During the 1960's and 70's, small businesses were not really concerned with growth. However, that disinterest is out dated. A good number of small businesses in the United States and overseas, were actually family owned and operated. Sadly, consumers were convinced to accept the idea of 'super' markets that promised convenience, offering a variety of goods. No longer did the shopper have to make individual trips to the baker, butcher, fish market, and pharmacist. Nevertheless, a costly price was paid for such convenience--hurried and impersonal service, traffic jams, elevated prices, and unfortunately, the failure of many family businesses.

Business Growth in Today's World

Nowadays, it's almost essential for the small business, whether family owned or not, to strongly consider commercial growth. This involves time consuming tasks such as establishing a reliable and fully functional website. This allows an enterprise to engage in electronic commerce, also known as 'e-commerce'. Along with an e-commerce enabled website comes the necessity for what is termed 'website localization'. To what does website localization refer? In short, it's the process of rebuilding a website written in one language, and oriented towards a specific culture, into a site responding to the needs of foreign visitors.

Small businesses can greatly increase sales by not only serving 'virtual' consumers, but also, foreign customers. While it's true that the U.S.A leads the world in computer usage, and English is the dominant language, other things must be considered. Website localization has become an important topic of conversation for a reason. Consider that only about 35% of Internet users speak English, and not all of them speak it as a mother tongue. Many of these English-speaking users would prefer a site in their native tongue. This is evident by the fact that roughly 50% of search engine requests are submitted in a language other than English. If these Internet users are choosing to search in their language, how much more they would like to conduct business in their language. It's calculated that people are four times more likely to respond to content if it's in a language they know well, a fact with which all should be able to identify.

Website Localization Carried out

A real world illustration of the importance of website localization can be seen in the increased sales that a Bulgarian company enjoyed. The Bulgarian actor Hristo Shopov became famous in the U.S.A with his role in the movie, The Passion Of The Christ. Americans took an interest in buying other films in which he starred. Balkanatolia.com was prepared to serve English-speaking American consumers only because they had made the good decision to participate in website localization. A search engine query in English containing the name of the actor or of one of his movies, quickly led to the English language platform of the Bulgarian site. Once there, the visitor, whether Bulgarian or English-speaking, could easily opt to view content in either language. Their website localization service had provided them with a dual-language platform for safe e-commerce.

Website localization significantly influences company credibility and could increase sales.