Localizing a localizer’s website: analysis

Gary Muddyman

May 2008

As I write this article in January, we are deep into the planning phase of Conversis’ revamped website. I always thought of our site as a sort of process where we could let the creative juices run wild, resulting in something spectacular and beautiful. Imagine my horror when I discovered the key competency I required was my long-forgotten schoolboy math talent!

I have discovered that adapting an existing website is a completely different process than creating a new one. For a new one we don’t have to burden ourselves with boring stuff like facts. We can have lots of those lovely opinions — those things that people can’t prove or disprove. Existing sites have analytics, so we know what pages visitors enter from, exit from, stay on, buy from and so on. So, my opinions have been relegated to secondary importance behind those damned facts! Worse still, some of my opinions of three years ago have been proven wrong. I am still recovering from the shock.

Actually, I have found the process of seriously looking at the analytics fascinating. Like others, I suspect, we tend to take a superficial look on a weekly basis and then a more detailed look monthly. But, although we have had this data for three years, this is the first time we have looked at it with this sort of depth. It certainly has debunked some myths, and the results are interesting and frightening in equal measure.

To take you through each of our findings would fill a whole edition of MultiLingual. But I hope to give you a flavor with the following few analytics:

• where our visitors are from, geographically and professionally


• the search phrases that are used


• the landing pages’ effectiveness vs. the effectiveness of our home page


• exit pages


• the time spent on pages


• new vs. returning visitors


• the path visitors take through the site


• the effectiveness (or otherwise!) of our request for information and request quote processes


• search engine performance and keyword effectiveness


• number of downloads of resources such as cultural commentaries and language primers

We are in the process of a root and branch review of our site. Through our analytics package we can truly track and understand the type and behavior of our visitors and where they come from. We have completed an analysis of our existing site, how each page has performed and what purpose each page serves on the site. We have also sought the opinions of clients, staff and other users.

We have some key goals for the revamped site, hoping that in the future:

• It accurately reflects our proposition and the values of our organization.


• The site is an interactive tool and not just an electronic brochure.


• It is easy to navigate and use with the required information easy to find.


• It is completely transparent.


• It is accessible and easy to find through effective search engine optimization and other methods.


• It ticks all the technical boxes, in terms of speed of download, page size and so on.


• It is elegantly designed.


• It is rich with the content our visitors want and becomes a site that they will return to.


• It is interesting and informative, clearly written and doesn’t patronize.


• It is linguistically and culturally excellent.


• It is thought provoking and diverse in its formats.


• It has clear and persuasive calls to action.

Following the existing site review and establishing key principles, we can get on with the job of planning the new site. The key for us is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in two respects. First, parts of the site work well, and we want to retain those elements. Secondly, we have invested time, money and thought in improving our search engine performance. We want any changes to have a positive impact on the search engine rather than a negative one.

So, bearing in mind our key objectives, we have set about putting the revamped site together. I have said that there are some parts of the site and some pages that are working fine, popular and that we want to retain. However, we felt the best approach was to initially start from scratch, decide what we would want given a blank sheet of paper and then see where the elements we wanted to retain fit in. We went through the following process.

Begin with the end

It is vital to establish an ultimate goal for the website. A terms-of-reference document was created and distributed to all parties involved. This established exactly what it is that we are selling our customers and how our service can be of benefit to them.

A tone-of-voice document has been compiled in order to ensure consistency across the new website. A company’s tone of voice is all about language and the way it is used in communication to the public and its customers. A company’s tone of voice reflects its personality. It’s important that the tone of voice comes across in marketing and external communication and also in the way employees write e-mails, talk to each other and to their customers. This will ensure that we avoid projecting a mixed message.

Know your audience

One question to ask prior to making any changes to the website was to establish exactly to whom we are speaking. Who exactly is our audience? We cannot speak to everyone, and it was necessary to identify our key segments. By performing this analysis, we established that our website should speak to both the individual and the corporation.

Our audience covers a range of job titles from marketing managers to engineers and localization professionals. Our message stands out as we are speaking to a group who all work in mid- to large-sized corporations and who are budget, time and influence poor. We can provide a solution to their business issues.

Segmenting by job title and investing the time to understand where and how our clients/prospective clients search for information, what interests and motivates them have allowed us to truly understand their requirements. This process enables us to enhance our website content to meet their needs.

Consistency of information flow

Once we had defined our target audience, case studies were created to reflect how Conversis had met the needs of each group, therefore highlighting what it needs to know. The web statistics have shown which information is the most/least popular. This has given us a clear idea of website content and information flow.

The most important message to convey on our new site is that we understand our customers’ problems and to demonstrate how best we can solve them. We realized that as our customers are time poor, it is vital that our headlines capture their attention and immediately communicate our message. This process has allowed us to prioritize content based on what our customers are telling us.

Easily digestible content: With a structure for the new website now in place, we realize that the content must grab the visitor’s attention. Our headlines must be eye-catching, and the content relating to them must be succinct, business-like and relevant in order to keep their attention. It is vital that we use language that all of our customers will understand.

Smooth transitions: We have a lot of information on our existing site. We must ensure that all information is connected and does not jump from one unrelated point to another.

Natural progression: Globalization, internationalization, localization and translation, the services that we provide, can all be interrelated, and a key objective of our new site is to navigate the visitor through each page to arouse interest.

Clear messages: We are in the process of creating one main point per page, and all information on that page will be related. Too much information to digest on one page means the reader will not stay. Long, scrolling text is out!

Landmines: Having established a clear and consistent message, we will ensure that our new website is linguistically, grammatically and culturally correct. It’s supposed to be what we do!

Minimalism: By adhering to the above and interrogating our web analytics, I am convinced that only the vital information that our visitors care about will remain. Our site will be clean, succinct, informative and easy to navigate. There will be a consistent message throughout.

Gain a unique competitive advantage

Coming back to the objective of this article, we in the localization community have some serious housecleaning to do. In our industry, we are not properly practicing what we are preaching in terms of properly localizing our websites.

I refer to my good friend and colleague Nitish Singh who in conjunction with Arun Pereira wrote The Culturally Customized Web Site. Culturally adapted web content enhances usability, accessibility and website interactivity with the relevant cultural group. It is critically important to fully understand the subtleties of each culture you are targeting before launching your website. I do not wish to design my site with a “one style fits all” attitude. The website must resonate with the cultural context it operates in, and to do this what is needed is not cosmetic localization, but rather cultural customization.

How much time do we in the industry devote to considering these issues? Attendees of Localization World Seattle in November 2007 may well have seen that during the presentation Nitish and I did together, we revealed that our industry is not practicing what we are preaching.

Over 50 localization companies and their US English, German and Spanish sites served as the final sample. A total of 156 sites were analyzed comprising several thousand web pages. We found that the quality and depth of localization are inferior to that of our multinational enterprise customers as an industry. Our end product, our new site, must not repeat this mistake.

Gary Muddyman is managing director and CEO of Conversis, based in the United Kingdom. He previously served as director of operations for K International Plc. and spent 16 years working for HSBC Asset Finance U.K. Ltd.

Reprinted with permission of MultiLingual magazine. Copyright April/May 2008 http://www.multilingual.com