Which Content Should You Be Localizing First?

Once you’ve made the decision to invest in localization, the next step is to make sure you allocate your translation budget wisely. This way, the time and energy you put into taking your content global will not only bring the global audiences you are looking for, but add value for them so your global presence continues to grow.

To start off, the first thing to note is that depending on your industry, company, individual brand needs, and target markets, the content you select to localize will vary. Whether you are a localization veteran or trying to figure out which content to localize first, here are the steps to take to make sure you are localizing the right content with your localization resources.

Understand Your Top Performing Content

As with any content-related initiative — that is tied to your marketing, sales, and ultimately, bottom line — make sure you are leveraging your current content to understand what has been best engaging your audience to date.

To do this, dive into your marketing dashboard (whether it is on Google Analytics, HubSpot, WordPress, or any other platform you’re using) to see which content has been driving the most traffic to your site and properties. From here, you’ll get a better understanding of the most engaging website, assets, and channels, and have a jumping off point for the content you’ll want to start translating and localizing first.

Get to Know Your International Audiences

While you’re analyzing your top performing content, you’ll also want to dive into the data of your international audience and traffic. Take a close look at which international markets are bringing in the most traffic outside of your main market. It’s a straightforward concept, but it will dictate the first languages into which you should be localizing. Examine this carefully, as you may even be surprised at the global markets that are trying to reach your site!

Dive deeper than just the general continental areas and get specific with the countries and its specific regions. Follow up with research on the languages spoken within each country and region, as some countries have varying languages depending on the region you are in. The more specific your research, the more targeted your language selection and localization efforts will be.

Take Into Account Industry Benchmarks

If you are in an industry that already has global players who have been the first movers in translation or localization, take a look at the markets for which they have been localizing. In the same way you would craft a business plan for global expansion, get a firm grasp on what your industry and competitors are doing in terms of the most popular markets and languages.

Of course, make sure to group this research with the data behind your specific user base, that came from the steps above. (Perhaps you are driving traffic from a market that your competitors haven’t reached yet, or you see a growing trend in demand for your product or service in a market that other global companies in your industry haven’t thought to reach yet!) 

Know That All Your Content Can Be Localized

Finally, once you’ve done all your due diligence from above, you can craft a plan of attack for the content you want to localize. Perhaps you’ll start with certain website pages, blog posts, how-to guides, video testimonials, Zendesk customer support articles, or another batch of content.

No matter the kind of content you want to translate into your selected target languages, we have great news for you — all of it can be easily localized, at scale. With translation management solutions like Transifex, you can integrate your favorite tools (like WordPress, Zendesk, GitHub, Python, among many others) and automate the entire localization process to keep things simple for you and your global teams.

Have your content selected and ready to start translating? Sign up for a free 15-day trial of Transifex to start localizing your content today.