How to Create a Multilingual Website to Win Over your Competition

Have you ever dreamt of taking your brand a notch higher and cater to different communities of the world? Well, you can thank the developing technologies and globalization, for getting your products delivered directly to your customers’ doorstep. But hey, what about winning the customer’s trust and giving them an unmatched user experience. That sounds more like a necessity than a luxury, isn’t it? Reaching out to people by the means of language-specific communication is one of the best things you can do to grow your business. That’s why my friend you need a multilingual website.

The world today is referred to as a global village. It is one big virtual marketplace for all the buyers and sellers across the globe. With the current market scenario, if you limit your business to certain areas and communities, you are missing a huge opportunity for global growth. Why bound your business to geographical entities, when it has the potential to spread its wings worldwide?

You must have experienced a shift in trends where brand stores are no more limited to four walls. People can now shop anywhere. In this era, where more and more businesses are making their presence felt in the online space, you can step ahead and build an online store that serves diverse communities. Not only does it helps to expand your business, but also makes your e-commerce business accessible to traffic from anywhere on the planet.

If the entrepreneur within you plans to go truly global then this may be the right time for you to start considering different ethnicities and languages. 

Know your waters before you dive

I’m pretty sure by now you must be thinking of ways to remodel your site in different languages. Here are a few variations that may help.

While some go for simple translations of their website content, others prefer to change the entire content for their multilingual websites. However, this decision is not solely yours to take. There are a few factors that need to be considered before picking any method –

• Type of Product – If your store deals with products that need to display their technical aspects, you can go with direct translations. But if the store products have emotionally influential content, you better rewrite it to make it more relatable.
• Target Audience – Know if you are targeting the niche crowd. If so make sure the translations are precise and rational.
• The Relevance of Scenario – Make sure the buying behaviour, pricing, legal requirements, and other social conditions match the international standards.

Just analyze your situation well and go for the best suited multilingual solution to build an online store that reaches diverse audiences.

Get an Extra Edge over the others

Still speculating why you must go for different languages to reach out? I can list down multiple reasons until you are convinced. But frankly, these sites have outperformed the monolingual stores and have immense potential to grow.

Even if not global, there are countries like India, that have multiple languages across the region. And when you reach out through a multilingual platform, it not only makes your brand popular across the country but also increases the sales.

Build an online store that offers its product in diverse languages. The reason why it is essential is listed below -

• Improved Communication –international clients can understand your USP better and can instil trust in your services.
• Better Reach – Your virtual store will be representing your business in different regions of your country and even foreign land.
• Unmatched User Experience – People connect to brands that deliver their vision and services in a language close to the target audiences. It also boosts client satisfaction. 
• Gives more power to your content – Nothing connects to people like their mother tongue. Why not use a multilingual website to reach out to them.
• Search Engine Boost – If you have a site also available in the local language, it will be easier to draw more website traffic that would eventually lead to a strong online presence.
• More leads, queries, and conversion – Once the trust is built there will be multiple conversions from different geographical areas. That would eventually lead to better sales and revenues.
• Business Growth – The world is changing. Enhance your services with time and take your business to the next level.

Believe it or not, the leading e-commerce entrepreneurs understand the significance of having a multilingual website. Adopting multiple languages to connect with more communities and clients is quite rewarding for your growth.

According to study, only 25.3% of the total internet crowd uses English as their first language. So if you are planning to woo the remaining 74.7% with your outstanding products, pick the language they are close to and build an emotional connect with them. Winning trust is the key here.(Source)

 Once you adapt to this trend, there is no stopping by. Your business will be all set to witness exponential growth and outdo your competitors in more ways than one.

Time to Pick your Preferences

Now that you are pretty much swayed by the surprising facts and benefits of having a multilingual website, aren't you eager to know how the process works? Well, looking broadly, you have two options for multilingual site translation.

Build a multilingual portal from scratch - You can go for this option if time is not a priority for you. Making a custom platform obviously takes time, but then you will have exactly what you want. You can draft your platform content in different languages and watch for the correct character encoding in the page. You will also have to keep the subdomain URL structure in mind along with the development.

A lot to handle? Well don’t worry, you have a more convenient option.

Ready to use platforms - What about a few easy steps for changing the language of your platform anytime? You can easily save time and launch your own multilingual website in minutes. Just go for a platform that has all the features you need for your business. StoreHippo understands the e-commerce market and therefore focuses on introducing features that are necessary for a multiple language interface to be successful. 

Know What is Right for your Brand - StoreHippo Multilingual Ecommerce Solution

The main aspect that will make your multilingual site different from your competitors will be its proficient features. StoreHippo ecommerce platform offers the following features that can convert your store into an efficient multilingual site – 

• Automatic Translation – Imagine spending hours translating and saving content for your website. Hectic, isn’t it? StoreHippo offers automatic translation.  This feature not only helps you create the website you want, in just a few clicks but also saves your time.

• Enhanced Translation Control – Wouldn’t you want to take full control of your e-commerce multilingual site. For this, you need a platform that offers both automatic and manual translations. At StoreHippo you enjoy the benefits of both. 

• Multiple Language Support – In which country do you want to launch your website next? Get your e-commerce website translated into 100+ diverse languages using multilingual e-commerce solutions. Don’t worry about the website revamping every time you want to launch your business in a new community. Just follow the steps and convert it into multiple languages of your choice 

• Geographical Language Selection – Are you one of those who are annoyed by the translation dialogue boxes while surfing. Well, you are not alone. To cater to this need, you need a feature that lets your site change the language based on the geographical location. set different languages for different subdomains and IP addresses with StoreHippo’s comprehensive offerings.

• Bulk translations with CSV/Excel – Bulk translations are always useful when you build an online store that caters different communities. Pick a platform that has the CSV import and export feature. It is quite helpful when you are dealing with an e-commerce website. Multiple products, multiple listings and descriptions and then come multiple languages. This feature makes things simpler. 

• Scalable – Everyone wishes to expand their business at some point in time. Well, you don’t want to be spending more money on the website at that time. Optimized multilingual e-commerce solutions from StoreHippo guarantees optimum page loading time for your site, even if you scale to millions of users.

• Support in Mobile Apps – Since everything is on the mobile now a day, you would also want to make your mobile application multilingual. With StoreHippo Build an online store that has a global presence and is responsive to different devices and mobile phones.

• Powerful Admin Panel in Multiple Languages – The world is connected by business today. No matter what your first language is if you are good with your business, no one can stop you. Select a platform that offers a multilingual admin panel as well. This helps you to have a truly global business experience, where the internal teams have the flexibility of handling their tasks in their native language. You can also check all the analytics, notifications, and order details with ease. 

• Different Methods of Translation in a single Platform - StoreHippo offers multiple options to translate the site. Either you can select the language at the very beginning of the installation of the store or you can use Google APIs for automatic translations. There is another option that will allow you to edit things manually, just in case you don't want everything to be translated by the mighty Google.  

Looking forward to following the trend?

Making your own multilingual website is not very complicated if you pick the right platform. Some technical partners make the transition easy. No hassle, no extra cost, just a few steps and you are ready to cater to multiple communities. With StoreHippo, you can easily avail features that are exceptionally beneficial for your business. We have a comprehensive range of tools that you can easily implement on your ecommerce store and customize it according to your needs. 

To have your very own ecommerce website for targeting diverse communities across the globe you can build an online store powered by StoreHippo. Then follow the simple steps given below to add as many languages as you want. 

• Go to your admin panel 
• Go to language setting and add a new language by clicking on “add new language” button
• Select the code of the language you want. Eg. FR for French
• Select the checkbox to publish the language and save the settings

Wasn't that easy? You can go on the website now and check if the new language is added in the language dropdown. When you select the new option, the site will take some time to load the translated content for the first time. So don't worry if there are a few seconds lag. 

Conclusion

Now that you have planned to get a multilingual platform for your business, StoreHippo is there to cater to all your needs. You can now easily build an online store that serves the needs of diverse communities. This will also help you to establish your brand globally. Do remember, selection of words touch hearts. When things have an emotional connect, they click, and that is how you build customer trust. 

StoreHippo knows what it takes to reach out customers with different lingual preferences. Therefore, it provides support, for translations of products, categories and services. Translations can be carried out both automatically and manually. StoreHippo gives you the freedom to manage your site well and support design theme while translating.  All languages can be accessed easily in StoreHippo Admin Panel. It provides the support of multilingual store variants and allows customers to view the store in their native language as determined via geolocation. 

To get to know more about multilingual sites contact us at [email protected] or call us on +91 8010117117.