Here are some facts to blow you away.
Visual Capitalist posts that 60.4% of internet content is in English, making it the widest-used language online. It’s followed by Russian, which comes in a far second with 8.5%.
These statistics are disturbing. Why? Because only 379 million people in the world speak English as their first language. That’s 4.76% of the entire world population.
So why is 60.4% of internet content in a language that less than 5% of the world speaks?
It’s counterintuitive. Consider that 76% of consumers prefer to purchase in their own native language. Consider all the lost opportunities from content that’s restricted to the English language.
It’s time to localize and translate your Shopify store.
Allow customers to shop in their native language. This has a profound effect:
- Improve confidence in your product or brand
- Improve customer experience
- Increase your sales potential
- Build a relationship with customers no matter their circumstance, nationality, or geographical location
“From product pages to check-out, people want to know, where’s my money going?” Jana says. When it comes to e-Commerce especially, where transactions are the name of the game, transparency and clarity are paramount. Make it easy for your customer to purchase, and watch your performance skyrocket.
There are two important factors to consider when translating your Shopify store.
Keywords: Keywords aren’t the same across cultures. Diapers in the United States are nappies in the United Kingdom, couches pour bébé in French, pañales de bebé in Spanish, and Babywindeln in German. If your Shopify content only uses the word “diapers” to describe the wide array of usable, disposable, swimming, pull-ups, and contour diapers that you offer on your Shopify store, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity. Use the right ones to get your product found by your target customer.
Localization: Localization is broader than translation. Proper localization means that the end user feels that they’re shopping on their local platform, with their local currency, with a local PSP provider. It feels familiar. It feels like home. When you allow a customer to experience your brand in a way that feels that way to them, you craft an indelible bond – which is easy to translate into loyalty, and therefore, repeat sales. You’re able to connect better to your audience when you become more than just a US/UK brand.
Convinced yet? Shopify translation doesn’t even have to be difficult.
First, prepare and import your content to get ready for translation.
Go to Settings > Export, and select All Content. Export to download the CSV file. The text for checkout and email notifications won’t be included here.
Secondly, get your content translated.
We don’t recommend machine translations. You’ll definitely want to incorporate localization at this point to make sure you appeal to your customers’ gain points and assuage their pain points, regardless of where in the world they may come from.
Third, implement your translations.
Go to Settings > Languages, and choose the languages you’d like to add. Upload your CSV file. Be sure your Shopify theme can run multiple store languages!
Fourth, test and publish your content!
How’s the user experience? Do you find that your conversion rate has increased across different cultures?
Does this sound complicated?
It doesn’t have to be. We have expert translators across more than 15 languages, prepared to help you find the best keywords to get found, and the best localized expression to convert. Send us an email now at info@ylt-translations.com and start your Shopify translation – the iron is so hot, now’s a great time to start!