Overall retail sales may be experiencing a slump, but eCommerce has a bright future: total U.S. sales are projected to grow by 18 percent in 2020. For retail brands looking to insulate themselves against the pandemic’s damage to brick-and-mortar retail, eCommerce offers access to a large international audience eager to move more of their in-store shopping to online outlets.
Building connections with a global customer base requires an eCommerce conversion optimization process that prioritizes translation and localization to deliver an engaging user experience. Here are a few specific ways language services can improve your conversion rates and bottom line.
Optimizing translated listings for search
Search optimization needs to account for two different types of search: online search engines driving traffic to your website, and searches conducted through your retail website’s search function.
Traditional SEO is responsible for driving referrals to your eCommerce store, which means that your website’s keyword strategy, URLs, and product listing metadata all need to be translated and optimized for your target audience. Search engines can downgrade your page rank when translations are inaccurate—this is often taken as a sign that your business is using cheap machine translations to deliver a low-quality user experience to your customers. Invest in a trusted translation service that combines the speed of machine translation with the quality assurance of human translation experts.
Your eCommerce site also needs to adapt product keywords and listings to account for linguistic differences in product terminology, as well as trademarks that may exist in new foreign markets. Depending on the localized market you’re targeting, for example, a baby stroller might also be referred to as a “pram” or a “buggy.” Partner with a language service provider that can help you account for these crucial differences.
Translating customer reviews
Customer reviews have a large influence on eCommerce purchasing behavior: More than 87 percent of consumers read at least one online review of a product before making a purchase. When you expand your eCommerce site into a new language, you can accelerate your selling success by also translating customer reviews and providing new shoppers with a valued supplemental resource in their decision-making process.
Translating your customer reviews can lead to a better initial conversion rate for your website than if you’re trying to sell without any reviews available to shoppers—or if those reviews are only displayed in a language the shopper can’t read. Your language service provider can help you choose the most cost-effective approach to translating this content across your retail website.
Aligning ad copy with landing page messaging
As you oversee the translation of your eCommerce site, your business also needs to ensure social media, search ads, and other referral channels are aligned with your website messaging. Product keywords, descriptions, and other terminology should be consistent across both referral sources and landing pages.
Achieving a high conversion rate depends on your ability to maintain a consistent customer experience across both advertising, marketing, and your on-site experience. Work with your language service provider to ensure these channels and campaigns align with what shoppers will find when they click through to your online store.
eCommerce conversion optimization requires a streamlined, detail-oriented process to translate product listings and other eCommerce materials into your target languages, and a system for updating and adding new translated listings over time. Contact Protranslating today to find out how our translation services can help you optimize your eCommerce site for greater success.
