Building a Global Web Site?

I think my company's products would sell well on all sides of the world, on the other hand my Web site is designed primarily for the U.S. market. How difficult is it to redesign my site for an international audience? Going global on the Internet is easier than it is in the physical world, however there's still plenty of risk and uncertainty involved. Language barriers are the biggest issue. Unless you're focusing on the Canadian, British or other English-speaking markets, you can't expect many locals to be interested in a site written in English. (Even then, regional differences in "proper" English can be a problem.) Your first step is to translate your site into the community languages of the countries you desire to address. Free of charge online translation services such as Language Ware will do some of the work, nevertheless these services are not fine enough to operate by themselves. You'll also entail to pay a human translator or function
to truly customize your site. (Most automated translation services also offer human translators.) If you really thirst for to reach a particular overseas audience, you'll require localized content -- not just the stuff you wrote back in Toledo translated into Portuguese. That wealth hiring regional writers and producers and working with them to create content -- everything from articles to product descriptions -- appropriate to their culture. Obviously, this can get expensive, principally when you're trying to penetrate a dozen latest markets at once. You may be greater off partnering with a district content provider -- a major newspaper, for example -- or with a Web building agency experienced in creating multinational sites. Start small with a single target society and see how things go. While the rest of the sphere is catching up to the U.S. in Net usage, they're still a relatively small part of the total online audience. You may find that the returns
you get from smaller overseas markets don't yet justify the generation and expense of creating a truly localized site. Full text: http://computerandtechnologies.com/web-hosting/news_2008-08-06-10-30-06-113.html