Importance of Localizing SEO and SEM for multilingual websites

May 26, 2012 - PRLog -- Ensuring your website has a truly global reach is challenging for today’s businesses. However, even more challenging is making sure your potential customers in emerging markets can find your website through online search.
One of the first things to consider and to ensure customers overseas will find your website is the various search engines used locally and the opportunities each offers. For example, Google offers very different search engine marketing opportunities compared to the Chinese search engine of choice, which is Baidu, compared to Yandex which is the preferred search engine in Russia. Search query techniques themselves can vary from country to country and establishing a search engine marketing strategy is perhaps more about targeting searchers depending on the country they live in, rather than the language they speak.
Online marketing is extremely popular and vital to businesses operating in Asia. This reflects its position as a major emerging market that is increasingly targeted by Western businesses keen to launch their products and services in new markets. Businesses all over the world are relying increasingly on global markets to boost sales and the need for multilingual search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) translation is growing as a result.
Although this presents a number of challenges, most marketing experts agree that companies need to focus on localization rather than translation with regards to multilingual SEO and SEM. Simply translating keywords from English to other languages isn’t enough. Working with a qualified, professional translation and localization expert, specializing in website translation, businesses will be able to establish an effective search marketing strategy that works in several languages and markets.
Communicating to customers in their own language is not simply a case of translation. The search terms used in different countries will differ tremendously. For example, even when targeting English searches, US-based English speakers would search for “cell phone” when looking for the latest mobile device deals, while customers in Germany would search for “handy” and British customers would search for a “mobile.” These small nuances are found in many other regions of the world and without consulting with local SEO and SEM experts and specialist website localization professionals, large numbers of customers could potentially be missed.
Using corporate and technical jargon can make multilingual SEO and SEM difficult and can prove detrimental to efforts to drive traffic to your websites. It’s easy to assume certain things when localizing a website for SEO, but assuming can cause problems.  For example, the common acronym “ERP” means “enterprise resource planning” in the US and the UK.  It is also known as ERP in Germany despite the full term appropriately localized as “Unternehmensressourcenplanung.”
To conclude, anyone with a global website presence needs to give careful consideration to their approach to multilingual SEO and SEM. Working with localization experts with experience in website translation will help businesses ensure their website attracts as many potential global customers as possible.

About Merrill Brink International
Merrill Brink International (www.merrillbrink.com) is a leading provider of complete translation and language solutions for global companies and law firms, with special expertise in serving the legal, financial, life sciences, software, heavy machinery and corporate markets. A proven leader with more than 30 years of experience, Merrill Brink offers a wide range of language solutions including translation, localization, desktop publishing and globalization services.

Merrill Brink is recognized in the industry for its commitment to quality and its pioneering approach of leveraging technology to reduce costs, eliminate redundant processes and accelerate translation life cycles. Merrill Brink is certified to ISO 9001:2008; ISO 27001:2005 and ISO 13485:2003, and registered to EN 15038:2006 and ISO 14971:2007. Together, these standards provide assurance that the most stringent process and quality standards for translation are followed. Merrill Brink International is a wholly owned subsidiary of Merrill Corporation.
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