Researching (and launching a site within) a foreign language market

[Martin_S]

Morning peeps,

A client wants to clone their website for a foreign language market, obviously swapping all English content for whichever language/market they're looking to target.

Any advice on how to research a foreign market (when I only speak English), or perhaps any pitfalls to look out for or advice you might have with a launch like this?

thanks

[gfiorelli1]

Never ever rely only on GTranslate for International SEO. Simply don't.

[gfiorelli1]

Not bad answer Branagan.

p.s.: your avatar is scary

[Webrevolve]

You can still use the good ol' Google keyword tool for this...

It will at least give you an idea of viable targets and search volume.

Make a list in a column, as you usually would, of your keyword targets in excel - make a another column for the translation. Open  Google Translate and add each of your keywords.

then, copy the translations and add them to Google Keyword Tool, run your usual search (exact match) - however, make sure you define the search location and the language in Advanced options and filters.

You should now have some idea of the search volumes for those terms. Not an exact science, but worth a look to get some numbers.

[Branagan]

Check out Google's Global Market Finder, it could give out a few useful clues.

[zeepartner]

IMO keyword research is only possible by someone that understands the language. Otherwise you might run the risk of picking keywords that promise lot of traffic but are not related to your product (i.e. not used in the context of your website). you need to cooperate with the translator. here's a suggestion how to proceed:

1. create a list with the main keywords you target in english

2. send the list to your translator, ask to translate these words, but including synonyms and further keyword ideas

3. research those in the keywordtool (or let your translator do this) and define the ones you want to target to be included in the content.

This is the simplest way. If you want to do a thorough market research you'll have to work with someone who not only speaks the language but also knows the local market and culture.