| Are you unknowingly restricting your market to more | | | | increasing their market simply by not repeating the |
| than half of your potential customer base? Are you | | | | same thing! Ironically, it’s the smaller |
| alienating an important number of your visitors? If, | | | | companies that should use the benefits of an easy |
| your site is only in English and not translated in other | | | | and affordable method of increasing their customer |
| key languages, you undoubtedly are! Did you know | | | | 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 |
| Portuguese, Italian and Russian (internetworldstats). | | | | doesn’t require the translation of your |
| Even in the United-States, over 45M users access | | | | entire website. If your site has a page that promotes |
| the Internet from home in another language than | | | | the Whistler Mountain in BC Canada to snowboarders, |
| English, Spanish being the main language with over | | | | there is probably no need to translate it in certain |
| 26M users. The major companies recognize this | | | | languages, as some markets would not be concerned. |
| situation and offer their website in different | | | | Once you have established the languages worthwhile |
| languages, some even going to the length of | | | | for your site to be translated into, you should then |
| implementing specifically targeted version of their | | | | have a website like translate your content. This |
| website, based on the target language. However, | | | | affordable service will increase the audience for your |
| many websites or small business are neglecting this | | | | business and undoubtedly generate more conversions. |
| aspect, and hence loosing out on a chance of | | | | |