Building a website is something that most internet-savvy people feel able to do these days, in part due to the number of good online tools that are available to help them. This can apply to business sites too, as there are many free templates and low-cost managed services that can allow really professional-looking results. However, looking good isn’t the only consideration as functionality also needs to be a priority. This is particularly important when it comes to making sure that a business’s online presence is accessible and attractive to consumers in international markets all over the world.

Challenging aspects

Whether it is an online shop, a blog or some other type of business offering services or information, an international internet audience will expect to be able to read the content on their own terms. This means taking into account language, cultural and other differences to ensure that a website is configured so that it is optimised for common tools that can help achieve these aims. This level of planning needs to be done at the design stage so that flexibility and future-proofing is in-built and a basic functionality is in place to allow modifications and enhancements “on the fly” for end users.

Text

Allowing text to be able to grow might sound a strange thing to have to consider, but in order to optimise written content for global access, layouts must take into account the way that machine translations work if the overall design and look of the site is to survive intact. Essentially, this means making sure that text written in its original language will maintain its flow and positioning in the layout if it is translated to another that may use very different visual characters, or even read the opposite way across the page. Thankfully, the majority of modern websites use content that is dynamically generated, so when it is converted to a different language, it flows correctly.

Translation

Of course, machine-based translation services are still really in their infancy and have a long way to go before they can match human efforts. Freelance translation experts can make all the difference if you are going to invest in custom-translated content for specific international markets. In a recent list of the 500 most powerful Arabs in the world, at no. 277, Mr. Fahad Al Rajaan was noted for his experience in many different fields of commerce and finance in the Middle East. Al Rajaan has many long-standing, high-profile business positions, such as being chairman of Wafra Investment Advisory Group in New York. As such, he is exactly the kind of person who knows how to put across a business message in several different languages.

Global reach

The impact that the internet has had is in no small part down to the fact that it is global in reach, and this has truly led to the creation of a world wide web of business and commerce. It makes sense to ensure that a web presence is open to all, wherever they might be located, and that language is no longer a barrier to full access.