OBAN Multilingual have been at the forefront of multilingual search strategies for over almost a decade, and have worked with a vast range of prestigious clients in researching and developing SEO and SEM strategies on an international platform. Now they have decided to share their findings and knowledge with the rest of the world.

The ‘International SEO News’ channel delves into the World Wide Web, looking at how the internet and search varies from place to place, and provides valuable and thought-led insight into cultural differences and search engine marketing.

“We carry out extensive research into internet trends and search in a number of different markets, and we often discover some interesting and unexpected facts and figures, the sort of things we wouldn’t want to keep to ourselves. Our short videos cover some of these findings, as well as some general multilingual SEO tips.” says Greig Holbrook, MD, OBAN Multilingual Strategies.

There are currently three films on the channel, the first providing some valuable insight into international SEO from Greig, the second covering SEO in China, and the third Russia. OBAN plan to release several more over the coming months, with each covering a different market.

The videos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/InternationalSEONews.

As both companies are contributing with years of expertise in their respective fields they are able to offer a highly customised service for international businesses wishing to optimise their SEO efforts.  Patrick Eve, Managing Director at TranslateMedia, states, “We saw a need to offer a more digitally focused translation service in addition to our more traditional offering, and we therefore wanted to collaborate with a successful SEO agency that had the necessary technical expertise and track record. Oban Multilingual was therefore a natural choice as they have been offering expert advice in this field for years.”

“There is huge potential for businesses to expand into emerging foreign markets, however, with around 70% of those searching the web not speaking English, companies need an effective multilingual strategy. That’s where Oban and TranslateMedia step in.” says Greig Holbrook, MD of Oban Multilingual. By joining forces, Oban and TranslateMedia will offer businesses the highest standard of multilingual SEO and translation services.

Oban Multilingual is a world leader in multilingual search engine optimisation and marketing, and has been at the forefront of multilingual SEO/SEM for several years. Oban’s core strength lies in its unique ability to be able to produce multilingual SEM services of the highest quality. Their teams of experts, based in over 26 countries across the world, are able to offer clients local solutions to global SEO/SEM campaigns ensuring that the most effective search strategy is developed for each market. Oban have worked with some of the world’s leading businesses in retail, travel, property and technology amongst others, and has a unique and critical understanding of local search vocabulary, behaviours, trends and engines in over 26 different markets.

TranslateMedia is one of the fastest growing global translation companies, with offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Munich and Brussels. TranslateMedia employs 5,000 specialist translators and covers 80 languages. The company has recently been selected for the Media Momentum Top 50 List of the fastest growing Digital Media Companies in Europe for 2010.The company works primarily with the largest global firms and provides a round the clock service for technical, marketing and legal translations. It is one of a short list of global agencies to be certified the highest quality assurance standard for translation services (EN 15038:2006) and has developed a corporate portal for clients to post jobs from anywhere and at anytime online.

Christmas is one of the most celebrated holidays in the world. But not everyone celebrates it in the same way. Indeed, not everyone celebrates it at all.

Internet sales in the upcoming holiday season have been predicted to grow about eight percent. While the number is low compared to last year’s 19 percent holiday season growth, it still looks better than the mere one percent sales growth expected in physical department stores.

With overseas online markets growing at an incredibly rapid pace, they deserve special attention. Brazilians, for example, have become some of the most active online shoppers in the world. In addition, last year saw 147 million Chinese buy products and services online, a number representing more than the total population of all but the world’s seven most populous countries. In less than two years, this number is projected triple. Add on to this e-sales figures in Russia, which doubled in 2007 to hit nearly £2 billion.

These are truly booming markets. And booming markets at Christmas time are dream markets.

Many e-commerce businesses like to dress their sites up at Christmas to add some holiday flare. Since Christmas is a time for buying and giving, it is important to encourage the holiday spirit. However, those targeting overseas markets should be wary of overly West-centric Christmas imagery.

December takes on different meanings to different cultures. Let’s look at how the holiday season varies according to certain countries, and how best to incorporate this into an online Christmas marketing strategy for overseas markets.

China

Beautiful paper lanterns are used as Christmas decorations in China. Though the Christian holiday is not an official national holiday, many Chinese enjoy getting into the ‘holiday spirit’. Santa Claus is played by a figure referred to as Dun Che Lao Ren, which means “Christmas Old Man”. But the main Chinese festival takes place toward the end of January. Known as Chinese New Year, but now officially called “Spring Festival”, it is a time when children receive new clothing and toys, ancestors are worshipped, and everyone eats luxurious meals. Bowls of oranges and tangerines are displayed during these holidays to symbolise wealth and good fortune.

Red is often seen at Christmastime in China, but not for the same reasons that red is so prevalent at the Western Christmas. In China, the colour red is associated with celebration.

Brazil

South of the border, Christmas takes place in the dead of summer. For this reason, Papai Noel (Father Christmas) wears silk clothing. According to Brazilian tradition, Papai Noel lives in Greenland. In the Brazilian nativity scene, shepherds are replaced by shepherdesses and there is a gypsy who attempts to steal baby Jesus. Festivities go on in Brazil until January 6th, which is known as Three Kings Day.

Russia

The Russian orthodox Christmas is not celebrated until January 7th, which is 13 days after Western Christmas. St. Nicholas was the traditional Russian version of Santa Claus. He was, however, replaced during the Soviet regime due to the suppression of religion. The figure who took his place was Grandfather Frost, who is the Russian spirit of winter. Grandfather Frost brings gifts on New Year’s, which became a more celebrated holiday than Christmas. He is accompanied by a Snowmaiden, who helps him distribute the gifts. Baby Jesus is also a very popular image in Russia at Christmas.

India

Christmas Day in India is called ‘Bada Din’ (Big Day) in Hindi, and is a national holiday in India. During the holiday, people from all religions will often join their Christian friends to make the most of the joyous celebrations.

Not surprisingly, the holiday season is celebrated very differently across the subcontinent. In southern India, Christians light clay lamps on the rooftops and walls of their houses, in the same way Hindus decorate during the Diwali Festival in October. Christians in the plains decorate mango or banana trees at Christmas time. They also sometimes decorate their houses with mango leaves. Hectic shopping takes place during Bada Din as everyone buys new clothes and exchanges gifts for the Christmas festivals.

The Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, the Santa Claus figure is known as Svaty Mikalas. He is believed to climb down to earth from heaven on a golden rope along with his companions, an angel and a whip-carrying devil.

Many Czech children believe that baby Jesus, who enters their houses through the window, brings Christmas gifts to them. Unlike Santa Claus, baby Jesus is a rather abstract figure with no particular physical image attached to him, and no one knows where he lives. He does, however, receive wish list letters from Czech children before Christmas.

Spain

The Spanish enjoy celebrations on Christmas Day, New Years, and Three Kings Day (January 6th). While the Christmas celebration is very similar to ours, New Years has some interesting traditions. Firstly, Spanish people believe that wearing red underwear on New Years’ Eve brings good luck. Secondly, they eat 12 grapes (one for each chime of the clock) at midnight, which they believe will start the year with happiness.

As can be expected, Three Kings Day celebrates the Wise Men (los tres Ryes Magos) with nativity scenes (still and live). Many Spanish children receive their presents on this day, which they believe are brought by the Wise Men. Some children, however, are even luckier and receive presents on both Christmas Day and Three Kings’ Day.

Germany

Many Germans believe that the Christ child appears as an angel called Christkind. German children leave letters for him on the windowsills. Christkind sends a messenger on Christmas Eve called Christkindl. Christkindl is a beautiful fair-haired girl with a shining crown of candles who pays a visit to each house carrying a basket of presents.

Advent wreaths are put tables with four candles in the centre. One candles is lit each Sunday with the last one lit on Christmas Eve. Little dolls of fruit are traditional German Christmas toys.

Iran

Christmas in Iran is called the Little Feast. A great fast is observed starting December 1st until the 25th, during which no meat, eggs, milk, or cheese is eaten. This is observed as a time peace and meditation, when church services are frequented. The boys and girls of Iran do not tend to believe in Santa Claus, and they do not usually exchange gifts at Christmas. However they do receive new clothes, which they wear during the Christmas week.

Internationalising your Christmas e-marketing strategy

If you want to take advantage of the ‘holiday spirit’ in your international customers, it’s a good strategy to incorporate their cultural holiday traditions. For example, a site aimed at Chinese customers could make good use of the colour red. Those targeting Brazil or Spain would do well to continue their Christmas marketing strategy until January 6th, while those targeting Russia might not even want to start their Christmas marketing until the beginning of January, keeping with the later date of Russia’s Christmas. German-targeted sites might incorporate the Christkind and Christkindl imagery.

There is, of course, much more to Christmas holiday traditions than the summaries incorporated into this article. Some further research into your target markets could reveal some key Christmas marketing tools.

Good luck and happy holidays from your global SEO friends at www.obanmultilingual.com.

We want to know what you think! Our friends at Poll the People have set up a poll for you to voice your thoughts on the debate.

The question:

Do travel websites discriminate against non-English users?

Spanish: ¿Discriminan las páginas web de viajes a los usuarios de habla no inglesa?

German: Diskriminieren Reise-Webseiten nicht-englisch-sprechende Internetnutzer?

French: Les sites de voyage discriminent-ils les utilisateurs non-anglophones?

Chinese: 旅遊網站是否其是非英語使用者?

Czech: Myslíte si, že stránky o cestování diskriminují uživatele, kteří nemluví anglicky?

Slovak: Diskriminujú webové stránky o cestovaní tých užívateľov, ktorých rodným jazykom nie je angličtina?

Romanian: Este adevărat că site-urile româneşti discriminează nevorbitorii de limbă engleză?

Farsi:

آیا وبسایتهای سفر آنلاین نسبت به کاربران غیر انگلیسی زبان تبعیض قائل میشوند؟

Vote now:

Travel sites do not cater to their international users. This was the finding of the www.obanmultilingual.com short documentary on international travel search behaviour.

In making the video, the Oban team travelled to London where they interviewed holidaymakers from over 40 countries. The interviewees were asked how they used the internet to research their trip to London.

The Oban team was surprised by their findings.

“What we had expected,” says Greig Holbrook, Oban’s managing director, “was that the travellers would say that they search in their native language. But instead, most of them admitted they were forced to search in English, since the travel sites often do not give them a multilingual option.”

Nearly all the people Oban interviewed said they would prefer to search in their own language, says Greig.

Though some of the major travel search engines do have limited multilingual options, the consensus among the interviewees seemed to be that in general, this was not the case.

Ricardo Moreno from Venezuela is currently living in London on his own. He said that it’s very important to him that a travel site have multilingual accessibility so that he may pass on information to his Spanish-speaking relatives.

“My parents and my sister are coming to Europe,” he said, “And they don’t speak English. So for me to give them advice through the internet, I have to have Spanish content to show them. So I prefer multilingual.”

This trend represents a missed opportunity for travel websites that could gain increased traffic by catering to these international travellers’ needs.

It is important to note, Greig says, that mere translation is not the answer. He points out that the content has to be written from scratch in the target language for proper optimisation.

Interestingly, one interviewee pointed out that the trend works the other way around in other countries. Jakob Eutkowski, a real estate agent in Poland, said that the English content on Polish travel websites is of very poor quality.

“The English language either doesn’t work, or wasn’t well prepared to translate all the words on the website …and I think that’s the problem with Polish websites, is that they’re not well prepared to look for something in English.”

This means that the Polish sites would not be visible to English-speakers on their way to Poland.

Clearly there is an opportunity worldwide for travel sites to reach new markets by listening to their potential market, and catering to their multilingual needs.
To see Oban’s short video, visit www.faceofglobalsearch.com.

Results showed that Chinese internet users don’t use Google very often. In fact, none of the Chinese respondents chose Google as their favoured travel search portal. Google is struggling to win over Chinese internet users. Baidu is China’s most popular search engine. In fact, Baidu’s share of the Chinese internet search market rose to 64.4 percent in the second quarter of 2008.

As the internet gains popularity in China, its online market is becoming increasingly competitive. Try as it might, Google can only seem to grasp about a quarter of this market. Yet, search experts say it is not surprising that Chinese people are more drawn to their home-grown site than Western ones.

They give a few reasons for why the Chinese market continues to remain elusive to Google.

First, the millennia-old Chinese language differs immensely from Latin-based languages. Pinpointing queries in the Chinese language is an art rather than a science.

Chinese people type by using a US keyboard layout with Chinese labels printed on the keys. Their system converts typed letters to Chinese symbols by providing several options from which the user chooses the correct one.

Sandra Zerr, an expert on Chinese search behaviour at www.obanmultilingual.com, says that Chinese doesn’t work with letters but meanings. “Knowing how to speak doesn’t mean knowing how to write,” she says. “And seeing something doesn’t mean you know how to pronounce it.” Baidu, she explains, may be better than Google in predicting what is searched for based on symbols typed.

According to Baidu’s company profile, there are 38 ways of saying “I” in Chinese. Since they work only with the Chinese language, Baidu engineers are able to focus on integrating Chinese methods into the Western-based search engine system. Google seems to have trouble with the character-based language.

This leads into the second reason why Chinese people seem to prefer Baidu. According to Enquiro Research, there are technical problems with Google within China. Enquiro’s report on China’s search engine engagement showed that Google’s search algorithm is not adequately matched to Chinese users’ intent. In addition, the report shows that Google’s server is unstable in China. When it isn’t crashing, it is tediously slow. Google is also subjected to governmental restrictions that Baidu is not.

Finally, there is the ‘Chinese’ aspect to Baidu. China has longstanding traditions, and Chinese people are very nationalistic. Baidu can appeal to these preferences. The very name Baidu is a poetic Chinese name dating back 800 years. Baidu frequently advertises in China, representing itself as the strong Chinese warrior, and the silly, clueless westerner obviously symbolising Google.

So why should the travel industry care about Chinese internet search behaviour? Glad you asked.

Web use in China has grown by 500 percent over the past five years. There are now 137 million Chinese internet users, making it a bigger online market than the UK, France, and Germany combined.

This figure still only represents an eighth of China’s internet population. Bear in mind that two-thirds of the UK population are already online.

Over the past year alone, internet usage in China has jumped by a staggering 53 percent.

China’s online consumption hit nearly £30 billion in 2007. This number is predicted to rise by nearly 50 percent this year, according to a survey conducted in Netguide 2008.

Chinese internet users also tend to spend longer online than their Western counterparts. According to a study by major Beijing-based company Sohu.com, Chinese users average nearly 16 hours per week, whereas CNET says Brits only average 11.

China is by far the world’s largest internet market. Of those Chinese on the internet, 90 percent (surveyed in August 2007) said they will shop online in 2008.

Greig Holbrook, managing director of www.obanmultilingual.com, says that because of these factors, it makes more sense than ever for travel companies to make sure that optimisation for China is focused on local search engines.

Travel sites take note: there is much more to the international online travel market than Google. The results from Oban and EyeforTravel’s online travel competition show that international internet surfers are expanding their search horizons to sites that give them more international usability, more options, ease of use, and of course, traveller reviews.

The Face of Global Search competition had entrants play a flash game in which they answered questions about their online travel search behaviour before advancing to the next level.

Questions sought to discover the entrant’s next holiday destination, important qualities in a travel site and frequency of holiday tickets booked online per year.

Next to English, Spanish and Chinese were cited as the most frequently used languages on the web. Next down the list were French and Dutch.

The UK was the most popular destination for entrants’ upcoming holidays (24 percent), while 15 percent were planning a trip to Spain. China and America were the third and fourth most popular planned travel destinations, followed by France, Italy, Greece and Canada.

Despite Google’s popularity, only a third of the respondents noted the site as their favourite for looking up travel destinations. Trip Advisor was favoured by 18 percent of the entrants, followed by Alibabuy, Expedia and Lastminute.com.

The most important quality that entrants looked for in a travel site was ease of use (30 percent). Half as many favoured traveller reviews (15 percent). Multilingual sites and sites with eye-catching design were also highly sought-after.

Only one percent of entrants said they never booked their tickets online. The majority of entrants (19 percent) booked holiday tickets online once a year. Only slightly fewer respondents said they booked online two and three times per year, at 13 and 11 percent respectively.

Perhaps even more interesting were the correlations that Oban found in the data.

Chinese speakers don’t Google

None of those who surf the internet in Chinese chose Google as their favoured travel search portal.

Under half of those planning a trip to Spain were frequent Googlers. About a third preferred Trip Advisor, while six percent used Alibabuy, and some used Lastminute.com.

Frequent online bookers prefer Expedia and Trip Advisor

Of the most frequent online ticket bookers, only 14 percent used Google to search. In this group, Expedia and Trip Advisor were favoured, with Opodo and Lastminute.com gaining honourable mentions.

Different site preferences for French and Greek holidays

Nearly two-thirds of those planning a trip to France as their next holiday were looking for easy-to-use travel sites, while the same percentage of those planning a trip to Greece said they would prefer to see traveller reviews on their travel sites. Over half of those planning their holiday in the UK wanted easy-to-use sites, with traveller reviews coming in at a distant second (20 percent).

Expedia and Lastminute.com users want easy-to-use sites

Overwhelmingly, those who used Expedia were looking for an easy-to-use travel site. Lastminute.com users gave similar responses but also mentioned low prices and eye-catching design as being important qualities in a travel site. Sidestep users were looking for plenty of options in a travel site, while Thomas Cook users sought comparisons of holidays.

Multilingual seekers aren’t Googlers

Nearly three quarters of those who thought multilingual was the most important quality in a site did not choose Google as their search engine of choice.

Frequent Googlers want eye-catching design

Oddly, those who were looking for eye-catching design were frequent Googlers (two-thirds). With Google’s reputation for simplistic design, this could suggest a market for those Googlers looking for more eye-catching options.

Spaniards take holidays in UK

Also interesting was that only one third of those who search the web in Spanish were planning their next holiday to Spain. The UK was second most mentioned as their next holiday destination, with Italy, China and Croatia also gaining mentions.

Face of Global Search short documentary

Over the course of the competition, Oban also produced a short video in which they conducted over interviews with international travellers from over 40 countries. The interviewees were asked how they researched their travel destinations.

Nearly every interviewee said that they used the internet to find information about, and frequently book, their holidays.

However, Oban did not get the answers it had anticipated. The ending reveals the paradoxical conclusion that emerged after a long day of interviews.
The video is available to watch at www.faceofglobalsearch.com.

Conclusions

Individuals are asked to conclude what they will from these results. However, Oban has its expert analysis to offer.

Analysis by Greig Holbrook, Director of Oban Multilingual:

What the results clearly show is that travel search is a very culturally diverse activity and that search plays a huge part in both the research and purchase of holidays for global travellers. The growth in Chinese on the web has been phenomenal and reflects the fact that over 900 million people on the web don’t speak English (around 70%).

Ninety-nine percent of those people who took part in the research indicated that they have booked travel online at some point. This once again reflects the fact that globally, people are becoming increasingly familiar with booking their travel online. This means that suppliers not only need to cater from them in their own language but also, as much as possible, allow them to buy successfully from the site. This means the sites need to be very well localised to reflect all search and online purchase behaviours.

Chinese travel searchers don’t seem to want to use Google, often preferring their own engines like Baidu much more. With the huge increase in Chinese searchers actually buying online in 2006-2007, it makes more sense than ever to make sure that optimisation for China is focused on local search engines.

It is not surprising that travellers going to different place are looking for different web features. International travel searchers are becoming more specific in their online behaviours so that in addition to multilingual web optimisation, global social media optimisation also needs to take place. In this context, a site properly optimised social media that is visible to a variety of cultures will prosper.

The finding that those who look for multilingual websites tend to avoid Google reflects the fact that international searchers are increasingly demanding good quality multilingual sites which are visible in their own search engines and not simply on Google, as Google is very often not the preferred engine or method for sourcing travel bookings.

In terms of Spanish people travelling to the UK, we have already found that travel sites often fail to provide good optimisation in Spanish for visitors who are seeking to visit the UK. Spanish people may use some English phrases to search or they may use Spanish, but very few travel sites provide them with the experience they need so they are often forced to use English sites. There is a great opportunity for travel companies to tap into the demand for travel from Spanish searchers; both for holidays within Spain and for travelling elsewhere like the UK.

Every 15^th player to play the Face of Global Search game will win a bottle of champagne in addition to being entered into the original prize draw.

But hurry – there’s only six days left to throw your virtual suitcase around.

The game has players attempt to toss their suitcase to a portal which transports them to the next level in another part of the world.

Players are eligible to win either £150 or £100 worth of travel vouchers just for playing. Those who finish the game are eligible for the big prize – £250 worth of travel vouchers.

During the game, players are asked multiple choice questions about how they use the internet to book their holidays.

Those who are curious about what Oban has discovered as its database of answers matures should check out the video that they put together at the game’s website: www.faceofglobalsearch.com.

The competition ends July 23^rd.

Hurry up and get your game on. There’s only two weeks left to throw your virtual suitcase around in Oban’s flash competition game.

The game has players attempt to toss their suitcase to a portal which transports them to the next level in another part of the world.

Players are eligible to win either £150 or £100 worth of travel vouchers just for playing. Those who finish the game are eligible for the big prize – £250 worth of travel vouchers.

During the game, players are asked multiple choice questions about how they use the internet to book their holidays.

Those who are curious about what Oban has discovered as its database of answers matures should check out the video that they put together at the game’s website: www.faceofglobalsearch.com.

The competition ends July 23rd.

DANGLISH

How this unique language can improve your business

Danish sporting apparel company, Hummel International, wants a ‘Danglish’ website. They have enlisted OBAN Multilingual, an international search engine optimisation company, to do the job.

They are among the many companies realising that cultural differences are key when targeting specific regions.

There are close to five and a half million people living in Denmark.

English is a required course in Danish primary schools also must be spoken during gym class. The result is that most people in Denmark speak English at some level.

As is common in countries with two or more often-spoken languages, English and Danish have become intertwined to create ‘Danglish’.

What does this mean for business?

Consider the following statistics:

Nearly 90 percent of Danes have internet access at home. According to Jupiter Research statistics, of this number, 58 percent buy online.

In 2007, the online spend in Denmark neared £1,300,000,000. A quarter of this sum was from spending in the travel and tourism market. In 2006, two-thirds of Danes went on holiday, and most of them went abroad.

Online clothing retail accounted for about 10 percent of online spending.

Not to mention that EU countries account for 68 percent of Denmark’s foreign trade (Germany is their foremost trading partner, followed by Sweden and the UK).

How can your business get a slice of the DKK pie?

Danes are more likely to type Danish-English hybrid words into search engines than British English. Therefore, sites that are not optimised for ‘Danglish’ will not show up in their search results.

Multilingual search engine optimisation is the key to unlocking the ‘Danglish’ market. This process involves improving the quality of the coding, presentation, structure, content, etc. with cultural modifications and regional spellings of keywords, to gain better rankings in the index.

In countries like Denmark, where most of the population can communicate in English, the trick is finding the cultural linguistic differences between ‘Danglish’ and British English, and optimising the site with those differences in mind.

Businesses that want to reach Danes should not just be looking to Google. Denmark’s largest Internet portal, Jubii, is a popular search engine in Denmark, with 2.8 million monthly users.

When speaking ‘Danglish’, Danes tend to avoid the “th” sound. Therefore, theatre often becomes teatre, and thirst becomes tirsty.

Also, ‘T’s tend to find their way onto the ends of words where they may not belong in British English, for example: goodt (good).

Sites that are optimised in this special mixture of Danish and English are most likely to profit from the immense market for online sales in Denmark.

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