Grow Your Business Overseas

The internet provides a big opportunity for businesses of all sizes to go global. About one third of the world population has internet access and can be reached easily. So, if you have an existing website promoting or selling your products, you can tap into to this huge global market.

You may ask, why grow your business overseas?

Statistics from the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) show that companies trading globally improve their productivity by 34%. They are also 12% more likely to survive than those who don’t export. The UKTI statistics also show that businesses believe that exporting leads to innovation.

The main point to consider is which country and language to start with? Only 27% of the internet users speak English, and 85% of online customers prefer to make purchases in their own languages. Therefore, in order to attract these non-English speaking users for your products, you need to communicate with them in their respective languages.

How do we market our products to other countries?

Contrary to the common belief, the initial market research can be done on a small budget.

It would make sense to target one of the fastest growing top 9 languages used on the internet. These languages cover over 55% of the entire internet users’ population. In order of growth rate, these languages include Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Korean and Japanese.

Then how do you find out if there is a requirement for your products in countries where these languages are spoken?

The first method is using your Google Analytics data. This is a free product and will give you plenty of information. Here you can see your visitors’ languages and countries of residence. If you find any users data from any country other than the UK, then this could mean that your product or service has already attracted online users there. This can be a great starting point.

If you have no available data, then you may use the criteria below to decide which country may be suitable for your business:

• The number of internet users

• Their growth rate in the home market

• Openness to new products – Number of existing products similar to yours

Then what about the market research without spending a fortune?

Start translating your keywords for your services or products. Then setup a small Google AdWords campaign to test the target country and monitor the traffic it generates thereafter to see if it’s worth pursuing further.

You can do all of these by yourself or choose an accredited translation company experienced in multilingual SEO to manage it for you, such as TTC wetranslate.

If you are interested in finding out more about multilingual SEO or considering business overseas contact TTC wetranslate for free, no-obligation consultation by calling +44 (0)1245 216933 or email levent@ttcwetranslate.com.