What’s app localization? One may ask. Well, It’s the process of making your services accessible to the most basic levels in a population.
You are probably an app owner and currently, your app is accessible to a small geographical scope. This may be because your application services are population-specific, that is, they serve a specific need.
But for business applications, you need to spread your app as far as possible. You are looking for a market, and therefore, concentrating on a small market will not do you any good.
While it may seem a simple and straightforward concept, mobile app localization requires so much effort.
If you are going to penetrate the international market with your application, then you need to address the issue of diverse languages.
The world is a global village consisting of people with different backgrounds and behaviors.
You need to tread carefully in order to optimize your app. The wrong steps towards app localization might not only cost you valuable time but it may also cost you a lot of resources.
You need a plan, detailing how you are going to deploy your localization strategy. The aim is to reach a wider market as possible. Here are factors you need to consider while coming up with a localization plan.
What to consider in your localization plan
1). Language distribution: What languages do people speak? How widely spread are they?
If you want to reach a certain location with your application, you will need to translate your app into a language they can understand.
While most communities have very many indigenous languages, there are official languages which are understood almost everyone. In this case, going for the official language would be a better localization approach.
Furthermore, indigenous languages require much workload to translate. These languages are spread within small groups.
However much you want to focus on a specific group, you need to consider the distribution of a language in your strategy. A deeper penetration does not necessarily mean high conversions.
2). Demographics: If you are going to deploy your application to a new environment, then you need to study the characteristics of this population. Their culture, political inclination, and economic backgrounds.
Most importantly, you need to know their market behavior, how well do they respond to changes in the marketplace?
For sure, introducing a new app into a different environment will cause some shifts in the marketplace.
Due diligence is necessary. Know your people, what tips off their habits send how they communicate. Also important is the age distribution.
For instance, an e-commerce website tends to focus on the smartphone generation, that is, the youth and middle-aged persons.
Similarly, you need to identify your target audience before you initiate your localization strategy.
People should be your many concern. In business there are risks, and such risks need preparedness. A good preparation for localization would be to know your people. Study their habits prior.
3). Localization team: These are the translators, the transcribers and maybe a few programmers. They are responsible for translating text data, re-dubbing your audio data and redrawing graphics on your app.
The mobile app needs to as customized as possible. This way, you make it relatable to the target population.
You want your users to feel familiar with the app environment.
Users react differently to change, for the paranoid type, give them something familiar.
Your team should consist of natives and bilingual persons. The selection should be such that a larger view of the target population is represented, otherwise, your mobile app might be in for a rude shock.
How to Optimize Your Content for The Global Audience
“Mobilegeddon” is here. The crazy frenzy that wants every application to be mobile friendly. You see, there is a great difference between mobile and web applications.
One of the main differences is how much space they take. While web applications can need a lot of space, mobile apps need to fit well on the relatively small displays.
So how do you make both contents compatible, especially when viewing web content on a mobile device?
Smartphones rank highest in the number of devices running on the internet. This is evidenced by the soaring number of searches carried out on mobile phones compared to desktop sites.
As a website owner, you surely want to make your website mobile friendly or even better, build a mobile app for it.
Regardless of which option you choose; you need to make sure that the content is optimized. Search Engine optimization principles still apply.
However, for the mobile app, you will need to perform a variety of SEO known as App Store Optimization.
App store optimization is the process of promoting your mobile app so that it ranks higher in searches.
In the following section, I will take you through a list of steps that will help optimize your content for the global audience. Localization still applies in APO; you need a wide audience to boost your conversion rates.
1. Understand Audience Habits
Mobile users are quite a peculiar group. It is estimated that a normal mobile user checks his or her phone at least 6 times an hour.
That is one user, imagine the millions of users you could reach and the possible conversion rates knocking at your door.
But not so fast, not all users are the same. You need to know at what times they are closer to you, this is the time to flash ads and emails to them.
Understanding your audience’s’ habits is very key. It helps you narrow down into a much stronger market instead of wasting time with a bigger audience.
This is where you apply the due diligence you did when you were studying the demographics of your population.
2. Structure
This is one of the core concepts of converting web content into mobile content. With web content, you are not worried about the display, the desktop browser will sort that out for you.
However, with mobile devices, the content is prone to problems like overlapping and overcrowding due to the small size of the display.
A user loses interest immediately he or she encounters some missing content. It can be irritating. How do you structure your content in a way that it helps in optimizing your app?
i). Use shorter sentences and paragraph: These are easy to truncate without loss of meaning. Short content is also easy to click through, read and scroll. Mobile content needs to be brief or appear brief.
As much as you want to provide comprehensive information, try to make the sections shorter. Some paraphrasing skills would o you a lot of good at this stage.
ii). White spaces: You need to demarcate your content so that users can easily spot content. This helps to solve the problem of overcrowding.
White spaces between paragraphs make it easy for users to focus on specific sections, especially the sections you want them to see.
For instance, most mobile-friendly e-commerce websites apply white spaces while naming their services. Once you land on their page, it is quite easy to get the general view of the information you want. White space in mobile apps is the way to go.
Apart from the above-mentioned points, you need to do a further study on how to implement HTML for mobile devices.
3. Linking between Content
Given the small size of the display, you need to figure out how to compress your content using hyperlinks.
Google uses the link structures and hierarchy to aid in SEO. Poorly linked content always suffer the consequences. However, with mobile content, you need to figure out how to maintain the flow of logic through interlinked contents.
The links should not be too long such that users get lost while accessing critical information. Some links tend to go overboard into non-search related content. These are the links that will cost your mobile optimization.
The first step to building credible links is to ensure that your content is well compressed without losing important information.
Two-step hyperlinks are not that bad. However, three or more step hyperlinks will reduce your chances of conversion.
4. Precise and clear content
Remember, the main aim is to achieve localization. To bring your content as close to the user as possible. This does not mean that you should forget SEO concepts. One of the contents that still stay is the clarity and the directness of content. If your application is answering a question, hit the nail on the head, additional information should come later.
If your e-commerce website is describing a product, then your mobile version should describe the product in even fewer words.
It all goes back to structure.
The preciseness of content will make your app easy to use. No one wants to spend an hour combing through a large volume of content looking a small piece of information.
Keep your content as brief and direct as possible.
5. Images and interactivity
Images are more visually attractive than text. Users concentrate more on the images than the text that accompanies them.
You need to ensure that your user interface has some images, they make content accessible to be more real and fun. Images you use should promote the content in text.
Surely, you can’t use the image of a car to represent a real estate concept. Furthermore, the images should be of high quality. You know better than to use low-quality images on your intended audience. The PNG image format is most recommended.
In addition, the platform needs to be interactive. The content should be actionable with illustrations and call to action functionalities.
You should get a good UI designer to organize your app interface in such a way that users will be drawn to your application and subsequently take action. This is where your conversions come from.
6. Quick and easy landing pages
You see with mobile optimization for global audiences, the principles of CRO and SEO still apply. Reason being, all you want is conversion. Whatever means you use to get conversions, the baseline is the number of customers you get to take home at the end of the day.
A CRO concept that works within the mobile environment is landing pages. Where do you lead the mobile user after engaging him or her on an ad or an E-mail? This calls for a good landing page design.
Mobile devices witness the most clicks in online marketing. You need to claim some clicks for yourself.
A well-designed landing page is a solution to this. It should be quick and easy to navigate. It should also contain all the aforementioned points including structure.
7. Build networks
It is not a matter of trying to reach the global audience. You actually want them, so you go get them.
A good place to start would be visiting them on social media. A few more likes, tweets, tags, follow and double taps are a good starting point.
Additionally, you could use mobile marketing techniques such as SMS, Push notifications, Geo-tagging, and SMS coupons. A little knowledge about the service provider is key.
This way, you can monitor habits that are key to optimizing your app content.
Conclusion
Only a fool would want to stay in the same place business-wise in 2019. Localization is rapidly due to the increased use of smartphones.
And this is something that doesn’t show signs of waning in the near future. As a mobile app owner, you need to start optimizing your content for the global village.
People are waiting for the most basic of services to be brought as close to them as possible. Are you looking to develop a mobile application?
Localization should be in your strategic plan. This will enable you to conquer your audience as early as possible. The early bird catches the worm.
With this wealth of knowledge, I am now sure that you are equipped to conquer the world.
Grow your app, give it a larger audience, and the benefits will start streaming in. Just put into consideration the tips outlined in this article.
