Web MarketingWWW; Mark Berghan argues there's a reason it's called the world wide web.

Mark Berghan argues there's a reason it's called the world wide web.

Only speak English? You may be heading for trouble. Research shows that over half of all people online don't speak English and this is projected to climb to 75% by 2005.

Not convinced? Then look at where New Zealand

People from non-English speaking countries use the web in their native language, not English. Over 98% of Japanese search the web in Japanese; only 2% search in English. Sounds logical I know, but how many tourism providers continue to present websites in English only?

Even in one of our biggest English-speaking markets, the US, over 13% of the online population uses the web in a language other than English. That's 21 million people.

Nor is it simply a matter of translating words. Content needs to be placed within a cultural framework. To really work, a website must provide copy in a relevant language within a specific cultural context. We're talking colour, font choice and imagery too.

Keywords and keyphrases are vital. Over 75% of all web sessions start with a search engine query. People browsing the web - and that's a mis-nomer, but more about that later - use search engines to find information.

There are two issues here. The first is that each language and culture operates under a unique base logic. For example, research into UK web users looking for New Zealand travel information reveals that the most popular keyphrase is "holiday in New Zealand". Switch to the US and the most popular keyphrase is "New Zealand vacation". So even within English, different web users query a search engine in different ways.

Moving out of English the difference is even more marked. For the same example, the most popular keyphrase in Korean is "travelling in New Zealand", in Japanese "New Zealand sightseeing", in German "travel in New Zealand" and in French "New Zealand travel".

The good news is that there are now research tools in many languages to help target the keywords that each culture uses to search for a particular product or service.

The second issue relates to the search engine matrix within each language or country. What are the most popular engines in each language or culture?

Here in New Zealand the most popular ones are Google, Yahoo and MSN (all international brands). The most popular local engine is SearchNZ.

Overseas it's a very different story. In Korea the biggest search engine is daum.net, a local (ie, Korean only) engine. In fact, daum.net is one the top five busiest websites in the world. International engines (local language versions) are still important, but not as much as the local engines.

In Germany, the German version of Google ranks as number one, but local engines such as web.de are in the top five. If at least part of a web strategy is to market to new rather than existing consumers, a website needs to rank in the local engines as well as the big internationals.

Which brings us to the misnomer mentioned before. We talk about people "browsing" the web. In fact, people do anything but. People will browse a brochure, flick through a pamphlet or magazine, or scan tv while they do the ironing.

On the web behaviour is different. They use search engines, which are driven by specific queries. Web consumers are highly focused because they have to be able to find the information they need. In particular, people using the web to find a product or service (B2B or B2C) will not "browse"; they will be seeking a solution to a problem.

Easy site navigation is imperative. People who don't find what they are looking for within two screens will walk away.

Processing enquiries in languages other than English is the final key to the multilingual web marketing strategy. Having inhouse staff with the required language skills is of benefit, but not always practical.

The second option is tightly structured enquiry forms that allow staff to understand what the consumer is saying without understanding the consumer's first language.

Think of an online hotel reservation form: the results are understandable irrespective of the language of the customer. Different response forms can likewise be customised to suit different scenarios in the target language.

The third option is to make use of an email callcentre service that offers foreign language processing. This can range from a service that translates emails and forwards them to staff for processing, through to a full enquiry and processing service.

In my experience, a mixture of all three options is often the most cost effective and efficient.

Mark Berghan heads A2Z Translate, an Auckland-based company which specialises in assisting businesses in multilingual marketing.

Email: mark@a2ztranslate.com