language. Such figures demonstrate the significance of localization
when it comes to online marketing: when targeting a particular
market, a business should do so in the language of that market -
failing to do so can be counterproductive and a waste of money.

Language is also central to how Google works. When searching for
information, Google’s search engine looks for keywords embedded
in a site’s content. Finding these keywords produces search results
most relevant to the search query. Using Search Engine Optimization
(SEO) helps to push a site to the top of the search results. Again,
localization is important here, and translating keywords directly
from one language to another may not suffice. Even if a correct
dictionary translation is used, users in a target country may use
abbreviations, colloquialisms or another word altogether…which
is why it’s important to research the keywords for each target
market.

With online marketing becoming the leading form of advertising,
it is vital that a business does not get left behind by its competitors.
Instead, the internet makes it possible to get a step ahead of
competitors not only by understanding the needs and demands of
distinct local markets, but also by realizing which half of advertising
actually works.


About Lingo24

Lingo24 is a global translation services provider that also specializes
in website localization. It has over 100 employees based in the UK,
Panama, Romania, China and New Zealand, and a network of 4,000
translators. Its projected turnover for 2009 is $6.2m.