Global Content Strategy
By Val Swisher
()
About this ebook
When you want to engage customers, you must have great content that speaks to them in their language. Success in foreign markets takes research, planning, and sensitivity regarding the culture, expectations, and buying habits of each target customer.
Because of this, more and more companies are translating more content into more languages every day.
Global Content Strategy: A Primer gives you the information you need to get started navigating the global content landscape. From tips on making your global content more accessible to details on how to ensure that your words and images are prepared for the world, this book provides information every global organization needs to be successful.
Val Swisher
Val Swisher is the Founder and CEO of Content Rules, Inc. Val enjoys helping companies solve complex content problems. She is a well-known expert in content strategy, structured authoring, global content, content development, and terminology management. Val believes content should be easy to read, cost-effective to create and translate, and efficient to manage. When not working with customers or students, Val can be found sitting behind her sewing machine working on her latest quilt. She also makes a mean hummus.
Read more from Val Swisher
The Personalization Paradox: Why Companies Fail (and How To Succeed) at Delivering Personalized Experiences at Scale Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Localizing Employee Communications: A Handbook Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Global Content Strategy
Related ebooks
The Language of Content Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Intelligent Content: A Primer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnterprise Content Strategy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Content Strategy at Work: Real-world Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Language of Technical Communication Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContent That Converts: How To Create A Profitable And Predictable B2B Content Marketing Strategy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Language of Localization Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Visual Usability: Principles and Practices for Designing Digital Applications Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWriting for Social Media Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conversation Marketing: How to Be Relevant and Engage Your Customer by Speaking Human Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDesign for Online Engagement: SEO, Content and Design Optimization for Editors and Designers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsContent Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOutsourcing Technical Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDITA for Practitioners Volume 1: Architecture and Technology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvery Page is Page One Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Author Experience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVoice and Tone Strategy: Connecting with People through Content Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMicrocopy: Discover How Tiny Bits of Text Make Tasty Apps and Websites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Website Optimization “Improving Your Website’s Conversion Rate” Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Content Everywhere: Strategy and Structure For Future-Ready Content Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Google Analytics 360 Suite A Complete Guide - 2021 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinning the Game with UX Design & CRO: Supercharging Your Website Design with Conversion Rate Optimization and UX Research Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStart Writing Technical Documentation TODAY! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5User Interface Design A Complete Guide - 2020 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScrum: Novice to Ninja: Methods for Agile, Powerful Development Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strategic Web Designer: How to Confidently Navigate the Web Design Process Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5
Internet & Web For You
Cybersecurity For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More Porn - Faster!: 50 Tips & Tools for Faster and More Efficient Porn Browsing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Coding For Dummies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mega Box: The Ultimate Guide to the Best Free Resources on the Internet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The $1,000,000 Web Designer Guide: A Practical Guide for Wealth and Freedom as an Online Freelancer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coding All-in-One For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grokking Algorithms: An illustrated guide for programmers and other curious people Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beginner's Guide To Starting An Etsy Print-On-Demand Shop Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings200+ Ways to Protect Your Privacy: Simple Ways to Prevent Hacks and Protect Your Privacy--On and Offline Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Logo Brainstorm Book: A Comprehensive Guide for Exploring Design Directions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hacking : The Ultimate Comprehensive Step-By-Step Guide to the Basics of Ethical Hacking Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Start A Podcast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Digital Marketing Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Websites That Sell Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn JavaScript in 24 Hours Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Designer's Web Handbook: What You Need to Know to Create for the Web Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRemote/WebCam Notarization : Basic Understanding Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Six Figure Blogging Blueprint Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Beginner's Affiliate Marketing Blueprint Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Disappear and Live Off the Grid: A CIA Insider's Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wireless Hacking 101 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Start A Profitable Authority Blog In Under One Hour Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Make Money Blogging: How I Replaced My Day-Job With My Blog and How You Can Start A Blog Today Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Global Content Strategy
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Global Content Strategy - Val Swisher
Global Content Strategy
Table of Contents
ForewordPreface1. What Is a Global Content Strategy?2. It’s Ten O’Clock—Do You Know Where Your Content Is?3. My Gestures Don’t Offend You, Do They?4. Transwhat?5. Content Global-Readiness6. The Translation Memory Dance7. Make Your Content Easy to Find8. The Global Content Strategy RevolutionGlossaryBibliographyIndexA. Copyright and Legal Notices
Foreword
In 2003, when I published the first edition of The Web Globalization Report Card[Yunker, 2014], there were 700 million Internet users, which at the time seemed like a lot. The majority of these Internet users were English speakers, so companies didn’t support many languages through their websites and other marketing channels. In fact, the leading global websites supported an average of just 12 languages.
Today, more than a decade later, the Internet landscape has changed dramatically. There are now 2.5 billion Internet users, of which fewer than 25 percent are native English speakers. So any company with global aspirations has no choice but to support a significant number of languages. This is why the websites of the leading global brands now support an average of 28 languages.
That’s right. The average number of languages on a global website is now 28.
For a growing number of companies, 28 languages is way too few. Companies like American Express, Honda, and 3M support more than 40 languages. And a handful of companies – such as Facebook, Microsoft, and Google – support more than 70 languages.
So what does this mean for those of us charged with developing global content strategies?
It means we need strategies that are global by design.
Global Content Strategy: A Primer, by Val Swisher, provides you with an excellent start.
From developing a global content strategy to creating world-ready visuals to managing translation workflow, this guide will help you answer important questions, such as these:
What is transcreation, and when should I use it?
How do I direct web users to localized content?
How do I create English-language content so that it is more efficiently and effectively translated?
Global Content Strategy provides high-level best practices to help any organization with global aspirations get started on the right foot and avoid costly mistakes.
—John Yunker, founder of Byte Level Research, is the author of The Art of the Global Gateway[Yunker, 2010] and The Web Globalization Report Card[Yunker, 2014]. Since 2000, he has consulted with many of the world’s leading brands and helped pioneer best practices in multilingual web design.
Preface
The global economy matters more and more to American-based businesses. The U.S. Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all report that 95 percent of consumers live outside the United States.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce makes the point emphatically, stating that markets outside of the U.S. represent 80 percent of the world’s purchasing power and 92 percent of the world’s economic growth. In 2012, the total value of goods and services exported from the U.S. was over $2 trillion dollars.
We’re not just in Kansas anymore.
While humans everywhere may be fundamentally the same, assuming that everyone is just like you is likely to backfire. Succeeding in foreign markets takes a great deal of research, planning, and sensitivity regarding the culture, expectations, and buying habits of each target customer group. As Deloitte Touch Tohmatsu Limited put it in their 2012 report, Global Powers of the Consumer Products Industry:
...understanding the consumer in each of these markets (and in some cases in each region within a market) is a task that cannot be underestimated.
When you want to engage customers, you need to have great content that speaks to them in their own language. Beware the temptation to assume that global audiences speak and read English.
I hear this all the time, We don’t need to translate. All our customers can read English. English is the language of the world. Everyone speaks English.
Well, no.
Here are some statistics from Wikipedia:
Of the 7 billion people living on earth, only about 375 million – 3.6 percent of the world’s population – speak English as their first language.
More people speak Mandarin Chinese or Spanish as their first language than any other language.
The number of people who speak English as a second language is estimated at anywhere from 470 million to over a billion.
Clearly, not everyone speaks English.
An important part of your global content strategy is making sure that you provide appropriate content, use appropriate methods, and deliver appropriate languages to your worldwide customers. Providing untranslated content to foreign markets can be a revenue-limiting mistake at best and a public-relations catastrophe at worst.
Take Coca-Cola. They had difficulties expanding into China. Why? The name Coca-Cola was first read as ke-kou-ke-la, which means, depending on the Chinese dialect, bite the wax tadpole
or female horse stuffed with wax.
Fortunately for Coca-Cola, their marketing team found a phonetic equivalent – ko-kou-ko-le – which means happiness in the mouth.
More and more companies realize the value of translating content for their foreign customers. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, many companies start translating content without a plan. That’s the bad news. When companies have no plan, their translated content grows haphazardly, not strategically. Rarely do I find a company that starts out with a plan for managing content in 84 languages. Yet, the number of people tasked with this kind of job grows every day.
As companies add languages, the quality of the source content takes on increased significance. Source English that is poorly