Best Practices to Improve Quality of Your Localized Ecommerce Content
8 Best Practices to Localized Ecommerce Content
The global market presents the need for localized ecommerce content. It’s much more than just the written translation of words; it’s about translating the practicalities of your messaging to each of your target audiences. Below are some useful tips to improve your ecommerce localization strategy:
1.Get to Know Your Audience
The first step in effective localization is to know your target market. That includes studying demographic factors, cultural preferences, purchasing habits, and even local regulations that can affect consumer decisions. It helps to know what content connects with the audience the most.
H&M opened a store in South Korea, not just translating their website content, but running a thorough research on their local market. They saw more colorful and varied fashion than you were used to on most European lines. H&M took in what was trending and made changes by adding more bright colors and styles that matched K-pop culture, which is everywhere in South Korea. Not only did it contribute to their sales but it also cemented their brand in the minds of South Korean youth.
2.Use AI for First Drafts
We look at AI translation tools being powerful initial sources when it comes to translating large volumes with scale and speed in different languages. Human support is inevitable to hone that first-level output to adapt into cultural understanding thus keeping the same emotional weight of translated content and retain the local idioms and context.
Example: subtitling workflow at Netflix — AI tools are used to automatically translate Netflix’s large content catalog into many different languages. Recognizing the challenges of translating culturally specific content, Netflix solicits feedback from linguistic experts in the local market who review and improve these translations. It also means subtitles retain the emotional and cultural weight of the original, so shows and movies feel more genuinely relatable to local audiences.
3.Focus on Cultural Nuance
Localization goes way beyond translation — it’s about reworking your brand voice in a manner that attempts to acknowledge the subtleties of local culture. This could involve changing your brand name to make it attractive enough or ensuring that marketing messages are in line with local values and beliefs.
When adapting to a new culture, a good example of this is Coca-Cola in China. Rather than a direct name translation, they went with “Kekoukele,” which roughly means “tasty and joyful” in Mandarin. This was not only phonetic preservation of the brand but a positive message that made it appealing and memorable to Chinese consumers.
4.Optimize for Local SEO
SEO, search engine optimization, needs to be localized so visibility in the local search engines will be on the top results pages (which can be very different from Google in certain parts of the world). This includes using local keywords, understanding how local search engines rank listings, and in some cases hosting content in the local market to get a higher ranking.
For instance, if we look at the Chinese market, Brands need to optimize on Baidu as this is the most popular search engine used in China. While Google favors content that is more global, Baidu is much more focused on localized information and websites hosted from within China. Brands typically build locally-hosted websites, optimizing them with simplified Chinese content that includes a heavy saturation of local keywords and meta-descriptions to boost on-Baidu SERP positioning.
5.Maintain and Refresh Content Regularly
It’s true that the markets change, as do consumer preferences and culture trends. Constantly updating your content means that your brand stays ahead of the game and responds immediately to any sudden changes in trends or consumer behaviour.
For example, in Tokyo Adidas routinely modifies the content to bring relevance and deliver fresh styles in Tokyo market. They are watching local trends and consumer response, constantly updating their lines and marketing messages in the midst of the changing Tokyo street style. It is this ability to localize that has been a key factor in Adidas retaining a foothold in one of the most competitive sportswear markets in the world, Japan.
6.Tap into Local influencers and User-Generated Content
Using hyperlocal influencers and UGC can not only increase authenticity but also engagement for your brand. They offer potential customers a perspective on your brand through the eyes of locals who can offer genuine opinions, making your service much more relatable.
Example: Airbnb in Brazil — In an effort to reflect Brazilian hospitality, Airbnb collaborates with locals to construct appealing advertisements based on offerings for local events, like festivals, or home-cooked meals. They essentially rearchitected their platform to deliver these stories up front and to provide a very accurate picture of what the guests can actually expect. This gives rise to some genuine, trusted, first-hand accounts that attract tourists searching for authenticity.
7.Implement Feedback Loops
Constant feedback loop with customers and local teams helps to fine-tune localization efforts. It aids in understanding the effectiveness of strategies, facilitating necessary adjustments in a timely manner to optimize content efficiency and customer contentment.
Example: Feedback Loop on Zara’s Website — Zara created a recurring feedback loop with its customers by displaying a feedback box on all of its global websites allowing customers to give insights directly after reaching a certain page about their shopping experience. This helps Zara spot winners and needs for adjustment within their localization efforts. In part due to this feedback loop, Zara has been able to enable iterative product and website improvements with continued alignment with local customer taste and expectations.
8.Test Different Types of Content
This can be frequently done by creating different versions of content and testing them against one another to see which ones resonate best with different audiences and best achieve our conversion goals. It might thereby dictate the format, style, and promotional variance of content across different regions.
Case in Point: Amazon Regional Tests — Amazon regularly A/B tests across regions to determine which content format, description and promotional strategies perform best. This could see you experimenting with a variety of home page designs, promotional marketing, or even pricing tactics to see what drives the most customer engagement or sales within defined geographic areas.
These best practices for localizing your ecommerce content will help you greatly increase your reach and impact across global markets. And through cultural adaptation and continued optimization, your content goes beyond translation to truly resonate with audiences around the world.
