YNOT EUROPE – As with any other website, localized web pages must be marketed properly to increase the likelihood that potential customers will find a product or service. It will do a company no good to spend money translating its website into other languages if no one can find the site amongst the clutter on the internet.

Promoting a localized website is no different from promoting a “normal” website. In fact, the same strategy used to set up your original site can be used again. The only difference is that you must advertise the pages in more than one language. Just be sure to address four major touchstones:

• Search index registrations.
• Press releases.
• Strategic linking with other websites.
• Banner advertising.

The easiest and most necessary of the steps is search index registration. However, it is a passive, not proactive, form of marketing a website. Think of search index registration as the minimum entry ticket to play in the international market.

Actively marketing your localized website means putting effort into the other three techniques. Press releases, strategic linking with other websites and banner advertising are methods employed by companies operating in the international web market.

Banner advertising is probably the most effective way to advertise your translated website on the internet. However, you need to realize that the same rules that applied to translating your website apply to its advertising. You must consider the languages and cultures of your target customers. You need to invest the money and resources to ensure your intended message is, firstly, getting across to your target customers and, secondly, means what you think it means. The difference between failure and success often rests in how well the marketing team knew the local market and culture.

There are also other, more traditional, ways to get your website known in other countries. Advertising on websites that are related to your product, advertising at tradeshows and advertising in magazines all are effective ways to promote your website to a larger audience. If your product lends itself to the approach, tradeshows can be very effective, because attendees compose a market that already has indicated interest in your product. Localized literature may draw them to your website by letting them know additional information in their language is available online.

Whatever methods you use to promote and advertise, make sure you do market your localized website abroad. At a minimum, register with search indexes that present results in the targeted language(s). However, keep in mind that this is just scratching the surface of the promotion you must do. The more effort you put into marketing your localized website, the better your results will be.

This article was contributed to YNOT Europe by TranslationsXXX, an adult website translation service employing certified translators in 30 languages.