Comments on: 3 Principles of International Website Marketing

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:33:23 +0000

I enjoyed the article. Our company is trying to place our services in front of many different country’s. How does a company get found in a search done in China, or Germany?
Should a domain name be reserved in that country, like .cn or.de?
What would be the next step after that? Thank you for sharing your knowlege.

By: Portugal Web

Portugal Web — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:50:35 +0000

It has been particularly interesting when a company ranks well for a term that is well-focused in a specific language, yet does not rank at near the same level in the English language.When translating in another language, I’ve always changed the concepts for a different language, I had to know about their needs, their own views on the content. The message always varies from country to country.

By: Richard McLaughlin

Richard McLaughlin — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:38:55 +0000

Very smart to create an internationally usable address form. Remember that International does not just mean Canada and Mexico.

Very important to remember that most countries don’t have a STATE to list. France is a State in the European Union and Ohio is a State in the United States. Don’t make the STATE line an obligation.

phone numbers are not all 330-555-1212. To call me in France you have to use a code to get international first, then a country code, then the phone number. The International code for most countries is 00, but not all. We use the “+” sign to mark international. +33 means dial international, then 33 is the country code for France (44 UK, 353 Ireland and so on).

Dial +33661381539 to call me from the US. 0661381539 if you are calling from France. Many countries have a 0 as the first digit that is only used in country – there are come countries that have the 0 for international calls too.

postal codes in many countries are 5 digit, just like the US. Since most countries are not English speakers, they have their own word for it. ZIP is actually an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan and is used to identify the closest post offices or delivery stations.

The UK postal code is between 5 and 7 alpha-numeric characters identifies the address to within 100 properties, with an average of 15 properties per postcode. If you tell a post code to someone in the UK, they can pretty much find your street.

Address in general. When I lived in Ireland my house did not have a number, the houses were all named. My address was Avalia, Westminster Road, Foxrock, Dublin 18, Ireland.

Loads of things to keep in mind when making address fields.

By: SirCommy

SirCommy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 08:48:12 +0000

Good article and I can fully agree with you. Web Design is one of my company’s activities and our usual translations have to be in English and French.
1. I never feared that translating a page (releasing the same content in another language) would negatively affect me on search engines (i.e. google), they are different words, different expressions, different world. Actually, it would be read up as a different page.
2. You can’t translate mot-a-mot (word to word), there are a lot of expressions that simply can’t be translated unless you use a specific translated expression for that specific language. Sometimes, I even had to change the layout of a page so a proper translation would fit in.
3. When translating in another language, I’ve always changed the concepts for a different language, I had to know about their needs, their own views on the content. The message always varies from country to country.
Cheers.