It struck me today, that I always check my rankings using phrases like "apartment holiday canary islands" or "cottage vacation scotland" etc. I just wondered how important it is to be findable in other languages.
I have previously had this thought but it was limited to Spanish as two of my properties are in the Canaries. So, I made sure that the Spanish equivalents of the search terms were included in my pages. That didn't do much good. I think that, even though the majority of visitors to the Canary Islands are Spanish, most Spaniards who use private holiday rentals would go to a place that belongs to a friend of their brother-in-law rather than search the net.
For me, the Scandinavians and Dutch are really important. I don't speak any of their languages and I know that they mostly speak English better than I do. So, I wonder, do the search in English too?
Foreigners and foreign languages
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Ben McNevis
- Posts: 846
- Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 10:07 am
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Foreigners and foreign languages
Cheers, Ben
www . scotland-cottage.com www . scottish-cottage.com
Visiting Glenrothes? It's one of your Fife-a-day
www . scotland-cottage.com www . scottish-cottage.com
Visiting Glenrothes? It's one of your Fife-a-day
Hello, Brian -
We have many Norwegian and Dutch guests. Great folk!
Our website is entirely in English. These visitors tell me that my site comes up well in their regional search engines (though I've no idea why). It seems, based upon my sitestats, that they mostly search in English.
However, we regularly get hits from non-English search terms, too.
Somehow, somewhere, something is already connecting non-English search terms to my English-language site.
Not sure this helps but that's my dois cêntimos.
debk
We have many Norwegian and Dutch guests. Great folk!
Our website is entirely in English. These visitors tell me that my site comes up well in their regional search engines (though I've no idea why). It seems, based upon my sitestats, that they mostly search in English.
However, we regularly get hits from non-English search terms, too.
Somehow, somewhere, something is already connecting non-English search terms to my English-language site.
Not sure this helps but that's my dois cêntimos.
debk
Google will tell you that if you want to market seriously in other countries you need dedicated content in those languages, Google Ad campaigns specifically tailored for those markets etc.
Well, we seem to pick up plenty of European enquiries without that, through a mixture of our own site and advertising on one or two others. We did launch the .eu site but, so far, the only concession I've made is putting the Babelfish translator on the home page; we do have some vague plan to add tailored sites in the future, but whether that comes to anything .....
Well, we seem to pick up plenty of European enquiries without that, through a mixture of our own site and advertising on one or two others. We did launch the .eu site but, so far, the only concession I've made is putting the Babelfish translator on the home page; we do have some vague plan to add tailored sites in the future, but whether that comes to anything .....
AndyLucia
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!!
If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all!!
I do our site in three main languages (english, bad french and very bad spanish) plus partial translations in catalan, german, italian, dutch and portuguese. Oh, plus, for the laugh Ulster Scots... www.mascamps.com/os
We're in southern France, near the Spanish border.
Something like 70% of the hits are in english. This includes almost all of the dutch and flemish who, in theory, could find us in (incredibly bad) dutch. So, yes, they search in english as do the danish and people from points north.
The French search in french but generally phone to book so it's hard to say how many bookings come via the french site. However, we also get french who search in english and notably they almost all book online rather than phoning.
We don't get as many hits in spanish but they have very conversion to booking rates so, if you can, it would be worthwhile to do a spanish version of the site, or at least the key pages.
Someone contacted me re the dutch pages and we'll be having a much better translation done soon. It's around 100€ for the site if you're paying for it.
One thing to watch though is that you can actually speak the languages that your site is written in. We've started to get some enquiries in Italian lately (which I don't speak but could sort-of manage as a cross between french & spanish).
Incidently, don't put a link to babelfish on the site: use it to translate the pages and save the translated pages. This seems to help ranking on google et al. The translation is generally dire but does get the keywords in for searches (try translating from english to spanish to english for a laugh).
Arnold
We're in southern France, near the Spanish border.
Something like 70% of the hits are in english. This includes almost all of the dutch and flemish who, in theory, could find us in (incredibly bad) dutch. So, yes, they search in english as do the danish and people from points north.
The French search in french but generally phone to book so it's hard to say how many bookings come via the french site. However, we also get french who search in english and notably they almost all book online rather than phoning.
We don't get as many hits in spanish but they have very conversion to booking rates so, if you can, it would be worthwhile to do a spanish version of the site, or at least the key pages.
Someone contacted me re the dutch pages and we'll be having a much better translation done soon. It's around 100€ for the site if you're paying for it.
One thing to watch though is that you can actually speak the languages that your site is written in. We've started to get some enquiries in Italian lately (which I don't speak but could sort-of manage as a cross between french & spanish).
Incidently, don't put a link to babelfish on the site: use it to translate the pages and save the translated pages. This seems to help ranking on google et al. The translation is generally dire but does get the keywords in for searches (try translating from english to spanish to english for a laugh).
Arnold