The Role of Culture in Website Localization
Businesses like Amazon, Airbnb, Slack, and many other household names. Place a special emphasis on making their website and businesses culturally appropriate. Defining culture can be complicated, and comprehending each unique one can also be quite challenging. However, it helps you understand buying habits and what connects with a particular audience. Since defining culture can be difficult for many businesses, it is better to utilize website localization services. A professional company excels in making businesses culturally appropriate while translating.
Businesses are now understanding the need to bridge cultural gaps to grow their business. If you aren’t employing localization services, remember your competitors are and they do have the edge over you in this aspect. However, it is also important to understand that effective localization requires you to relate to the audience. This can involve changing the UI, images, and even the context of what is written. A professional translation company understands such issues.
Let’s dig deeper into how culture is important for website localization
Design
Let’s take an example from Indonesia, the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra have a society dominated by females. Here, females have more rights and power than men. Property succession and wealth are associated with women’s lineage. Hence they make all the important financial decisions. While the case is usually the opposite in many other countries. Hence, advertising has to be more female-oriented. The designs need to include women as decision-makers more often than men. Because this is what their society is accustomed to. While the rest of the world may use both males and females. But dominantly males for their designs.
Dates and Formats
Some of you may have noticed that there are different metric systems around the world. People drive on the right side of the road in Argentina but drive on the left in Australia. Similarly, date formats and the side from where the language is written are all different. A professional website translation service already understands these nuances. Employing the right company will help you ease into the website localization process.
Compliance with Law
A country’s law is directly related to how high-risk-oriented or averse their society is. The USA for example has nuclear verdicts that are becoming more common. Hence it is best to be clear and concise with disclaimers. While Thailand’s punishments in relation are almost non-existent. Here companies have more success in dealing with the law. Moreover, most of India has banned beef and cow-related products, and selling cow leather jackets in some parts of India can lead to public lynching. In Singapore, eating gum can result in jail time. Website localization services providers take care of all legal issues for you, ensuring you do not face problems when starting in a new region.
Understanding Your Business
Although English is the most spoken language in the world. It does not mean that people are fluent in it. Many people have difficulty properly communicating and understanding the language. Moreover, when it comes to spending money, people are not likely to spend when they aren’t fully comfortable. Website localization services include not only translating your content but also making it relevant to your audience. This includes things like examples, quotes, images, and more.
Long-Term Affiliations
When you localize your website and business documents. Your customer base can properly understand and grasp your product. This creates long-term affiliations with your product. The 90s soft drink war between Coke and Pepsi still impacts today’s buying choices. Certain regions include people completely loyal to Coke and others to Pepsi. The case is so strong that local companies haven’t been able to grasp a decent share of the market. Long-term affiliation is often generational, a person’s father used a particular product. And now the sons use the same thing because of their affiliation.
Best Way to Localize
The first thing to consider should be research, you need to understand your target audience. A professional translation company, for instance, would start by analyzing your competitors. Then researching things like pop culture, religion, economic conditions, and more. This allows you to understand how to set your website tone, color scheme, navigation, and more.
When you study your competitors you realize what aspects they are lacking and in what aspects they have the edge. It is best to find gaps in the market and cater to them. Another thing to consider is talking to locals and understanding their preferences. Many translation companies employ locals to translate websites and content. This ensures that you have a deeper understanding of their behavior.
Conclusion
Companies today need to anticipate the needs of the customers, instead of reacting to them. Those who can anticipate always take a larger share of the market. The process of localization helps you anticipate things on a deeper level. Those reacting to market demands may lag. When they finally delivered what was needed, pop culture may have shifted. The impact of social media and technology has made progress and pop culture very rapid.
