"Google is very keen on international marketing strategy they have a very good understanding of the significance and importance of these practices. Google is currently available in a staggering 97 different languages. There are literally hundreds of other global businesses such as Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon, and Coca-Cola who have used international internet marketing practices very successfully. Multilingual website marketing is a fantastic way to get in contact with many more people. These people might include partners, suppliers and of course potential customers. The internet has made it so much easier to establish your brand on a global scale. Many popular examples include Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Multilingual website marketing is very important to consider when a business is developing an international marketing strategy, and is excellent way of testing a new market."

From: http://www.marketing.centylion.info/2008/07/02/guide-to-understand-how-multilingual-website-marketing-and-international-marketing-strategy-can-work-for-your-business/#comment-1191

This Multilingual Website Series is sponsored by Bitrix (http://www.bitrixsoft.com)

Here are 10 main reasons why you need a multilingual website today rather than later:

1. Shift Away from English Internet Users: English speakers will soon be in the minority when it comes to internet use.

2. Cost Effective Marketing Tool: Having the ability to communicate to a whole new international audience in their own language will undoubtedly yield results not only in a financial sense but also in terms of marketing and creating awareness of your brand, service or product.

3. New Customers: Ultimately what a multilingual website brings you are new customers. By having your site accessible to potentially thousands of people you are showcasing your company across the globe.

4. Sales: With every language added to a website there is the potential for an increase of between 100% in sales.  There are few other ways to get such an increase for such little investment.

5. Customer-Centric: A multilingual website demonstrates you are thinking about the customer. 

6. Trust: For many cultures there is an issue of trust when it comes to buying over the internet. Offering them a language alternative allows the customers to feel secure in the fact they know what they are buying, how and who from.

7. Culturally Sensitive: This automatically puts the user in a 'cultural comfort zone' due to their being able to navigate, understand and interact with the website.

8. Beat Competitors: Look at your competitors - if they have multilingual websites then why don't you? If they don't, then why not lead the marketplace and establish your company or brand abroad before they do.

9. Shows International Nature: A multilingual website demonstrates you think, work and deal internationally.

10. Search Engines: Search engines lead people to your site. In countries such as China, Japan and France, Google, Yahoo and MSN are not the default search engines. Home grown search engines are emerging and they are proving successful because they work in native languages and are focused on the habits and needs of their users. Many of the key search engines, especially Google, are developing the capacity to run searches in foreign languages. Having pages of your site available in those languages ensures maximum potential for your site being picked up in searches.

Please note that our client Bitrix offers multilungual site development with Bitrix 7.0

see: http://www.bitrixsoft.com/sitemanager/demo.php for a demo.

Business continually sees shifts and changes. At present the multilingual website is still in its early stages, with mostly large multinational companies using them to secure an international foothold. However, the trickle down effect will naturally occur and the multilingual website will become part and parcel of an internet presence.

When searching on the internet most people will use their native language, in fact only 1% of users search in other languages. This goes to show just how important multilingual website marketing campaigns are to modern day businesses.

Using an English website you can expect to communicate to around 16% of the population, however if you have a German, Spanish, Italian and French website then you can deal with 74.1% of the European market.

A multilingual website marketing strategy is not just a simple translation of your English website; it should also cater specifically for that unique country.

Bitrix Site Manager can with UTF-8 support enables a multilingual web development. It is now possible to create and fully support various language packages in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and other languages. (for reference http://www.bitrixsoft.com).