We are made aware every day that we live in a global community. From the international market down the street to the changing demographics of our student populations, globalism is a pride point for many colleges and universities across the nation.  Nowhere is this globalism more prevalent than it is online where a student from China is only clicks away from exploring an education in Iowa. How then do we optimize our web presence to make sure we are positioned to communicate our story to the world?

There are two main strategies that are commonly used in approaching this scenario, language targeting and regional targeting.  Each has it’s benefits and drawbacks but both aim to complete the same goal.

Language Targeting:

When planning an international strategy language is often the 400 pound gorilla in the room that draws a large amount of our attention.  For many reasons this is completely justified.  Presenting users with their home language in a well executed manner is a site feature that enhances user experience and communicates your commitment to that user. However, there are some drawbacks that you must keep in mind if this is a route you select for your site.

Benefits of Language Targeting:

– Language targeting is often easier to set up and manage from a technical and manpower prospective.  If you know that your targeted demographics are individuals who speak Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese you will be able to cover a vast majority of your target population with three language targeted sites.
– In some cases, specifically with less complex content, you may be able to have the pages you are looking to communicate in additional languages automatically translated saving you time and money.

Drawbacks of Language Targeting:

– While you may be able to translate text correctly language targeting does not always allow you to account for cultural variations in phrasing.  If you translate your site to Spanish with a Mexican dialect you might describe your nursing program’s hoods as apricot using the regional variant “chabacano,” you have now described your nursing program’s hoods as vulgar to the rest of the Spanish speaking world.
– While your website’s design may look wonderful for flush left text intended to be read from left to right does that design work as well when the text is flush right.  Languages such are Arabic or Hebrew, read from right to left, typically align in this manner.
– Even the best automatic translation tools are not perfect and they will make mistakes. If a mistake such as this is not caught until the user notices it, your attempt at better serving the target audience comes across as only half hearted which can break user experience.

Regional Targeting:

The more specific of the two options is regional targeting during which you establish a web presence targeted at counties rather than targeting languages as a whole.  This approach, while more labor intensive, is often the best way to ensure that you are truly speaking to that regional audience in a manner which they can understand and appreciate.

Benefits of Regional Targeting:

– By targeting regionally you are able to speak directly to the audience you are looking to serve, communicating directly to their path.
– By focusing in on specific regions you can take advantage of ccTLDs URLs (.ca,.eu,.cn, Etc.) which in some cases are rewarded in search results as they appear as an in-country site. This also outweighs any discrepancies you may have with your targeting and server location.
– Each country has different search trends and tendencies.  For instance, in China Baidu, a regional search engine, holds 80% of the search market. Each of these variants will have different ranking factors and algorithms. Targeting regionally allows you to capitalize on the differences between these platforms and make optimize for your audience’s search trends.

Drawbacks of Regional Targeting:

– Regional targeting is often very difficult to set-up and manage. You are essentially running a completely separate site with its own audience and its own idiosyncrasies.  This will often take a nearly as much time and energy as managing your main .edu site.
– Even if you are targeting two regions with the same national language you will have to duplicate the content to account for not only regional variances in language but also search patterns.

Other Considerations:

While each route, either language based or regional targeting, has it’s own caveats there are some considerations which you will need to take into account as a whole.  First, you will need to decide what URL structure will work best for your situation.  This topic is a separate blog in itself but some good resources can be found at:Google Support- Multi-regional and multilingual sites.
Secondly, you will have to ask yourself who will manage the content.  It is often difficult to manage a content calendar in your native tongue let alone content in an language you may very well not speak.

Which brings me to my final point. If you are going to develop a foreign language site, regardless of whether you choose to target based off of language or region, do yourself a favor and hire a professional translator to help you tell that story.  While automatic translators are great for simple sites, higher education sites are more often than not large and complex beings that must communicate their messaging in a very clear way.  Translation professionals can help you tell that story using their wealth of experience to make sure you do not offend or break user experience with any linguistic missteps.