Promoting Foreign Language Websites

Having been involved in the promotion of a foreign language site a few years ago (actually a French language site, which I really enjoyed promoting, as it was great to use my French again!), I found out the pitfalls that can arise for companies who want to widen their customer base online.


This is quite an in depth subject area which I've written about in a previous issue of Marketing Karma but want to concentrate more on France in particular, although much of what you need to do can be applied to many languages.

The best place to start, before doing anything to your website or buying domain names is to research your market - will it be viable in your chosen country? Just because it's successful here, it doesn't mean it's going to be successful abroad. Look at Egg, the credit card company which famously went down like a lead balloon in France - did they research their market properly before chasing foreign markets? Save yourself the embarassment (& the money) and learn from their mistakes!

If you are going ahead, then the first thing to do is buy a local domain name. Unfortunately, French (.fr) domain names aren't easy to get hold of by companies not registered in France, so you'll either need a French registered company to buy it for you (perhaps you have contacts there or a french office that can do that), or use an alternative domain such as .com.fr, or use your .com domain and have a 'french' file e.g com/fr.index.htm. So there are ways around it. If you're not using a .fr domain, then it's a good idea to host your website in France as most importantly, you want your site to appear in the French search engines. If you use a .com/fr/ etc but host it in the UK or US, then it could be more difficult to get rankings if the site isn't hosted in France.

We'll be continuing this series of tips on promoting French / foreign language sites, so keep checking back!