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Localisation

Localisation is adapting a store and its ads to a new market's language and buying conditions, from product data and site texts to prices, delivery and returns.

How it works

Translation changes the words. Localisation changes everything the shopper meets:

  • titles and descriptions in the words people there search with;
  • a site and checkout in their language;
  • prices set for their currency, not a currency conversion of yours;
  • delivery and return terms that apply to them.

It is the groundwork of cross-border ecommerce.

In Merchant Center, a file-fed data source has one content language, fixed at creation and part of every product’s ID. A translated catalogue is therefore a new set of products in a new source.

In Search, Google works out a page’s language from its visible content, so each page should hold one language.

Our guide to localising your Google Ads covers feeds, titles and keywords.

Example

Example store, not client data.

The tableware shop enters Slovakia with its 3,000 products. Its titles and descriptions are 3,000 × 2 = 6,000 texts to translate. Localisation adds the rest. A 250-koruna mug converts to 10 euros at 25 koruna per euro, but the shop sets its own Slovak price of 9.90 euros. The Slovak data source adds 3,000 product records, 6,000 in all.

Not to be confused with

  • Content language — one setting: the language of a Merchant Center data source. Localisation is the whole adaptation it belongs to.
  • hreflang — markup that tells Google which pages are language versions of each other. It translates nothing.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “lang="sk" in the page code tells Google the page is Slovak.” Right: Google says it uses the visible content and ignores code-level signals such as lang attributes and the URL.
  • Wrong: “Send Slovak visitors to the Slovak site automatically.” Right: Google advises against redirects based on a guessed language: they can stop users and search engines from reaching every version.

Benchmarks

Benchmark according to CSA Research (Can’t Read, Won’t Buy – B2C: 8,709 consumers in 29 countries, surveyed with Kantar, published July 2020): 76% prefer to buy products with information in their own language, and 40% never buy from websites in other languages. Your niche may differ.

Sources