75% of consumers in 10 non-Anglophone countries prefer to shop online in their native language. And, in Japan, for example, 70% will buy only on local-language websites. For you, as a multilingual store owner, this means that you’re on the right track. However, translating your website into multiple languages is just the first step. 

To be profitable, you need to find ways to drive traffic and make sure it converts. How do you do it with a multilingual store when you have so many languages and channels..? It may seem overwhelming at first. However, like many tasks that may seem difficult at first, thriving with a multilingual store can be much easier than you think if you divide your action plan into small, achievable steps. 

In the blog post below, we explore 4 ways to get more multilingual visitors and move them through your sales funnel step by step. Let’s dig in!

1. Create multilingual content

If you’re selling to a multilingual audience, your content needs to reflect all your target languages, too. You have to adapt your product pages, blog posts, emails that you send, social media posts, and ads – everything your potential customers can come across – to each of your foreign audiences.

Why? Because if they can’t read it, they won’t buy it!

It’s also important to know that it’s not enough just to translate everything. A direct translation might not always be enough (although it certainly allows you to launch in new markets instantly). You need to keep in mind that there are nuances in every country you need to pay attention to.

That’s why you should adapt your core content according to the differences in demand, local tendencies, and cultural aspects. Only then you’ll be able to move your potential customers through the customer acquisition funnel across different target audiences and make big sales.

Make use of special occasions 

Have a calendar of the most important national celebrations in each of your target countries and create content dedicated to them. For example, if you’re targeting China, you can run a promotion campaign around the Chinese New Year. This way, you will not only get some extra sales, but you’ll bring your brand closer to your customers and win their loyalty (which also means repeat purchases).

Research content in different countries

Don’t just assume what content would work in different countries based on your common knowledge – you need to be strategic with your content planning. Use tools like Buzzsumo to find content that does well in other countries and languages, look for the trends and consistencies and plan your blog posts, landing pages, email campaigns, or social media posts based on your findings. This way you’ll be sure that you’re relevant to your target audience and see better results.

2. Take care of your international SEO 

What do people do when they want to buy something? They usually turn to Google. Your task here is to make sure people can find you in their preferred language. To be found, you need to optimize SEO for your online store in your target languages.

Research your main topics in different languages

What’s trending in the US now may not be very hot in France. Trends will be reflected in what people search on Google. To be relevant to your target audience in different countries, you need to list your main keywords for your business and research them in other target languages. And worry not, you don’t have to speak ten languages yourself. 

You can easily explore your main topics in various countries by hiring freelance SEO specialists for your target languages. 

You can use platforms like Google’s Keyword Planner, ahrefs or Ubersuggest for your keyword research. Once you have your list of keywords you want to rank for, you can use them in your product descriptions, metadata, landing pages, and so on.

Make sure Google indexes you

Hreflang tags are incredibly important for your international SEO. They signal to search engines what language your pages are intended for and therefore help you get indexed in your chosen markets. Although time-consuming and difficult to add yourself, Weglot automatically adds these to your multilingual store so you don’t need to worry! 

3. Use dynamic language optimization on Facebook ads

Another important part of bringing more traffic to your multilingual store is to advertise it in multiple languages. Let’s take a look at how you can do it with Facebook ads. 

Luckily for multilingual store owners, Facebook has a tool that allows for dynamic language optimization. This means that if you want to advertise your product in multiple languages, you don’t have to create different ad sets for every language you need. You only have to make one ad as a base, and it will be adapted to other languages you need.

Here’s how Facebook would automatically translate an English ad to French:

If you want to, you can edit automatic translations. You can also provide your translations. You can learn more about how to create a Facebook ad in multiple languages here.

4. Ensure complete user experience to get sales

After you make all of this effort to attract more visitors to your multilingual store, make sure you convert the traffic that you get. After all, what’s the point of high traffic if you have low sales? Below are a few tips to help you keep your customers happy across all of the buyer’s journey.

Emails

You need to ensure the same language experience across all touchpoints of your communication with your foreign customers. So, if, say, a French speaker came to your store through a French ad, read the product page in French, and decided to buy from you, you don’t want to confuse the person by sending a purchase confirmation letter in English. 

Maintain communication in the customer’s preferred language across all of the buyer’s journey. By providing a pleasant user experience, you’ll be more likely to have returning customers who will leave great reviews about your online store, too.

Invoices

Even though invoices are a bigger thing for B2B sales, they’re also important if you’re working with B2C. After all, they’re the final step of the user experience with your brand once the purchase is made.

So, make sure that you maintain the selected language in your invoices, too. And it’s not that difficult! Apps like Sufio can help you automatically create and send invoices in your preferred language.

To wrap it up

Of course, these are not all the things you could do to drive traffic to your multilingual store, but the tips above give you a solid starting point. Once you have your content and SEO strategy in place, and drive additional traffic with automatically translated Facebook ads, add other channels like Google ads.

The key here is not to start with everything at once to ensure your smooth transition into getting your multilingual store more online visibility in a steady and predictable way. 

As pointed out, don’t make a rookie mistake by putting all your attention into getting more potential customers with strong content marketing and advertising and then sending them an email purchase confirmation in your base language. Make sure you use the same language across all the user journey, and you’ll see your sales skyrocket!