| Are you unknowingly restricting your market to more | | | | aspect, and hence loosing out on a chance of |
| than half of your potential customer base? Are you | | | | increasing their market simply by not repeating the |
| alienating an important number of your visitors? If, | | | | same thing! Ironically, it's the smaller companies that |
| your site is only in English and not translated in other | | | | should use the benefits of an easy and affordable |
| key languages, you undoubtedly are! Did you know | | | | method of increasing their customer base. |
| that as of 2005, around 300M users accessed the | | | | So, what do I do now? Well, first you must |
| Internet in English, while almost 700M users accessed | | | | determine the potential market your website service |
| it in another language? If we were to make a crude | | | | or product should target. Indeed, the necessity to |
| assessment, strictly English localized website are | | | | translate your website in certain languages may be |
| loosing 70% of their potential customer base from | | | | constrained if your site usability is confined to specific |
| the start. To be more specific, the top ten languages | | | | regions. Another good thing to do is to determine the |
| used in the Internet, are in order, English, Chinese, | | | | specific web pages that need to be translated. |
| Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Korean, | | | | Opening your website to the world doesn't require |
| Portuguese, Italian and Russian (internetworldstats). | | | | the translation of your entire website. If your site |
| Even in the United-States, over 45M users access | | | | has a page that promotes the Whistler Mountain in |
| the Internet from home in another language than | | | | BC Canada to snowboarders, there is probably no |
| English, Spanish being the main language with over | | | | need to translate it in certain languages, as some |
| 26M users. The major companies recognize this | | | | markets would not be concerned. Once you have |
| situation and offer their website in different | | | | established the languages worthwhile for your site to |
| languages, some even going to the length of | | | | be translated into, you should then have a website |
| implementing specifically targeted version of their | | | | like translate your content. This affordable service will |
| website, based on the target language. However, | | | | increase the audience for your business and |
| many websites or small business are neglecting this | | | | undoubtedly generate more conversions. |