Best path for a non-native English speaker?

andemol

andemol

Joined
Oct 3, 2018
Messages
6
Likes
3
Degree
0
Hi everyone,

I know this is a subject that has already been discussed on the forum, but I would like to have further details and recent information.

Long story short, I'm French and a beginner, but let's take a broader approach for all non-native English speakers.

Is it relevant for a non-native English speaker to start building sites in English, mainly monetized by ads and/or affiliate links?

I am not talking about SAAS or e-commerce. This type of site is, in my opinion, meant to become multilingual.

Here is how I see the situation:

English website for a non-native English speaker:

Pros:

- The pie is bigger as the number of people speaking English is far greater than any European language;
- RPMs for ads are higher;

Cons:

- More competitive therefore harder to rank on Google;
- A non-native English speaker will always have a starting disadvantage over a native speaker, not just in writing quality but also in culture and delivery speed. The key would be to recruit native speakers, but then how to check the quality of the content?

Non-English website (European site) for a native speaker from this European country :

Pros:

- Higher production speed and writing quality than in English;
- A better awareness of the culture of the targeted country;
- It seems to be easier and faster to rank on Google in countries where English is not the main language. In short, fewer competitors.

Cons:

- As @convbelt showed in his Lab Thread, the ads RPMs from European sites are ridiculous compared to sites whose traffic comes mostly from the US/UK.
- A smaller sample of the target population than the English-speaking population. However, some sites are performing well even in Europe. For example, I recently discovered a site with 9 million traffic per month. This site has traffic coming only from Italy and is generating mainly by advertising (I think), about 3 million € of revenue per year. Well, for the same traffic it should generate 2/3 times if it was coming from the US but would it rank as good in the US?

In conclusion, I don't know if there is a right answer, there are pros and cons in both cases, and successful examples both in Europe and in the US.

However, with survivorship bias being a factor, I can't figure out which of these two paths is better overall.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.​
 
Results will come much, much quicker in French. But there's definitely more money to be made by writing in English in the long-run.

Whatever you do, don't get paralyzed. The pros and cons you listed all make sense. Just pick 1 and get started. That's literally my best advice right now. You'll learn a lot in the process. Good luck!
 
Salut et bienvenue sur BuSo,

Here are my 2 cents concerning my current site:
  • I started buying content from 3-4 content brokers. In France, it seems that people use these to feed their PBNs and sell sponsored posts for unknowing brands that won't benefit much from their newly built backlinks (I mean, they get the juice but the PBNs don't get no traffic). The writers rarely are native speakers (brokers outsource to Madagascar and Northern Africa cause it's cheaper), the quality is meh (sometimes downright lame) and the cost is almost the same than if you were to build your own team of writers.
  • So then, I decided to build my own team, which I did through Malt (freelancing platform) and by searching in Google 'content writer [niche/industry]'. I'm paying 0.05€/word. Some writers were asking 0.10€/word, which I found to be absurd considering the kind of work I was offering (blog posts that answers questions, essentially—I ain't looking for the next Zola).
  • Bear in mind that I've been pumping content out for 12 months straight, and though my site is currently making between 1k€-1.3k€ per month, profit is still in the red. All things being equal, if this site was targeted to ENG speaking countries, I'd be making 3-4x what I'm making now.
Wrapping up:
  • For my first site (lab thread here), I wrote all posts myself. After having published 90 posts and seeing no real results, I just said 'stop'. I found it tiring, and I guess it's not for everyone. It definitely isn't for me. Even if you manage to do all the writing yourself, at a some point you'll need to outsource if you truly want to scale. Time is finite, money isn't.
  • For my second site (current project), I didn't write a single word, and I loved it. My work mainly consists of researching keywords, creating content briefs, editing/formatting/adding images and finally, publishing. You need money upfront though, to afford the investment.
I can't tell you what to do or not do, whether you should start by having a French site to learn the ropes and in the future creating an English site, or directly building an English site.

The moment you've made your decision though, start building and commit to your project. Then persevere.

Rambling over. À bientôt :wink:

P.S.: here are 3 resources that have helped tremendously:
P.P.S.:
andemol said:
As @convbelt showed in his Lab Thread, the ads RPMs from European sites are ridiculous compared to sites whose traffic comes mostly from the US/UK.
Click to expand...
I know I put a lot of emphasis about the RPMs I get in this thread, but don't think all European sites (or even French sites for that matter) have ridiculously low RPMs. That's just my site.
I'm mostly (98%) focused on Display Ads and there's lots of ways to boost revenue, and by extension, RPMs: affiliate (one-time, recurring), digital products, physical products, etc. Depending on your niche and how far you're willing to go.
 
As you know, the hurdles are lower but the amount of traffic is smaller. With that in mind, I find it odd when non-English people go for ad-revenue-based non-English sites (which are essentially based on traffic). It seems like you are shooting yourself in the foot in the first place unless you decide to go for a (relatively) competitive high-RPM niche. (Not sure what that would be in French but I assume supplements, finance, etc.)

Far better, I would have thought, to go for the affiliate route and pick a niche which has poor or non-expert French-language sites ranking for it. High retail value or subscription products and a range of non-Amazon offers. (If you don't have any particular ideas take a look at the top English-language affiliate niches and start analysing the current French SERPs.)

(I have a couple of small sites in French and once promoted herbal supplements for a French site. I am not a native French speaker.)
 
I appreciate all your answers.

So it seems obvious to me that a non-English site is not relevant, at least in theory, monetizing only with ads. I'll continue to research and balance the pros and cons depending on the results.

Thank you!
 
My personal suggestion is to do drop ship e-commerce if you are starting a foreign site, so you avoid all the cons of low RPM. I have two drop ship multilingual sites just using machine translation in a multilingual site, and on some profitable keywords (medium competition) I rank higher in German and French than the English version. While I don't get nearly as much sales as the main English site, I don't put any effort into it.
 
I definitely wouldn't bother with a non-English site unless you have spotted a clear opportunity that will allow you to compensate for the difference in rates.

From what I see, your English level is good enough for an English site anyway, and any minor grammatical errors etc. can be fixed with a tool like Grammarly.

If/When you have the budget for it, you always have the option to hire an editor as well.
 
Go with the language you understand first

unless you have the funds to pay a proper writer

OR unless you have a lot of time to learn along the way and plan to ask for reviews of your work
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back