English was once considered the main language that people spoke around the world, but if you’re operating in a local market and want to expand internationally, it is critical that you pay special attention to those who do not.

A few facts:

* In Asia only 10% of the searches done on the Internet are actually in English.

* In the European Union 87% of the searches are not in English – Remember Europeans speak German, French, and Italian…

Over 75% of the available markets on the Internet are non-English speaking. Businesses who only market themselves with web sites written in English are clearly missing out.

If you built a website for 5 different languages then this would allow you potential access to a staggering 412 million extra users of the Internet!

Also, when an Internet user visits a webpage in their own language they are 4 out of 5 times more likely to stay reading that website. They are also much more likely to buy from that website as they feel far more secure and confident.

Any business which doesn’t develop multilingual website marketing strategies will be losing out on this extra revenue, and will be less likely to survive in the long term.