Keywords: To Translate, or Not to Translate, That Is NOT the question

This publication was researched and written by Gabriel Karandysovsky.

Businesses setting out on the path of conquering the world will inevitably face the prospect of adapting their keywords to the local markets they plan to expand into.

So why is keyword optimization and localization such an essential part of a company’s globalization strategy?

The first part of the answer is that optimizing keywords leads to better visibility among the myriad of search engine results. Today’s digital e-commerce jungle is a highly competitive place with thousands of brands vying for consumers’ attention. For mobile video games, the competition numbers in the hundreds of thousands. 

Naturally, a brand will (or should) want to be more easily discoverable than its competitors. Brands that invest in keyword optimization (also referred to as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO) will generally rank high among the search results. The higher it ranks, the more visitors a brand attracts to its website and, potentially, the higher its chances of successfully converting those visitors into users, thereby monetizing their products and/or services. SEO is carried out in order to achieve more growth in the targeted markets.

Investing in proper keyword localization is often a task that companies forget about, realizing its necessity only much later in their globalization process. However, companies should design a keywords strategy that helps them match their content with user searches well upstream, as an inappropriate decision may end up hurting the overall user experience (UX). Even worse, it can make the website or app invisible to users.

This brings us to the second part of the answer. SEO can be costly and there’s no one single way of doing it right. At the same time, however, SEO is something businesses should definitely be trying to do right. The odds are high that the return on investment will outweigh the costs. Knowing which SEO strategy to adopt can potentially save a company tens of thousands of dollars.

So, should keywords be translated?

This report was researched and written by Nimdzi's Managing Editor, Gabriel Karandysovsky. If you wish to find out more about international SEO strategy, reach out to Gabriel at gabriel@nimdzi.com.