English is often seen as the Internet’s ‘lingua franca,’ but the truth is that most of the world’s population speaks no English at all – and even 85% of those who do speak English as a second language won’t buy from an English-only website, according to a study by the market research group Common Sense Advisory.

With Internet usage increasing rapidly throughout the world – China alone has almost 400 million users, according to Internet World Stats – there are clearly vast potential markets that remain unavailable to anyone sticking with a monolingual approach.

Marketing to a multilingual audience online requires a well-thought out strategy – below are a few tips on how to succeed.

Translate and research your keywords

There are various ways to translate your content, such as adding a machine translation widget (like Google Translate) or inline code, or employing the professional translation services of a native speaker of your target language. The last option is likely to yield the best results, but even if you use machine translation, you should never directly translate your keywords. Popular local search terms might include English-appropriations, regional variations or colloquialisms, and keyword research should be carried out separately for each target country, both by using translators, and by analysing keyword data.

In-country domains

Hosting your localized sites on country code top-level domains (e.g. .jp for Japan or .nl for the Netherlands) will boost your rankings on both Google’s local search engines and any local competitors. Try to ensure that the site is also hosted on a server located in that country, as this will also help your site appear more locally relevant.

Link locations count

To boost your rankings, you’ll want incoming links that are not only relevant to your content, but also located in your target country. This will mean targeting high Alexa-rated sites located within that country and could involve, for example, posting comments on Japanese online media to provide links to your own Japanese site.

Same language, different usage

The same language can have many regional variations. The Spanish spoken in Spain is different from that used in Mexico, while U.S. and UK English have many variations in vocabulary, and especially in colloquialisms. You might not consider it worth the expense and effort of setting up separate localized sites for countries that share a common language, but at the very least, you should ensure that the content you use makes sense to speakers of each version of the language by having native speakers check it for errors. You certainly don’t want to fall on your fanny and make a faux pas here (and if you’re not aware of what that would mean in the UK, check out this guide to British slang).

Google doesn’t reign supreme everywhere

Google remains the single most popular search engine worldwide, but local competitors are dominant in some markets. In China for example it’s Baidu, while Seznam is the most commonly used search engine in the Czech Republic. Don’t neglect Google, but do focus your efforts on the dominant search engine for each target market.

About the author

Christian Arno is the founder and Managing Director of global translation agency and localization specialists Lingo24. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 120 employees spanning four continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over thirty million words for businesses in every industry sector and their projected turnover for 2010 is $9m.

“The Big Idea is what makes you get up and reinitiate the process of building your dream whenever you hit an obstacle.”—Robert Tuchman

Technology, these days it is something we cannot live, breathe, or function without. Right now is the best time to be an entrepreneur and tackle your next big idea and dive in head first, to take advantage of starting your own business. Fifty-years ago your contacts remained in your regional and even local area. Today the vast number of people you can reach, communicate with, and do business with is global.

So what is “The Big Idea?” When we hear this we think, well it is something that doesn’t exist anymore, all the big ideas have already been created, and we are programmed to think that we have to work for the “Big Man,” instead of harnessing that idea ourselves. The problem is there actually is an absence of big ideas in an entrepreneur’s world. Even if you have all the access to all of the tools you could possibly need to launch, build, and grow your business, that business will not succeed if you see impossible-to-solve problems everywhere you look. Let’s take for example, Kevin Greaney, the CEO of Children’s Progress, a company that helps teachers and school administrators evaluate how kids are doing in the classroom. He harnessed his idea and believed in the opportunities of his company:

“We were already very interested in student assessment and student achievement. I had managed several small businesses in the educational field. My partner Eugene Galanter and I each had some strong opinions about the players who were already out there, these big for-profit publishers who controlled most of the market. They were doing their version of assessment: these big standardized, bring-a-number-two-pencil, fill-in-the-bubble tests.  We knew that those kinds of tests had been developed in 1906, and they really hadn’t changed since then. We felt very strongly that those tests were just boring, that they didn’t really tap into the mind of a child being tested, and that they didn’t really tell the instructor much. We felt we could build a better tool because we were using principles that weren’t, you know, a century old. So we were pretty excited about student achievement, even before we formally started the business.”

Kevin Greaney’s Big Idea had to do with harnessing technology and using it to improve student achievement. My Big Idea mixed top businesses with top-tier sports and helping those companies enjoy the sporting events that I enjoy so much as well. The most important thing to remember about your Big Idea is to love it, in a way you want to be married to it. If you wake up every morning and the first thing you think about is music, check out the latest on new business ideas that connect with music. Research it, harness it, and make it your own. Always remember to add your niche to any idea that you have, stand out and be different. Love something and it will not fail, do not look at a closed door but rather finding a way to always keep it open, and the world is your oyster.

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When Robert Tuchman started his first business, Tuchman Sports Enterprises (TSE), he did so with no money and no investors and ended up on the Inc. 500 list of America’s fastest growing privately held companies.

Now President of Premiere Global Sports, Robert continues to guide his company as well as writing the series “The Show Must Go On” for ESPN.com,  a monthly column for Entrepreneur.com called “Young, Fearless, and Fed Up” as well as a column called “On-Site” for Incentive Magazine, an industry trade publication for incentive and meeting planners. He is the author of The 100 Sporting Events You Must See Live, a sports travel book as well as Young Guns, The Fearless Entrepreneurs Guide To Chasing Your Dreams and Breaking Out on Your Own.

www.youngbusinessexecutives.com

Our next guest post is from Todd Brabender,  President of Spread The News Public Relations, Inc and a long time friend of Palo Alto Software. You can read more of Todd’s articles by going to bplans.com articles. His business specializes in generating media exposure and publicity for innovative products, businesses, experts and inventions.

The call came into my office and the voice on the other end was very energetic, almost giddy: “I have finalized my marketing budget and need your help launching an advertising campaign for my new product,” he breathed. “Congratulations,” I replied, “but before you implement an ad campaign, I want to make sure you have explored potential publicity & PR opportunities that could generate some cost-efficient media exposure first.” Then, silence. “I never thought about that,” he sighed. “Frankly, I don’t know much about it.”

It’s a common conversation. Although many entrepreneurs or business people know a bit about publicity or media exposure, the majority simply don’t understand the full benefits of media exposure or how to go about generating features successfully. Media exposure has always been a cost-efficient way to market a product or business and generate clients or customers, but because of lack of knowledge or a misunderstanding of what media exposure is and does, many entrepreneurs don’t take full advantage of these publicity opportunities — and that can lead to missed marketing chances.

I recently surveyed a few dozen business owners and entrepreneurs in some newsgroups and business chat rooms about their knowledge of media exposure and publicity. I found out that only 37% knew that a simple “product profile” in a magazine was generated as a result of publicity or public relations efforts. Most thought the company had paid the media outlet to run the feature, much like an ad. And of that 37%, less than half of them knew HOW to generate a similar placement.

Another interesting fact, because of the recent slowdown in the economy, expensive advertising budgets have been slashed. As a result, many businesses are turning to media exposure/PR campaigns as a more affordable means of marketing to compete with other companies. Here are some ways to use media exposure and publicity placements to help your business:

Feature Placements/Media Notification
What some entrepreneurs might not realize is that we see feature placements from publicity efforts everyday in the media: product profiles, feature articles and contributed by-lined articles in magazines, newspapers, trade industry newsletters or on TV/radio/cable newscasts & shows. This is not advertising, this is what I call a “FEATURE Placement” or “Media Notification” of a product, business or industry expert. That is accomplished by notifying the appropriate media that your newsworthy product is on the market or your business is offering a unique new service. The targeted media will then run a feature placement that will spread that message to your consumer market. These placements can detail your product or business very effectively, giving consumers some objective, pertinent information that may well entice them to become future customers.

These placements are looked upon much more credibly than ad placements. That is not a slam on advertising. Paying for advertising placements is indeed an effective way to market your product. But the fact is, a positive feature placement such as a product profile in a magazine or a newspaper can be much more persuasive than a glossy, over-hyped advertisement – and a fraction of the cost. My point is that feature placements are an often time overlooked marketing vehicle for a business, and that entrepreneurs should understand the full benefits of these placements to make the most of their marketing efforts.

Feature placements are a wonderfully reciprocal way for you and the media to work together for the betterment of your business. The media needs to fill its pages and airtime with interesting information — and you need to get the word out to your market. Research the media market to find those media outlets and editorial contacts with which you can forge that mutually beneficial relationship. But you have to do your part and do it right – or the media will forge that relationship with your competitor. Make sure your media message is solid, contains newsworthy angles and isn’t disguised as overly commercialized ad copy. Have high-quality photos and media samples available and do all you can to make the media’s job of featuring your product as simple as possible. It also helps to have some sort of clipping service in place to track your placements and get you copies so you can use them in your secondary marketing programs.

Expert Branding
This type of publicity placement generating takes advantage of the expert knowledge within a particular business. It is an effective tool for entrepreneurs whose businesses are more service related, like consultants or specialists. Expert branding basically treats the expert like a product. Alert the media as to your expertise on a specific topic and avail yourself to serve as an expert interview resource for future articles or news feature segments. Additionally, the expert should write a few brief articles on a specialized topic and make them available to editors for review and possible publication. The challenge of this type of publicity placement is the tedious task of finding out which outlets accept “expert editorial contributions” or contributed by-lined articles in their publications. Again, it comes down to meticulously researching your media market to find those media outlets that may be in need of the editorial content that you can provide them.

With some creativity, expert branding can be effective for product-based businesses as well. One client of mine ran a fresh wild salmon distribution business and was looking to increase consumer awareness of his products. Based on his more than 20 years of experience in the wild salmon harvesting business, we expert branded him as a viable interview resource to health/food editors for features detailing the differences and benefits of wild salmon over farm-raised fish, as well as other related topics. In this case, my client (the expert) is identified and quoted in features and the name of the business and even a link to a website are often included for consumers to check out. This is great credibility building exposure at little or no cost.

Overall, when using the media to help market your product or business, take advantage of as many media exposure opportunities as you can. If you lack the expertise or time, a PR agency, media exposure specialist or publicist can generate these editorial placements for you. But the fee you pay them is a FRACTION of what it would cost you to buy similar sized ad placements. And those publicity placements typically lead to a much better consumer response right out of the gate – which is just what you need to boost your business to the next level.

Todd Brabender
http://www.spreadthenewspr.com
todd@spreadthenewspr.com
(785) 842-8909

Today’s guest author is Curt Clinkinbeard, the Director of Training at the FAMEE Foundation. Curt is a former director at the Kansas University Small Business Development Center, an author, consultant, speaker and enthusiast for entrepreneurship. 

Curt was the former VP of Sales and Marketing for a rapidly growing medical firm. During his 13 year tenure, the business went from $500K in annual revenues to over $5 million per year. That’s consistently growing at about 20% per year over an extended period.

We are pleased and very thankful for Curt’s participation today in wrapping up our Global Entrepreneurship Week on getting Back to the Fundamentals.

If you like to read about entrepreneurship, you’ve noticed that every other article these days is written about “how to deal with a rotten economy.” OK, so some of the tips out there are great strategies that help ntrepreneurs take a different approach when times get tough.

But here is an additional / alternate way to look at it….

1. Get back to the basics. A tough economy magnifies the importance of doing the BASICS really well. When dollars are tight, competition increases. When competition increases, the small differences between companies and their marketing strategies become more noticeable. My best advice is to do the things we know we must always do, but simply do them better. In my opinion, going back to basics, but executing at a higher level, is a huge way to help keep focused on improvement.

By the way, a significant benefit to this is if you use a down economy to sharpen your overall approach to marketing during the doldrums, you will deploy a proven approach, which will serve you well when times get better and the economy booms.

2. Take some advice from Alcoholics Anonymous. Focus on the things you can control, and to some extent, tune out the things you can’t control. I find that when business owners get too wrapped up about “the big picture,” they lose focus on what they can control: their approach to running their company. Sometimes rolling up your sleeves, turning off the media’s drama (they make more money when there are sensational things to talk about), and focusing on their own little business, is the best medicine.

3. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Recessions are times when our pessimistic sides start to win. But our best entrepreneurs are optimists. No, that doesn’t mean they are Pollyannas or have their heads buried in the sand. But it does mean that when the vast percentage of the populace is panicking, the cool-headed entrepreneur recognizes that economies go up and economies go down – and has faith that the economy will get better.

The more they remain upbeat, the more they counteract all of the negativism. There have always been good times and bad times. And every time it goes bad, there are those who join the panic train, and those who emerge from the challenges better off than they were going into them. The entrepreneur’s attitude is key. Not only on a micro level, but on a macro one as well!

4. Learn about marketing. And what would an email from me be without a shameless plug?!!!? If times are tight and companies are scrimping back on their expenses, doesn’t it make sense to access a full marketing development training / consulting program? Not only does it talk about how to sharpen up the business so it can grow, but it is offered in a membership that does not have a direct cost. If you have not done so, visit our website at www.famee.org  to learn more.

Curt Clinkinbeard
Director of Training, The FAMEE Foundation Author, /CUSTOMER PILLARS/
Former SBDC center director