Best Practices for Creating Your Global Website
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This presentation takes you through the external and internal best practices for your global website. External best practices are those that affect the user experience. Internal best practices are those that affect you and the people who have to maintain the sites.
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Best Practices for Creating Your Global Website
- 1. Best Practices for Creating Your Global Website Val Swisher Founder & CEO © 2014. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 2. First…A Definition A global content strategy is a structure for managing all of your content that is consumed by people who speak or read languages other than the source. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 3. Why Do You Care? 1. 2. 3. 4. Save money localizing and translating content Improve content quality in all languages Save time localizing and translating content Someone told you that you need to figure out this mess (see 1-3, above) © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 4. Best Practice Categories There are two types of best practices: External Internal © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 5. External Best Practices Affect the user experience Navigation Ease of use Cultural sensitivities Branding Excellent resource for best practice information: “Web Globalization Report Card,” by John Yunker www.bytelevel.com © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 6. Where Is The Welcome Mat? Splash global gateway Button on the homepage Button buried deep within the site that no one can find © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 11. Global Access “Sweet Spot” If you are not going to have a splash global gateway, the next best choice is to use a simple button. Upper right corner of the screen is the best place for it. Keeping it in the same place for each language is a good idea, too. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 17. Global Gateway Best Practices Use a global gateway splash page, if possible Display region or country names in the native language Flag language Use the global button sweet spot Avoid lengthy drop-downs Put the button in the same place Be careful when emphasizing certain locations over others Don’t hide the button © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 18. Where Oh Where Are My Global Sites? Don’t make navigation harder than you need to There are some companies who choose to hide their global sites You need to hunt for them. Carefully. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 23. Navigating Within A Global Site Make it easy for people to find what they need, in the language they need it in, on the device they want to use. Think like a customer when you lay out your global navigation. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 28. Don’t Forget The Branding Unless your brand is iconic, make sure you feature it on all of your language sites That’s how iconic brands got to be that way © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 30. Cultural Sensitivity Eliminate what is offensive Include what is specific to the region Pay attention to what you do and don’t translate © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 31. Avoid Offensive and Unrecognizable Images Hand gestures Images Symbols © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 35. Cultural Expectations Layout of pages Specific items of celebration • Awards • Campaigns © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 41. Recap - External Best Practices Affect the user experience Navigation Ease of use Cultural sensitivities Branding © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 42. Internal Best Practices Know when to translate, when to localize, and when to transcreate Reuse content wherever possible eep text out of graphics Be consistent Use multilingual keywords Collaborate © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 43. Methods Of Handling Global Content Translation Localization Transcreation © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 44. Methods Of Handling Global Content Translation Localization Transcreation The content stays the same The meaning stays the same Different content developed to meet business objectives Language Literal word-for -word translation of everything Translate the meaning of the words in a way that is culturally appropriate Developed in local language; English may be used as part of the brand vocabulary Images No change Change to fit local expectations / product needs Change to fit local expectations / product needs Layout No change Minimize changes Change to fit local expectations Brand Vocabulary No change No change Enhance and expand © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 45. Reuse Content © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 46. Text Within Graphics Not picked up by free translation engines such as Google translate or Microsoft translate Not picked up by optimization engines such as Acrolinx Separate process to translate Not searchable © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 50. Choose Consistency © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
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- 52. Language And Search Site must be searchable in native language Even if site “returns” to English, maintain native language search terms More on this when we discuss content auditing © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 53. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 54. Recap - Internal Best Practices Know when to translate, when to localize, and when to transcreate Reuse content wherever possible eep text out of graphics Be consistent Use multilingual keywords Collaborate © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 55. Best Practices Exercise Evaluate Walmart for global best practices Ranked #1 on the Fortune 500 for 2013 Presence in 27 countries More than 6,000 international stores Almost 1 million employees outside of the U.S. So let’s look at their global online presence. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 56. Best Practices Exercise Evaluate Walmart’s global gateway using this list of best practices: Access Ease of use Cultural elements Branding Reuse © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 57. How Long Does It Take You To: Navigate to the Walmart site for Chile? Navigate to the Walmart site for India? Note your observations to share with the class. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 58. © 2013. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 59. Val Swisher CEO & Founder vals@contentrules.com @contentrulesinc
Editor's Notes
- There are many best practices that companies should follow when they plan their global content strategy. Some of them are internal and some of them are external.Let’s talk about external best practices first, because they are the most obvious to recognize.
- External best practices are the do’s and don’ts that affect the user experience. Let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- You can make it very simple for customers to find the language they are looking for. Or, you can make it like a needle in a haystack. And there are a few ways to do it, with one being the best.
- Another excellent example of a splash global gateway.
- Here is the Splash Global Gateway for Lush Cosmetics. Lush is one of my favorite global sites. They do so many things well. Normally, flags are not recommended for a splash gateway and the reason is simple. A flag does not equal a language. Lush addresses this by having multiple flags for the countries that have multiple languages. For example, Belgium (Dutch) and Belgium (French). Lush could improve this page by:Removing the flagsIncluding the native word(s) for the languageOrganizing the page in something other than alphabetical order across the rows
- KLM uses a hybrid approach. They have a splash global gateway, but it makes certain countries more important than others (for no reason that is apparent to the user), and it doesn’t use native languages.
- In his book, “The Art of the Global Gateway,” John Yunker talks about the global access “Sweet Spot”. Essentially, where on the screen you locate the button that takes a user to a global website. The global access “Sweet Spot” is in the upper-right nav bar. Yes, I know, there are LOTS of things that compete for the sweet spot. But, if you want to make it easy for your multinational customers to work with you, that’s the best place for it.
- Coca-Cola is another gold standard for international sites. As you can see here, the Change Country button is in the sweet spot.
- Here is the global site for KPMG. Notice that they are using the sweet spot for the location of the button. However, they have a ridiculously long dropdown menu to scroll through and they do not use native languages. Both of these things are not part of the best practices.Best practice: Always use native languages (the English in parenthesis is a nice ideas, too). Don’t use ridiculously long drop-down menus.
- Here is the US site for Hotels.Com. In general, Hotels.Com does a good job on their global presence. I’m not really fond of the placement of the global gateway button, but it is rather obvious.
- Here is the English site for Hotels dot com Mexico. Notice where the button is. Very Confusing.Best Practice: Keep the buttons in a consistent location, preferably with the same look and feel.
- Salesforce hides its global gateway at the very, very bottom of the homepage. I had to scroll at least 3 times to get here.
- Here are the best practices for how to roll out the welcome mat.
- But we have a completely different category of difficult navigation. These are the sites where finding the other countries is truly a needle in a haystack.
- Sony likes to fool you by showing you your country in the sweet spot. But that is not where you change it. That’s just where you can see what site you are looking at.
- Sony’s Global Home button is allllll the way down there. You have to scroll multiple times and go BELOW the tweets and the news to find it.
- As if things arent’ difficult enough, this is the page you get when you click on that Global button. It is not a global splash page at all. And if you click it, you don’t go anywhere. So where ARE the international sites for Sony??
- Here are the splash global gateways completely hidden in the depths of the Sony website. Electronics, Games, and Movies.
- I want to show you an example of what I mean by this.Here we are back at the Muji.com global gateway. Remember, we had to click on the home page to get to this page. And let’s say, for example, that we want to go to the Italian site.
- When I click on the Italian site, I am taking taken to the U.K. site. At this point, I might simply give up and figure that Muji doesn’t know the difference between English and Italian. But, on a whim, I decide to click on the English button in the upper-right corner.
- Well, now this is interesting. It is a completely different splash global gateway. It is an improvement over the actual splash global gateway, but haven’t I been here before?Okay, let’s try Italy again.
- Well, there you have it. It took me 5 clicks to find the Italian website for Muji.
- What’s Wrong With This Picture? Wouldn’t this photo be just as effective if the model had on a long-sleeved shirt that covered her belly button?
- This is Lush USA. It uses a different layout for the screen – less boxy, more fluid.
- External best practices are the do’s and don’ts that affect the user experience. Let’s look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
- This leads me to an important point. It is really important that you understand the three different ways of handling global content and the impact of each.
- Local expectations are important. The classic story here is Gerber Baby Food. In the US, we sell Gerber Baby Food in jars with pictures of a fat baby with puffy cheeks on the label. This meets our cultural expectations. In Africa, the cultural expectation – because literacy is low – is that the picture on the outside of the jar is of the ingredients. So a picture of a baby with fat cheeks says that the baby food consists of … you guessed it … ground up baby! A lesson Gerber learned very, very painfully.
- Even our good friends at Ikea don’t necessarily make sense all the time. Here are five different versions of “Anna”. Anna is the avatar you can click to have a chat with a customer service representative on the site. Different sites use different versions of Anna. I have to wonder if some marketing analysis was done to indicate where Anna should be a non-smiling brunette, where she should smile, and where she should be blonde and have those come hither eyes.
- Arabic
- Japan
- Thailand
- Here’s American Apparel’s various international websites. It’s about as consistent has I’ve seen…