Multilingual Support for Your Web Site

May 22, 2008 at 4:00 AM UTC

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As U.S. companies seek to expand their revenue from a broader range of markets and geographies, there has been a big uptick in the number of languages on Web sites. According to industry research, the average number of languages supported by a Web site in 2006 was 15. In 2007, that jumped to 20. For the Top 20 Web sites, as identified by Byte Level Research’s 2008 Web Globalization Card, the average is 48 languages. But adding languages just to keep up with the Joneses is not necessarily recommended. Here are some tips to help you plan the language support that is right for your company.

• Perform regular language reviews to ensure you’re offering the right mix of languages and that you’re not missing out on new markets or turning your back on existing customers. Work with your sales team to find out which geographies are showing the greatest demand.