How to Make Your Website a Global Success

Although your website can be accessed by anyone in the world, it doesn’t automatically mean that people the other side of the globe will automatically find and enjoy your website. Here are some of the ways you can make your website a global success.

Make sure you translate accurately

One of the main challenges that any website faces when trying to reach the entire population of the world is that there are many different languages spoken around the globe. If you’ve ever accessed a website in a foreign language before, it’s highly likely that your browser has offered to automatically translate all of the text on the page into English for you. The only problem is that no computer system is able to translate text entirely accurately, and although you might be able to get the general gist of the information you’re translating, it’s highly likely the text won’t entirely make sense. These browser translators are also unable to translate any text in images, graphics or diagrams, so you’ll be left guessing what any words mean in any of those files.

The only way to make sure your website can be accessed by someone speaking a different language is to get someone to translate all the text you have written and create a separate version of the website in that language. Although this may sound simple, it can be an organizational nightmare. No matter how big your website is, you’re likely to have hundreds if not thousands of different pages of text that will all need translating and uploading. The best way to keep on track of this process is to use translation management software to monitor the status of every page. The translation management definition is “the systematic process that manages translation of text and other digital assets.” This software allows you to submit text for translation that will be checked by someone who speaks that language and allows you to monitor their progress until the finished text is uploaded online. This software will also help speed up the translation of future articles, meaning you can update all of the versions of your websites at the same time. Investing in software like this can help make your website a global success.

Talk about globally important issues

It isn’t just enough to be writing in someone’s language to attract people from around the globe. You also need to be talking about topics that interest lots of people around the globe. For example, a global audience isn’t going to be interested in one small soap opera that’s only easily accessible in one country. Many people would be interested in articles written about big global shows, like Netflix’s Bridgerton, which can be accessed by hundreds of millions of people on streaming websites across the globe.

Don’t use country-specific slang

Another way to try and not alienate any of your readers is to not use any country-specific slang. For example, Americans use “sidewalk” every day, yet it’s not a word that appears in every country’s vocabulary. In fact, the Brits call a “sidewalk” a “pavement”. Words can also have completely different meanings in different countries.

For example, when Americans say pants, they’re often referring to trousers but when Brits say pants, they’re usually referring to underwear. Small differences in languages like this can make your articles very confusing to follow.