Expand Your Online Market
Localisation is the process of adapting web site content for the purpose of promoting the content to a geographically or culturally different target market. The main benefit of localisation is that your message is more accessible to potential customers in other markets.
Localisation can range from minor text edits to complete site rebuilds depending on the market differences.
For example, the localisation of a UK site for the Irish market may only require changes to currency and pricing formats. The localisation of a UK site for the US market would involve currency changes as well as certain spelling variations.
However the localisation of a UK site for the French market would require full content translation. So the localisation of a web site may require some or all of the following:
- Spelling variations
- Currencies
- Units of measure such as Imperial vs. Metric or Miles vs. Kilometres
- Telephone formats
- Time and Date formats
- Names and Titles
- Industry and Government terms
- Language translation
When Should I Localise My Web Site Content?
A site is worth localising when the potential financial benefits of providing localised content to a market exceed the cost of localisation. If localisation enables you to enter a new market more successfully or to more effectively target customers in an existing market, then localisation of your web site is something to be seriously considered.
With experience of delivering localised sites to the UK, US, German, French and Polish markets, we can offer our clients advice on the benefits of localisation and the costs involved.