Every country you market your product in deserves a unique, localized website. This is an extremely powerful tool for succeeding with a new foreign audience virtually anywhere on the globe.
And because the human mind prioritizes visual information, a huge amount of the effort you put into localizing your website should go into adapting or transcreating the visual content. But which features are likely to contribute to a truly great localized website?
1. Images. Compelling, relevant images interspersed throughout your texts keep your reader looking through the material. Dense text without space or images can turn a website visitor off right away. So choose product images and other complementary images well-suited to your target culture and make every page alive.
2. White space. Another way to make your page more approachable is to use extra white space around your texts and images. Balancing white space, text, and images, is critical to successful localization.
3. Hero Images. These attractive, oversized banners at the top of your home page can be extremely inviting to your customers. When designed well for your target culture they are beautiful additions to a localized website.
4. Mobile-friendly layout. Yes, most markets have strong mobile user percentages. Many – like China – have even higher mobile Internet use than desktop, and the numbers keep rising. You definitely want to localize this aspect of your website.
5. Videos. Humans learn so quickly by watching something being demonstrated or displayed. Product demonstration videos, modeling clips, and other brief explanatory videos about your product are excellent additions to a foreign-market website. Also highly effective are customer testimonials, animated features, and related-content videos, all designed specifically for your target audience.
6. Memes. This easy-to-create visual content can contribute to the establishment of your company’s personality in a unique way. For the right product and the right audience they’ll spark an emotional connection (especially a young demographic).
7. Infographics. If you have comparative details or statistics to share, infographics can draw your audience right in with appealing, compact, and clear designs. You can make powerful points in just a few seconds of their attention.
8. Screenshots. Display an inside peek into some aspect of your company with a screenshot of part of its internal process or a customer’s positive communication. These visuals take no design work and they are hard to ignore.
9. Full presentations. If you have the resources to develop a captivating longer presentation about your product or its history or some other enriching company content, websites can accommodate these as options for your customers that want that deeper look. This feature will be more appealing in some cultures than others.
10. Card design. This trending visual feature gives a clean, simple display using a postcard-style “gallery” of responsive framed images to choose from. Stylish and artistic, the card serves to draw the eye and cluster related elements such as segments of your product line, inviting the viewer to choose something to look at more closely.
As you research your target country, you will develop an idea of which visual website features will be especially effective there for your product. This may vary somewhat country to country. The ten visual features described above are excellent options for attracting and retaining potential customers when orchestrated and balanced together well. The right localization company will fully understand how to localize these features and assemble them into a great website for your target country.
J. V. McShulskis
