Invest wisely - invest in language
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  • Writer's pictureAlexander Daly

Invest wisely - invest in language

Updated: May 20, 2021

Interested in expanding your business, SEOs and audience by the millions practically overnight? Read on.



As any business knows, investment is key - whether you’re investing in infrastructure, software, hardware, people or your product, you take those necessary steps to ensure long term success. There is, however, an elephant in the room. An elephant that few businesses seem to think about, but really, really should.


That elephant is language. Think of investing in language as synonymous with essentially adding a market of hundreds of millions of new customers overnight - customers that really want what you’re offering, but previously didn’t even know your company existed because they couldn’t find it in their own language.


We’re going to give you some bombshell statistics in this article, but to give you some early perspective on what you can expect from translating your website, products and reviews, bear in mind that there are hundreds of millions of people in Europe alone that use the internet; yet 75% of internet users only make important purchasing decisions if the content is available in their own language. Curious? Keep reading.


Natural scepticism


When George and Alex, the two co-founders of SAXICA, began in the freelance translation market in 2019, we were shocked to see the amount of people being duped by translation companies offering “native translation services” for the Nordic languages (among others), based spuriously in countries like India, Bangladesh and China. Indeed, these companies would often try to hire our services, willing to pay little more than pennies (sadly not an exaggeration) to produce supposedly flawless translations of technical texts - unverified by themselves - to sell on as though they had been professionally and idiomatically written, proofread and quality assured.


Shoddy translations from low-quality companies, as well as translations using free software, are a big no-no for your business.


Perhaps the uncertainty, horror stories and dreadful reputations of some companies in the language services industry are why, believe it or not, only 1% of marketing expenditure is spent on localisation - that is, translating your websites and products into other languages. But, the reality is that there is an enormous linguistic elephant not being spotted.

Let’s let the stats speak for themselves. What could you stand to gain by having professionals localise your website for you?


General exposure


Increased traffic from abroad


Increased traffic right at home


But, you may say, I thought localisation was meant to attract people in foreign countries?

Translating your website certainly can and will attract more foreign visitors, but the current political and economic climate is key to this equation. Migration in recent years has completely revolutionised businesses in Europe and the USA. To name but a few examples:

  • The Polish diaspora in the Nordic countries is approximately 250,000, with a further 800,000 in the United Kingdom, and over 2,000,000 in Germany alone, meaning Polish has become the unofficial second language in several of these countries. This diaspora uses the infrastructure, search engines and resources available in these countries, yet how many of them are actually able to access goods and services in their own language?

  • 21.9% of U.S. residents speak a foreign language at home, which certainly impacts how they browse the internet.

  • 50% of the foreign born population (~40 million as of 2010) of the US speak limited English, meaning that accessing websites in their native language may not merely be a preference, but a necessity.

Just imagine - adding to the equation the various other large non-native groups in all of these countries, often speaking other languages than the host language at home, all searching for products - and all the while preferring to do so in their own language. The potential there is positively eye-watering, and it’s currently being missed.


Don’t be fooled by the common misconception: oh, everyone from X country speaks English anyway.

Despite all these unbelievable numbers, 66% of Fortune 500 companies still haven’t translated their websites into other languages - let alone what smaller businesses can generally afford from huge translation companies charging sky-high prices. The opportunities are endless.


The way forward


Now, given the current economic situation facing us as a result of the COVID crisis, you might be sceptical of investing where you aren’t certain of return. But with so many people now spending so much more time online, still purchasing products, can you really afford not to reach out to such a huge potential audience?


That’s where we come in.



Forging the Way to the Worldwide Market



SAXICA LTD, a translation firm based in the UK with translators all over the world, offers professional, first-class, fully verified, proofread and quality assured translation and language services - and we offer them at freelance prices, but with the security that comes from a company project-managing the whole thing. Not only that, but to help you make the best decision, we offer free language consultation to tailor the perfect localisation package for your business. Which languages and countries are genuinely worth considering given your particular needs and market potential? We’ll help you out with that in no time.


Our experience has grown extensively over a short period, and we've seen a huge surge in popularity with the reviews and enthusiasm to back it up. and we have dealt with every kind of text with every kind of formatting, genre, purpose and style that you could conceive of. This, along with the reassurance of our hundreds of satisfied customers, puts your translation project, big or small, in safe hands.


We are there, no matter what the project, to provide affordable quality. All of our translators are native speakers, and every text we process goes through the eyes and mind of another speaker of that language.


We offer express services, long-term projects, full website localisation, product descriptions, translations of your reviews and so much more, at nearly half the price of many similar service providers.


As soon as you’ve translated your website, you can expect to see your business appearing on search engines all over the world. Expand your business, boost your brand, look abroad. Can you really afford not to?

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