Optimizing Spanish websites for the Latino market

During a session at last year Hispanicize event in Miami, Sebastian Aroca (@HispanicMarkets), Owner of Hispanic Market Advisors®, along with other experts in Spanish SEO/SEM, PPC, and social media, outlined some strategies and tactics for optimizing Spanish websites for the Latino market that is Spanish-preferred. 

In this case study below, you’ll be able to see how some of those strategies and tactics were applied to the site www.fitzgeraldlawcompany.com/espanol/ for the Boston Immigration Attorney, and what lessons we can learn from the study.

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Becoming operationally ready to market to and support Hispanic web campaigns

Spanish web support through free hosting and direct translation services is not as simple as it may sound. The free services can lead to inaccurate translations especially when marketing to professional within the Hispanic community. The creation of a Spanish website should only be attempted after the hosting company is operationally ready to offer professional support to a Spanish Audience. This would include websites that are fully operational to Spanish speaking consumers and professionals who may find product/service descriptions difficult to understand. Making transactions easier for the Hispanic audience that are Spanish-language preferred or reliant by listing product descriptions and service links in Spanish will help consumers complete transactions for both products and services. A friendly and accurate Hispanic website will also sell itself within the Hispanic Community adding success to both short and long-term web marketing initiatives.

Multichannel Spanish Language Service Websites

The obstacles that exist in starting a Spanish website will appear quickly. The goal of accurately and efficiently reaching the majority of the Spanish speaking audience can be achieved by using a multichannel Spanish language services. The multichannel Spanish language service will allow the website to trend or rank which in turn allows consumers to easily access the website. Marketing initiatives or campaigns that target the online Hispanic market will require the use of a third-party translation service. The third-party transactions service will create properly worded content that is search-engine and directory friendly. The goal of a multichannel marketing strategy is to reach more consumer groups which should provide a broader customer base. Including Spanish language marketing materials and other target resources will help store-front business to build a larger Hispanic customer base, the broader the spectrum the better.

Operationally Integrated Websites Interface for Hispanic Consumer

The goal of becoming a on-line sales website begins by bridging the language barrier between English websites and Hispanic consumers. This will include being able to offer Spanish speaking customers support in their language. Being able to communicate effectively and efficiently with Spanish speaking customers will improve customer relationships and customer satisfaction. Happy customers means repeat business and increased referrals.

Helping Hispanic Consumers Assess Customer Service Options

Being able to provide customer service for Spanish speaking customers is important. Support through a telephone system may be difficult but not impossible. All consumers need a method to make comments, ask questions or to issue complaints. Being able to monitor these analytic data trends can help businesses improve customer relationships.

Building realistic resources before beginning an online marketing campaign is a critical first step in marketing to the Hispanic consumer. Understanding the needs of the Hispanic customer(s) and being able to provide customer positive customer service options to the consumer is also a critical step in having a successful marketing campaign.

Determine the available resources, the method by which these resources will be applied and measure the results of how consumers utilize these resources as a means to identify opportunities to improve customer relationships. Being prepared to meet the needs of customers is one of the best ways to ensure that consumers remain loyal.

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Content Relevant to the Hispanic Market

In the realm of online content development for small businesses, content continues to be king. Concerning the Hispanic market, the presence of websites in both English and Spanish increases the marketability of a small business website, expanding into the mass of potential customers.

Dual language content increases 'findability' online, assuring both English and Spanish speakers will find, view, and be affected by the content on the website. Simply having the Spanish content in addition to the English, however, is not a guarantee that productivity will suddenly take an upswing. The content, in both languages, must be engaging, accurate, educational, and relevant to the customer. In the end, the website is only effective if the customer makes a purchase or engages in the business' services, or contacts the business by phone, e-mail, or in person to create a supplier-consumer relationship.

Developing content that goes beyond the purchase

Another overlooked facet of aiming web content to both English and Spanish speaking customers is going beyond the end result of the purchase. If a customer is so impressed that they pass on the information they learned or recommend someone else to use the business' product or service, then the website is even more effective. With the pervasive presence of things like social networks, one satisfied customer could quickly turn into ten, twenty, or even a hundred through content sharing, e-mails, and instant messaging.

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In that realm, it is important to develop content that not only informs but attracts the customer emotionally. Creating an investment in the product or service at hand makes it something in higher demand psychologically. Simply telling a customer that buying a product is good is not going far enough; explaining the reasons and negotiating with their way of thinking and lifestyle will lend to the best results for the customer and the owners of the small business as well.

Hispanic marketing with a Spanish-language website

Online, this is especially important, as the Spanish language website exists as something deeper than a television commercial or radio spot. It can be customized, revised, and edited with the feedback of customer responses, leading to more effective marketing.

Having content developed towards a Spanish speaking audience increases the potential number of customers and demonstrates that the small business is ready to address the reality of the current composition of society where English isn't the only language. While this might seem like a small step, the correct creation and management of Spanish language website content makes a statement about the business' willingness to interact with diverse customers and demonstrates a more personal connection rather than simply existing as a faceless business in the minds of customers.

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Reach Spanish-speaking Markets with Website Translations

For business owners, doctors, and other professionals, the importance of an interactive internet presence has become an indispensable way to attract and keep customers. As changes in market trends inevitable occur, businesses are able to easily adjust their marketing plans to successfully expand into growing market segments with websites often leading the marketing effort. One valuable emerging market trend is the growth of the Hispanic market in the United States which provides marketers with incredible insights and incentives to attract Spanish-speaking customers.

In the United States, the growing Spanish-speaking market which numbered 44.3 million US Hispanics in 2006, is expected to be as large as 60 million by next year with 55% of adult US Hispanics using the internet. Furthermore, with purchasing power projected to reach $1 trillion in 2010, businesses have a greater incentive to reach this large market segment to promote their products and services. In addition to their numbers, US Hispanics who use the internet are generally among the most educated and affluent out of the greater Hispanic population.

The challenge for businesses, especially those who generally operate locally like lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, is how to reach a large and profitable market that includes individuals who speak Spanish. With website translations, local doctors and other professionals, for example, will be able to attract clients through Spanish content that can be found easily on a search engine. The process of website translations is not nearly as daunting as it seems and can be effective in small doses. For instance, an efficient way to attract the Spanish-speaking market is to provide a landing or entry page carefully crafted in Spanish and optimized with key words that can drive website traffic and promote products and services as well. Alternatively, an FAQ page in Spanish, also optimized for web searches, can link to the landing page and provide another channel of communication and interaction with US Hispanics and a Spanish speaking audience. A good website translation will therefore serve promotional ends and will also achieve a certain degree of cultural marketing by speaking the language of a potential client.

In addition to the potential financial benefits of marketing to Spanish speakers, doctors and other professionals have the advantage of tapping into this market early enough to start work towards securing market share. Securing market share, of course, is largely dependent on ensuring that potential customers can find your website in the first place. In addition, the ensuing word of mouth effect can serve as a marketing multiplier as information is passed on to a customer’s peers who may not have access to the internet.

Clearly, the changing paradigms of marketing, largely driven by the internet, are developing into far more valuable and engaging tools like website translations to expand into Spanish-speaking markets. As a result of this ongoing sophistication in marketing, a successful business website is no longer a static collection of pictures and text but a fully interactive experience that should also engage the profitable US Hispanic market.

Please contact Hispanic Market Advisors for a free consultation on your English to Spanish website translation.

Online Language Preferences for US Hispanic Community

The online business community has grown expediently, over the past few years, bringing more and more consumers from all over the world online including the US Hispanic community. Recent studies from market research firms indicate the US Hispanic speaking community is one of the largest search groups online. This market is not only searching the web using the English language, but also using their native language (e.g. Spanish) to search.

While many consumers today write and speak in English even though it is not their native tongue, they often will choose to search the web using their language preference. Up until a few years ago, it was common for US businesses online to offer the online community the ability to search, read, and communicate in the English language only. However, time has changed and consumers shopping and buying habits are constantly changing as well. Such behaviors demand that online companies optimize their search availabilities as well as, translating their landing pages to offer convenience and a customer-centric approach in languages other than English.

Customer-Centric Approach as a Win-Win Solution

A customer-centric approach is a tool businesses can use to enhance the way their customers feel about them. Customers, of course, are human beings with purchase power and word-of-mouth marketing control. We all want to feel included, listened to, important, and valued as a customer and as a business. Many companies today are leaning more toward its direction and drawing a bigger crowd of perspective customers who feel good about shopping on their site.

Today, many companies have had their website programmers translate their existing site into Spanish as well as optimizing their url to capture the consumer looking for their services in Spanish. Some of these companies have also implemented other translations and optimization techniques to amplify their broad spectrum of offerings to the world. These implementations broaden a company’s horizons by expanding their target audience thus, bringing more customers and clients to them as well as helping to secure profitability.

Since the web is available for just about anyone to access, provided they have an internet connection, businesses are rethinking their marketing strategies in order to attract and engage consumers and businesses worldwide. By offering simple marketing techniques such as website translations and optimizing their urls to trigger searches in Spanish, it is a win-win solution for all involved. Businesses gain a larger customer base, which in turn can increase profitability, and consumers feel important, appreciated, and acknowledged as a Spanish-speaking consumer.

All consumers interested in conducting web searches to easily locate, buy, communicate, and learn about a business services have plenty of businesses to choose from estimated well into the billions. So, if all online businesses want to attract and retain more customers worldwide then, they will need to optimize their sites to bring in the masses worldwide and stay competitive among their fellow competition.

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US Hispanics, History and Growth of the Internet

There has been an incredibly fast evolution of the Internet from 1995 until the present time. As you can see in the graph below, Internet Users in the World has grown from 16 millions in Dec 2005 to 1,596 millions in Mar, 2009.

However, there’s an important distinction which is the language fabric composition of the Web content. What do we mean by this? Well, in the early ages of the Internet, almost everything was in English because most internet applications started in the United States. Therefore, in the early to mid 90s the search engines were in English as well. Anyone within the US or overseas conducting a Web search had to do it in English, there was no other option. As technology caught up around the world, the Web has become a multilingual platform and foreign Web growth has been astonishing. While in 1996, 75% of all Web searches were conducted in English, today English searches accounts for only 25%. Search engines and directories understood the importance of this non-English segment and today it is becoming easier and easier to find content in your mother tongue.

Reaching the entire spectrum of the US Hispanic community

As one article explains, U.S. Hispanic advertisers have historically lagged behind in moving their budgets online and therefore have provided less of an incentive for U.S. Hispanic publishers to post a wide variety of content online. However, this trend has shifted. Last year alone, the biggest Hispanic surge has been in internet media, up 36.3% in 2007 (according to the Hispanic Fact Pack 08). As a result, more Spanish-language sites/pages based in the U.S. are being optimized for search engines. US Hispanics will increasingly have more search options as Spanish Web content is being propagated over the Web. And since we know that people speaking the same language show an inclination to form their own online community no matter what country they happen to live in, it’s becoming almost imperative for many US businesses to make all or some of their Web content available in Spanish if they want to maximize their reach to the entire spectrum of the US Hispanic community.

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