Many Europeans can speak a little of the languages of neighbouring countries. The English aren’t known for their linguistic prowess. And in the continent of America, North Americans tend to be uni-lingual, speaking only English. In some cities, such as Miami where there is a large Hispanic presence, there are many bi-lingual speakers, but in general people tend to speak only English.

The first ‘Internet gold rush’ of the late 1990’s saw many websites appear, selling everything from books to bric-a-brac; lipstick to lingerie; door handles to dog food! For many of these website owners, the lure was to become a ‘dot com’ millionaire overnight. They were attracted by the promise that their website could make money while they sleep!

That’s only partly true. While there are many people going about their daily business while the other half of the world sleeps, it is not true to say that all these people will want to visit your website and buy your product. If you’re located in Denmark for example and your site is in Danish, it’s highly unlikely that a worker in Mumbai or Shanghai would buy from you.

Why’s this? Because they wouldn’t be able to understand the descriptions of the products. Tempting sales promotions and offers simply would not lure them to hand over their credit card details.

So, while it’s true that people don’t really read online, it’s important to have your website available in different languages if you’re really serious about making that sale. Having your website content translated is easy these days. And where better to look for your interpretor but online?

Irish company, Word Perfect Translations Limited, regularly translates web content into the following languages. For a truly global business, in the twenty first century, it’s important to have content available in the following languages:

• English • Spanish • Chinese • Arabic • German

Obviously these languages will change based on your particular business. If you are located in Asia, you will probably need to consider translating your web content into Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Cambodian languages. While a central European business ought to consider French, Italian, Polish, and Russian.

Once you have translated your content, you can give site visitors easy access to it by displaying flags on the top right of the home page. People know to click on the flag of the language they want, and it has become a convention to show the flags on the top right corner.

This information should help you to consider the need to translate your website into foreign languages. A little time and effort now could make you plenty of additional sales in the future. So it’s time and money well spent.