When it comes to localizing content, many marketing teams focus on localizing their website and stop there – leaving blog posts, emails, in-app copy, and other types of content unchanged. Instead of a truly localized user experience, customers get a fragmented experience that varies from one piece of content to the next.
To build trust and connect with regional audiences, effective content marketing requires a global content localization strategy, not just a one-time effort. Consistent localization practices save time and money, and present a more unified brand voice.
In this post, we’ll show you how to localize content in a way that goes beyond website translation to provide a truly authentic and local user experience.
What is content localization?
Content localization is the process of adapting web, app, and marketing content for a local or regional market. Although it often includes translation, content localization goes beyond translating words to include adapting images, meaning, structure, and tone to align with linguistic and cultural expectations.
In digital marketing, content localization may apply to blog posts, landing pages, emails, photos and videos, social media posts, in-app copy, knowledge bases, and more. Each type of content has its own localization best practices based on the relevance of the content, its timeliness, and its intended audience.
Why your content localization strategy matters
Often, product and marketing teams are expected to perform content localization under pressure: the decision has already been made to launch in a new market, or a piece of content needs to be translated for a new audience after it's already live.
Having a content localization strategy allows you to synchronize your efforts so you can follow the same guidelines and implement localization at the ideal stage of the process.
Strategic content localization helps keep your brand competitive and meet your buyers where they’re at. Here are three ways content localization can make a difference:
- Search: Localization helps you rank higher in search results – especially when it comes to in-language queries that English-only content can’t capture. Localized content improves placement in both traditional search engines and AI tools.
- Trust: Localization ensures brand consistency, even when speaking to multiple audiences in different languages. This builds credibility in a way that one-time marketing campaigns can’t easily match or sustain.
- Conversion: Buyers who can access your content in their native language – and don’t have to translate it themselves using third-party apps or plug-ins – convert more quickly and at higher rates than those who can’t.
How to build a content localization strategy
Building a content localization strategy allows you to take a thoughtful, step-by-step approach to content localization. It’s not about localizing each piece of content as it comes along, but about updating existing content, developing new content for your target market, and having a consistent process for multilingual translation.
Whether you’re localizing content for a specific audence, or pursuing global content localization, follow these steps to create an effective localization strategy:
Choose your market based on buying signals
Website traffic alone isn’t enough to justify localization in a given market. Look for more specific buying signals, such as visits to your pricing page, free trial signups, requests for demos, and case study downloads. The more buyer interest you can identify, the more impact your content localization campaign is likely to have.
Audit your content library
Content localization doesn’t always require creating new content from scratch. You can start by auditing your content library to identify high-converting pieces that are already bringing in buyers. By localizing your landing pages, pillar posts, and high-traffic blog posts first, your localization efforts will likely pay off sooner.
Determine localization depth by content type
The key to a content localization strategy is knowing how much time to spend on each type of content. Some types of content require full cultural adaptation: a landing page with stock photos of U.S. currency and tourist attractions won’t be as relevant for a European audience. On the other hand, content that’s being re-purposed between similar markets may only need automatic translation and a light review.
Build a content localization workflow
A content localization workflow ensures a consistent process, even when multiple teams or team members are involved. Do you have dedicated translators for each market? Or are marketing teams expected to manage their own translations? Who makes updates to your website, blog posts, or marketing content after it’s been localized? Following standardized workflows reduces complexity and improves localization quality.
Create a style guide and glossary
Using a style guide and glossary helps you protect your brand voice across languages and regions. This is especially important when cultural nuances don’t translate literally between markets. A translation glossary keeps the meaning of key phrases, such as taglines, intact, while a style guide describes the voice and tone you’ll use in a given market (such as the formal or informal “you” in Spanish translations).
If you’re stuck or frustrated with your website localization, our Website Localization Playbook is a great source for more strategic tips.
Content localization by content type
Different types of content call for different levels of localization: linguistic translation, cultural adaptation, re-formatting, and more. From redesigning your website layout to accommodate right-to-left languages, to rewriting blogs and social media posts to be more culturally-relevant, global content localization takes many forms.
Here are five different types of content to localize and the most important localization considerations for each of them:
Blog posts and long-form content
Blog posts, especially long-form content such as pillar posts, attract visitors to your site and establish your authority in your industry. But case studies, data sources, and other components may not carry over to other markets. Update these with relevant sources and reference points for each of the regions you operate it.
And don’t just use the same SEO strategy you use for your English-language content: multilingual SEO requires in-language keyword research and restructured headings to align with how people in other markets actually search for your content.
Landing pages and conversion copy
Landing pages are some of the highest-ROI types of content to invest in as part of your global localization strategy. If you don’t have time time or money to localize everything, focus on landing pages and conversion copy first.
Calls-to-action (CTAs), value propositions, and even social proof, such as testimonials and endorsements, may not translate literally. Re-write your conversion copy with local buyers in mind: addressing their pain points, cultural considerations, and other factors underlying their buying decisions.
Email campaigns
Email campaigns that mirror your localized website perform better than those that are simply translated versions of English-language content. But marketing conventions vary from one region to the next: subject lines, preview text, and even how often you send emails can determine whether they’re actually opened.
Take the time to localize each email campaign, with unique sequences for each target region – and avoiding sending English emails to non-English-speaking buyers. Use subject lines that reference local interests, such as holidays and sporting events.
Video and multimedia
Video and multimedia content can have a big impact in a new market, especially when you share it on social media. Re-shooting content isn’t always possible, so start with subtitles, dubbing, and on-screen text localization for existing video assets. When practical, re-record narration with a native speaker.
As you go forward, flag any scripts that contain idioms or culturally-specific humor that won’t translate well to other regions, and hire a local expert to review them. You can also put out a call for user-generated content specific to each region.
In-App and product copy
In-app and product copy is often an afterthought in content localization, but it’s one of the most important considerations for retention. Users who download your app or buy your product from a localized website but can’t use it in their native language may be discouraged from using it or recommending it to others.
Localize onboarding flows, error messages, and UI labels to provide a consistent user experience between your website, marketing, and product copy. If possible, provide a knowledge base or tutorial in each language to address common issues.
Content localization best practices
Your content localization strategy doesn’t have to be overly complex to be effective. It’s more important to get started and improve your process as you go. Follow these global content localization best practices to have the biggest impact:
- Start with your existing content. Content localization can involve producing custom content for each market – but it doesn’t have to. Start by repurposing your existing content, especially long-form content that already converts.
- Create a style guide for each market. Different languages and regions have their own stylistic expectations. Instead of leaving stylistic decisions up to each translator or content creator, create a style guide for each locale to ensure that the most important components are conveyed accurately.
- Use translation memory. Translation memory saves you time and money by storing text that you’ve already translated so you can use it as a reference for future projects. Localization tools like LocalizeJS use translation memory to improve consistency and reuse key phrases across your content.
- Review content in context. Reviewing localized content in context – such as email, webpage, or product copy – improves the quality of the finished product. Avoid reviewing translations in a standalone document, where inconsistencies and awkward phrases are more likely to be overlooked.
- Build localization into your workflow. Localization can be harder to implement on dynamic websites or apps with regularly-updated content. Build an automatic trigger into your workflow so you can keep multilingual content current any time the English-language version of your site is updated.
The right localization strategy will depend on the size of your business and the number of teams that are involved. Even if you’re only launching in one market for now, use a consistent process that you can replicate when you launch in new markets later.
Content localization is an ongoing process
The marketing teams that get localization right treat it as an ongoing part of the content creation and publication process – not a one-time website localization sprint. Each new piece of English-language content is an opportunity to adapt it for a new audience, and your content library is a treasure trove of resources ready to be localized.
The question isn’t whether you should localize your content for a global audience, but whether or not your workflow is ready for it. A content localization strategy will help you turn your ad-hoc efforts into a repeatable process you can use for any type of content. Download the Website Localization Playbook to get started.
