How to Select Optimal Content & Markets for Localization

With the world becoming global at an increasingly rapid pace, more and more companies are capitalizing on this expansion by capturing new international markets that they previously never would have thought possible – all with a little localization. As with any business endeavor and process, taking an effective and well-educated approach to your localization investment and processes will help to best optimize for results and revenue.

Two of the most important questions at any step of the localization journey are the “what?” and the “where?” — specifically, what content you should be localizing and where you should be localizing into. To help you get in the localization optimization mindset, this post breaks down some key aspects of selecting optimal content and markets for localization.

Leverage What’s Working Already

A fundamental rule that we have emphasized in previous posts is the practice of using what is working already to inform your future strategy. What does this mean exactly? First, evaluating your top-performing content so you can make sure that you understanding which content has been most engaging for your audiences to date. It is not by coincidence that this content is performing well —and likely this is driving business activity such as traffic, engagement, and sales – so it is important to take advantage of this and test out this content in your new markets.

Similarly, to assess which markets to localize into first, take a look at which regions and markets are driving traffic from your site — both on a long-tail and short- tail level. Of course, your dominant market is likely the one you’ve launched in. But on the short-tail end, perhaps there is slowly growing group of visitors from a foreign market that you previously wouldn’t have thought to reach. This is where your opportunity for localization lies.

Benchmark Locally and Globally

As you go through the previous action items, make sure to maintain a local and global context when doing so. This means balancing what is top-performing for you with what is top-performing amongst local and competitors, especially in the international markets. With regards to content, start by testing out your current popular content and layer on top of it some extensive research of what kinds of topics and keywords that are trending in your target market – chances are they will not only be in a different language but may also be fundamentally different terms and phrases.

With regards to markets, once you know which markets are top-performing for your business specifically, take a step back to get a broader and global perspective.  Do this by taking a look at which international markets your competitors may have started stepping foot in. And additionally, get a sense of the other local competitors that might be in the space.

Establish Your Budget & Make the Investment

Once you’ve gained more clarity into the types of content you want to localize and the target markets you want to localize into, the next step is to transform this into financial terms — specifically, figuring out your localization budget so that it reasonably covers all your translation needs and localization goals. This can be done with two simple equations, based on the amount of content you are looking to translate and the average market price per word, among a couple of other key factors.

Then, once you’ve set a budget then you are ready to determine which method is best for this first (or next) localization effort. When shopping around for a translation vendor or translation management solution, Make sure you ask these key questions that will help you to better assess which localization technologies are the best fit for your business and translation needs.

Start Scaling Globally with Localization

Together, these three fundamentals will help you gain a deeper understanding of your global audiences to guide you in more effectively investing in localization efforts that will scale your global audiences.

Now, do you have your markets selected and ready to start scaling globally? Sign up for a free 15-day trial of Transifex to start localizing your content today.