Should I have one central website in English for all my customers?

One question that business looking to expand internationally often ask is whether they should translate their website into various languages or have a single central website in English for all their international customers.

A single website in English works best if the majority of your customers are native English speakers. However, you will need to think about which type of English you want to use. Will your customers tend to prefer UK, US or Australian English? This will have an impact on the spelling, grammar, vocabulary and style choices. It is also best to avoid cultural references that are specific to a certain country, as they might confuse your audience.

However, if you are mainly targeting people in non-English-speaking countries, it makes sense to get your website pages and keywords professionally translated by a native speaker. Indeed, research shows that 75% of consumers prefer to buy products in their native language. It may also be useful to brainstorm cultural differences between your current English-speaking market and the new market you are trying to reach to avoid any faux pas. You should make sure that the colours, the images and the branding you use are culturally appropriate and reflect the local environment (climate, architecture, etc.). 

Once you have made the decision to translate your website, you have two options available to you. You can keep your current website and add a button to change the language. This lowers your costs and still provides you with a unique URL you can provide to your customers. However, you may struggle with SEO for this new market. You can also get a relevant domain name in the target language and register this with the appropriate country suffix (for example, in France your website should end with ‘.fr’). In this instance, your translated site will rank higher on search engines and customers will find it easier to use and buy from.

So, to summarise, you can:

•  keep your current website in English but 'internationalise' it by removing any specific cultural references
• translate your existing website into another language (or several other languages) to allow your target customers to read the information in their native language(s)
• create a new website for the new market(s) to which you are expanding, with a relevant domain name and suffix for that language and culture.

• A central website in English will work well for customers with a native level of English
• If you need to add many different languages to your website, then it will be more cost-effective to keep the same URL and provide the option to read the text in the different languages
• If you are mainly targeting a specific country, then the most efficient option will be to create a new website completely tailored to this new market