Access Business Analytics
Common Sense Advisory’s study of multilingual websites finds shift to app-style customer experience
Manufactured products, from automobiles to textiles, rely on global markets to leverage the maximum return on investment in research, design, production, and branding. Companies add languages to capture the market share required to sustain innovation. But, how many languages (and which ones) should successful global brands speak in order to reach businesses and consumers in the most markets?
For the past nine years, independent market research firm Common Sense Advisory (CSA Research) has studied the world’s most prominent websites to identify the leaders of the global web. These business and consumer websites represent the biggest companies, most popular websites, and most valuable brands, based on the Forbes Global 2000 list, the Alexa Top 500 Global Websites, and the Interbrand 100 Best Brands.
Data collected by CSA Research finds a strong correlation between a brand’s financial strength and the number of languages it makes its website available in. The data, findings, and analysis are detailed in the firm’s report, “Global Website Assessment Index 2016.”
The Global Website Assessment Index 2016 documents languages and social network links on the world’s 2,657 most prominent websites. This year’s report assigns each web property to one of 38 industry sectors, using a proprietary classification keyed to subject matter expertise expected from the language industry. The report includes 38 infographics, showing the average number of languages and social links found in each industry, with bar charts showing the frequency and relative popularity of languages and social networks found on each sector’s most prominent websites.
Adds lead analyst on the report, Ben Sargent, “Relying on human researchers rather than bots and automated data collection, we looked for browse-level content in all languages in the global web presence, including subsidiaries where links provide a visual connection between brands for customers and prospects.”
The study found that the top three multilingual industries all involve product companies with significant R&D requirements. Automotive tops the list, averaging 14.6 languages per website.
Additional findings detailed in the research report include:
The research firm also found that multilingual websites, especially in the software, social networking, and online services, are shifting to an app-style customer experience, including the separation of country and language settings.
Adds Sargent, “People travel, study, work, and live abroad. When brands limit information relevant to a specific country to a single language, customers or prospects get left out of the conversation. Traditional corporate information sites struggle to separate country from language, while GUI-style web applications easily sort them out. We predict more users will expect a multilingual CX with advanced features, such as filtering options for mixed language feeds. These features are found in app-style sites, not sites that manage web pages as discrete files on a server.”
Global Website Assessment Index 2016 is available as a part of CSA Research membership. Visit www.commonsenseadvisory.com for more information.
About Common Sense Advisory
Common Sense Advisory is an independent market research company helping companies profitably grow their international businesses and gain access to new markets. It specializes in best practices for translation, localization, interpreting, globalization, and internationalization. www.commonsenseadvisory.com
###
Tweet this: Data from @CSA_Research shows compelling evidence linking global business success with website multilingualism http://ow.ly/zh7r302OKei
Media Contact: Melissa C. Gillespie, 760-522-4362, Melissa@commonsenseadvisory.com
(BOSTON, MA) – January 7, 2010 – As the Obama administration turns its focus to counter-terrorism ...
CSA Research releases mid-year survey results based on data from 100 CEOs from the world’s largest ...
(BOSTON, MA) – The global market for outsourced language services and technology will surpass US$37...
Market research firm Common Sense Advisory surveyed buyers of interpreting services across 25 countr...
Companies that adapt their products to local languages and market needs have a significantly greater...
(BOSTON) – Business language evolves almost daily, whether a change in branding, a new way of descr...