Go Global, Think Local: How to Establish an International Web Presence

Bryan Montpetit 0:00
We're going to be moving to our next presentation. Silvi and n are going to be presenting an awesome topic. They're both from Argentina. And they're going to be discussing how to establish an international web presence. So again, I think this is a topic that is often, you know, top of mind for everybody when you're actually producing those websites, hi Silvi. And nice to see again, Hi Ann by thanks, how you doing? Fine. All right. Great.

Silvi Nuñez 0:37
Great being here. Oh, God, start sharing screen.

Bryan Montpetit 0:41
Perfect. So happy to have you both here. Again, I'm not going to take up more of your time, but I will hop in towards the end of the presentation that usually shows time. And then we can address any questions, you know, that people have and hopefully engage in discussion. All right, okay. Good luck.

Ann Montañana 1:00
Thank you. Okay, I'm ready.

Okay, go global thing local, how to establish an international web presence. Well, hello, everyone, first of all, thanks for joining us today. We are I'm

Silvi Nuñez 1:18
open Jana, and fulfill Daniela and we'll be your presenters today.

Ann Montañana 1:23
We're both Spanish translators graduated from the National University of Cordoba in Argentina. And as far as proposal optimization, we help businesses developing developing international presence with multilingual content.

Silvi Nuñez 1:41
Okay, so did you know that the majority of people in this world who use Google don't search in English, they search in other languages. And this is one of the reasons why so many brands are starting to translate their contents. It's one of the easiest and fastest way to reach new potential buyers. Because buyers generally prefer visiting sites and reading content in their language of engagement, builds relationship and brand loyalty. Now, the one we have is that oftentimes, there's no real planning, there's no research, which leads to many different challenges that marketers often face. And this is why today will focus on two important ingredients that any international growth recipe to bear in mind, the market research and the multilingual content strategy. Not a cure for market research will allow us to make risk informed decisions and to maximize the impact in global markets. And the multilingual content strategy will help us attract that international traffic, overcome barriers engage audiences improve customer satisfaction, through content that buyers can relate to, and most importantly, that deliver by now, focusing on the market research first, when preparing to go global, conducting an adequate market research is key. Because from a global growth perspective, the challenge that we have is that no two markets are the same. And research we do ces risk. So the more you know about where you're going and who you're selling to, the better you can plan. Now, it's important to question and invest more time in understanding the consumer. During this market research, some of the things that we can analyze and consider are the market. It's important that we understand the dynamics of the market we want to target and that we assess that market for its size and its potential for growth. We should focus on any barriers to entry for example. Next, we'll focus on the audience. Because the biggest barrier to them beginning the process of business expansion is usually the lack of a deep understanding of the buyer in the first place. Now, during this research, it's important that we identify who needs the product or service, what the consumer is trying to get done. What pain points and frustrations they have, how they make purchase decisions, or what the best ways and channels to approach them are. Next, we'll focus on the product fit. It's important to make sure that there will be business opportunities for your products or services that your products are going to be it and that the people are going to want to pay for it. We can't just assume that the appeal in an international market is going to be the same. And that our pricing is in line with what clients are willing to pay. And finally, we're going to focus on the competition. It's key that we identify local and international competition, that we analyze how large they are, what strategies they're using, who they're selling to. And then we determine if we can really compete with them. Now, gathering information will allow businesses to have a better understanding about the target markets and the customers and to make informed decisions. Now, where do we get these insights from? There are many different ways and sources to gather insights from. Some of them can be through interviews or surveys, and other direct contact with representatives or potential buyers for example, they will allow you to identify facts about your target audiences about the challenges they're facing about their needs. We can also check Google and social media analytics. They can help you learn more about your buyers about the countries and languages that are already providing organic search visibility, what the type of content that generates more engagement, or maybe the keywords that attract the most traffic. We can also check trade and economic statistics, where we'll find export opportunities, industry information, and other data that can be indicators of market potential for your business. We can also check Google Trends, where we'll find for example, or we'll be able to identify the consumer demands and the trends, what consumers are searching about the competing brands, which will help you determine the market interest. Now, all these insights we obtained from the market research will help a business in many ways, we will help them understand the buyer and the market to adjust the strategy based on the insights and to create campaigns that reach the correct people who will relate mostly to your company's message and products. And once you've gathered all of these insights, it's important to do an objective analysis. And so determine if there is an opportunity to make an impact on that new market and to take action. Maybe you conclude that it's just not the right moment for a particular market. This may be a great chance to acknowledge and overcome any potential threats or obstacles that you identify. Maybe you're unsure. And maybe you can test the waters and see if it's worthwhile, see what kind of results it gets. And if you determine that there is an opportunity, then you can start thinking about a multilingual content strategy to help break down those cultural differences and to assure that communication has the desired effect on the target audience.

Ann Montañana 8:29
Okay, so now following the idea of what my colleague has just said, it is worth noting that when creating a plan, we cannot overlook data analysis, because this analysis is crucial for achieving the success of the multilingual kind of strategy. And this is indeed a complex but profitable process if done effectively. The elements of the strategy will vary depending on several factors such as the market, the approach, the value proposition, the budget and the timeline chosen. Now, having this in mind, the first question that will pop up will be where do I start? Well, the plan said good practices will be tailored and customer centered. But today we will focus on four that for us are key. Let's start by defining the SMART goals. Smart, the acronym in this concept stands for Specific which will answer the question was measurable which will answer the question how much attainable and realistic refer to the how question and time bound? Of course, to that one question. So to put it simply, the goals to be achieved to foreshadow which family unit to follow in the first place. It is a novel writing task two I set ambitious goals at the beginning of the strategy, I think will help you stay on track and confirm that your opportunities products and services are aligned during consider the number of buyers, the percentage of profits, the markets and the time period for instance, let's look at the following example. Suppose you have this initial goal of increasing website traffic from Spain by translating blog articles. Okay, this is a very general goal. So it needs to be restated in a more specific way. Now, if you turn this initial goal into smuggle, it will read the following increasing website traffic from Spain by 50% by the end of quarter four by translated 100 free blog articles. See, check you have answered all these smart questions. The when the how much the how, and the what? Let me insist on the fact that setting a well defined goal will lead to a well thought out strategy, unclear results. And this last point paves the way for me to talk about another base of this whole process, which is that selection of the content to be localized, translated or translated, for instance. Now, when selecting the content to be translated, translated or localized, some of the things that should be kept in mind are the goals of course, what the best performing content is, and your target audience's interest. You can try asking yourself questions like what type of content that I already have, will engage audiences mostly, or what content is absolutely a mask to be localized in order to enter that new market? Maybe what I've gone through may remain in the source language for the time being. A good practice also is for example, considering the 8020 rule. That is to say 80% of the traffic comes from more or less 20% of the content. In this way, you could focus on translating that 20% of content that best performs well, here I'm gonna get into technical details, but something that can be considered when decided when deciding what content will be included as far as the strategy is a conversion funnel, and having a well defined goal will happen to strategically focus on a given part of that funnel. Now let's give the funnel a quick overview. It is divided in three main parts the top of the funnel, which helps increase traffic, gain followers, and brand awareness through content that helps prospects solve a challenge, or meet a need, of course, one that you can help them with. Some examples are blog posts, social content, or evals. Then we have the middle of the funnel, which helps turn visitors into leads to cover the HubSpot potential buyers determine what the best solution for the tablet further challenges. For instance, landing pages, email marketing, and forms. And last but not least, we have the bottom of the funnel, which helps convert leads into customers through content that help them make informed decisions. For instance, rather than demos, case studies or testimonials. Again, having a SMART goal in mind, you can use the conversion funnel as a reference to prioritize the content to be translated. So now, once you have carried out the market analysis, define the SMART goals as select the content, you're ready to start building the scalable process. And planner this process will help solve problems that you may come across when adapting your content to your markets. Some things you consider when building this process are the workflow, one that facilitates expansion of the brand. This should help reflect the needs of the new target markets. Some common steps of the workflow are translation and localization, SEO, keyword research, copywriting and graphic design for example, they would have the talents, meaning that team, the group of professionals that will take bargain to strategy. What are they are freelance translators or a translation agency, or maybe a project manager if you decide to translate with an in house language team, and the technology, the tools, the software and related resources that will be facilitated team's work, and we will help them meet its goals. Here you'll need to consider editing technologies you have or may need for these strategies, including, for example, translation tools, content, authoring tools, and SEO tools. It is really important that after you have developed this kind of strategy, and have put it into practice, a reanalysis and assessment be carried out to make sure the results were the one expected or whether it is necessary to review some aspects of the strategy. And now all things considered. And from our perspective, of course, it is crucial to be a process that is scalable, and that is adaptable. For when the market penetration starts to increase, the strategy can be revised. In this way, the resulting strategy will be personalized and fits your needs and the needs of the target market. And to conclude, let me share his story with you. We recently worked with an online marketplace from Germany, that in only three years develop an international presence in three different countries. How do they do it? Well, through an extensive market research and a multilingual content strategy. One of the market expansion strategies in the states to be more specific, involve the localization of the most highly ranked blog articles. The workflow included technical localization and SEO research. The talents, the team included native linguist subject matter experts, and SEO specialists. And the technology included the client CMS, and an API integration to smart get the translation tool. Now, this process helped the business solve their two main challenges, which were communication with any audience and time management. And in a matter of only a few months, the strategy itself had led to over 170,000 impressions, and of course, a lot of knowledge to replicate in your markets.

Silvi Nuñez 17:50
Okay, so now kind of summing up the whole idea. No matter Miller in may look on the surface, every new market you answer is its own special case, and needs to be treated that way. Success in market a does not guarantee success in market B. So remember, when you start working on building an international web presence, don't skip the market opportunity analysis. It's an essential step of every successful business plan that allows businesses to understand the potential of success and risk in the new market. And once you've decided that expanding into a potential new market is worth it. And reaching those goals with a multilingual content strategy that reflects all of those insights we've gathered. Thank you.

Bryan Montpetit 18:50
Thank you so much for that, for that presentation. I mean, that was that was phenomenal. You're speaking my language. I love this stuff. I can I can listen to it and about it all day. So we'll move over to the the questions. Because there are quite a few, and there's quite a few that have been uploaded as well. So there's a lot of people that want to know the same information. All right, so first of all, everyone's basically saying they love the presentation. So thank you. And what we have here is should a brand's value proposition in new markets be adapted?

Silvi Nuñez 19:24
Okay, I'll take that one. So I don't think it needs to be adapted, unless determined it's not fit for the new audience. As we've already said, what works in one country might not work in another one. So conducting market research bearing the value proposition in mind. I think that's key. It will help you determine if it will be relevant for the new target audience. And it will help you see what the competition is doing what users are searching for. You can also use surveys for example to find out Excellent question.

Bryan Montpetit 20:07
It does. Thank you. I also want to remind people that there is a book giveaway for the best question. So I will not be that was there was a user error on my part for clearing the last time I apologize to everybody for that new platform. So we'll move into the next. The next question, which was uploaded. How do you ensure SEO and other languages is done? Well?

Silvi Nuñez 20:32
Do you want me to take over on? Yes, please. Okay.

There are many linguists that are specialists in SEO, that's what I found out recently. I think that in order to have success in a new market with SEO, it's important that whoever is in charge of the whole process, understands SEO, it's able to guide the linguist or the specialist throughout the process is able to give concrete indications and, you know, kind of walk The Linguist through the whole process. So I think that's the way to assure it to make sure that an expert is walking right next to the linguist.

Bryan Montpetit 21:16
Okay, great question. So definitely having somebody who knows their stuff, helping out with the linguist walking hand in hand. Got it. Thank you for that. Perfect. So we also have another question, which was, how frequently should we measure our translation strategy? And what should we focus on?

Silvi Nuñez 21:34
I can hear you don't listen to the speaker.

Bryan Montpetit 21:38
I'm sorry, you couldn't? You couldn't hear me? I can definitely repeat that. How frequently should we measure our translation strategy? And what should we focus on? Toby, can you hear me? Yeah, I can. Okay. I apologize, everyone for for that.

Silvi Nuñez 21:59
So unless she's back, this is kind of her to shut up. She's the expert. She's the expert, but I can take over. It's not working one

Bryan Montpetit 22:11
more time? Nope. Okay, unfortunately.

Silvi Nuñez 22:15
Okay. So I think the frequency will depend a lot based on each business's needs. But what it's important is to maintain a proactive approach and to repeat the process. For example, I would say, six to 12 months may be a valid frequency. And you can use this opportunity to optimize the workflow based on the learnings to revalidate and check that, you know, the investments you were making are making sense and verify that the market and technology which is still rapidly changing, are still the best choice. Are you back on?

Bryan Montpetit 22:55
Excellent. Are you back with us again? I don't think so.

Ann Montañana 23:00
Yeah, troll with with the headset. I'm sorry. I couldn't no

Bryan Montpetit 23:04
problem. So So Sylvie kindly said that you were the expert on the last question.

Ann Montañana 23:10
Yeah, no. Sorry. It was very good to me. Thank you. Okay.

Bryan Montpetit 23:21
We have another question. Do you think that machine translation is better than no translation at all? Okay, I think I think that

Ann Montañana 23:31
machine translation actually, without editing, of course, is better than no translation at all. Maybe what you can do is to publish instead of publishing the machine translated content into your website, maybe you can allow the can option on your side for your visitors to translate the content easily and quickly, is because that way you will prevent from having any issues with the machine translation output. And also in that way, you can test and monitor their request and see what content receives more interesting foreign language.

Silvi Nuñez 24:16
Yeah, I agree. for machine translation. Definitely.

Bryan Montpetit 24:21
So actually, just building on that question, do you think that it can negatively impact the the top of the funnel?

Ann Montañana 24:29
Yes, indeed, because I think that I'm not gonna go into some technical details into machine translation, because it's a very broad topic, a very controversial as well. But I think indeed, it needs to be. If you're going to publish content on your website, where the machine translation, I think you should edit it first. Maybe a machine translation post editing could be a good option, but no machine translation just alone without any linguists Checking that everything it's okay. Right.

Silvi Nuñez 25:02
And you know what I've done a lot of research. And people prefer benefits machine translated. And it's not that good, but they prefer in their language rather than in English, for example. So I think maybe it does have any effect, but you could try it as a strategy. And if it doesn't work, then you can turn it around. But that's the whole thing. It's about testing different hypothesis and see what works best for your, for your business model.

Bryan Montpetit 25:31
Perfect. Thanks for that. I do want to remind people that we do have live questions if they want to hop in and join us and ask a question. So we can see your face hear your voice. I do encourage people to do that. Because we're, we're now in north of 200 people. So there's got to be somebody in there that wants to actually ask a question on camera. I'm going to be pushing that because I'm excited for it. See, everybody wants to see your faces. So if we move on to another question, according to your experience, how much content should a small digital agency translate to expand? And incidentally, in a parenthese, the preface this, this question with love the presentation, so.

Ann Montañana 26:12
Okay, thank you so much. So take this one silly. Go ahead. Okay. Okay, I think that will depend a lot on your resources, the funding the timing, I mean, it's not necessarily to go all in maybe you can start testing approaches hypotheses, or maybe channels. But a good recommend that a map have the must haves are the homepage and the about page. And then maybe you can start focusing on translating blog posts, blog, blogs, articles, or the landing pages, for example, the ads. So yeah, that's pretty much it, though. It will depend definitely on your resources.

Bryan Montpetit 26:59
Great. Did you want to add anything Salvi? Nope. All right. So we do have again, another question. Do you believe it's important to recruit your team members internationally, when providing any language service translation localization, live streaming or voiceover etc?

Silvi Nuñez 27:23
Totally, yes, yes. I believe that passion comes from the native experience part. I completely agree that for a strategy to make sense in the new target market, it has to be done by a native expert by someone that lives in that place that is so familiar with the language, the terminology with culture. So I completely I think that yes, they should be from those kinds of theories.

Ann Montañana 27:51
Totally. Besides, I think that when you hire international linguists, for example, because they are native speakers, when you expand to new markets, you're like you're performing a localization more than just a translation. So it needs to be in it to fit the needs of the new target audience, and the native language will and know the target audience better than any of any of us. So definitely.

Bryan Montpetit 28:18
Right. And actually, just to add to that, they can also lose, for example, cultural sensitivities or nuances if they reside in another country. So if you're actually dealing with the target resources in the target country, you're probably all set. So that's fantastic. All right. Again, just going through the questions here. Oh, where? Where do you get information to understand your markets?

Silvi Nuñez 28:45
Well, we mentioned some of the resources here. We can conduct surveys, for example, we can use Google Analytics. For example, if you have a website already in place, you can check your Google Analytics to see who's coming, who's coming organically to your website, who is being attracted. And maybe you can start from there. You can use Google Trends to see what people are searching for. You can use economic statistics to there is a whole bunch of online resources. So just put market research and investigative research and dig it out from there.

Bryan Montpetit 29:23
Perfect. And did you want to add anything? No, I'm good.

Ann Montañana 29:29
She covered everything on the on the bottom of the presentation. That's why I

Bryan Montpetit 29:37
that's fine. So one of the other questions is, can I target multiple countries that speak the same language such as Spain and Latin America?

Silvi Nuñez 29:48
Okay, I think that even if the language is the same for different countries, such as Spain and Latin America, I would recommend that you try to localize for countries rather than for languages, I mean, each specific country has its own cultural, economic and technological aspects, those that we were just discussing, and the ways wired search, the ways they buy, or they find a product, or maybe the way even the way they talk about something that will vary depending on each country. So I think it's always best to prioritize country rather than what?

Ann Montañana 30:27
Yes, sure. Besides, I think it's it has, doesn't have to do with, with the language itself or with the target market. So it doesn't matter if we speak Spanish here or in Spain, but we are two completely different markets. So that's the answer. You have to focus first on the markets. And the language, of course, but the market is the most important, I think.

Bryan Montpetit 30:53
Perfect. Thank you for that. Another question. So we've got a few more that have come in. So and we were doing really well on time. So this is this is perfect. How do you rate the weight of organic tracking traffic versus payment SEO strategies?

Silvi Nuñez 31:09
How do you what sorry?

Bryan Montpetit 31:10
How do you rate? I'm assuming? Yeah, how would you what do you consider, I guess, more important, or what do you think the ratio should be? How would you evaluate, you know, obtaining organic traffic, organic traffic versus paid traffic? I hope Laura, that was the that was a question from Laura. And I hope, Laura, that I, I interpreted that properly.

Silvi Nuñez 31:34
Okay, let's see if I can, I can kind of jump into that question. I think that a markets, a marketing strategy should always focus on attracting people organically will have much better results in I mean, in the long term, the results will be much better than my ads, you will end up wasting a whole bunch of money, etc. So I think the ads are a great resource that you can use, but I would always prefer going for the organic approach the organic traffic. So taking this into the multilingual content strategy. If your budget and your timeline and your resources, allow it, go for the organics for the organic traffic, try to translate your blog, add SEO, try to translate your website focus on that. But if you have limited resources, then maybe you can opt for an ad strategy and just kind of translate that and the landing pages and see how it goes. See if you actually have all received the kind of traffic that you're expecting. And then you can, you know, kind of measure like Adam was saying, see how the strategy is going and where you can take it from there?

Bryan Montpetit 32:50
Excellent. I think it does. And if I if I may, I have the impression a lot of people think that SEO is a very expensive venture. And it doesn't necessarily have to be I mean, you can invest your own time and and drive that organic traffic yourself. So when we're versus SEO, I think it's important to say that the there's a lot of information out there on how to even minimally affect your website with SEO. So I would recommend that people look into that before starting to pay consultants and everything else.

Silvi Nuñez 33:22
Yeah, SEO. It's not just keyword research. It's a whole bunch of strategies. So you know, and you don't have to implement them all with just implementing a few of them, you'll start seeing the results. So start playing around with that.

Bryan Montpetit 33:35
Great. Well, again, I mean, thank you, I think we've gone through all your questions, less people are going to chime in here. I think well, we'll see if there's any additional ones. And if not, then we can actually select a winner of the book. And I'm just quickly scrolling through and I don't see any any additions. If you go into the QA section in the you should be able to actually see the questions that have popped up.

Silvi Nuñez 34:03
Okay, so based on the boats, I think you would be the winner and I love the SEO Yeah, thank you, but no. You're told me. Yes.

I was just reading it

Ann Montañana 34:23
here. Take a buck. Yeah, no, I think the one on how much confidence your small business agency translated span? That's a very good question, actually.

Bryan Montpetit 34:39
Okay, so we have a winner, Buddha's cabello. So I think is the is the name of the winner. So I apologize if I didn't pronounce that correctly, but we will ensure that we get that two years. So are you guys sticking around for networking? Of course we are. Excellent. Yeah. So we're going to have a break. We're going to come back at 10 past the hour, so I wanted to thank you for a great presentation. Everyone loved it. There was a lot of questions and I think this really hits home for a lot of people. So thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Silvi Nuñez 35:11
Thank you for having us.