Multilingual Content Site: Is It Worth It?

[DuckDuckLit]

Has anyone tested the reach by going into different languages other than English, like Spanish, Mandarin, etc.? Obviously is different for every niche, but I just want to know you guys' experience with that.

Some facts:
- According to CIA, only 4.83% of people have English as their first language. Spanish is more, with a 4.85% native speakers
- Of course, this only accounts for native speakers, whereas most people these days are bilingual or know English as their second language
- Numbers vary a lot, but according to Gurmentor, roughly 13% of the world speak English, both native speakers and non-native speakers
- English speakers are estimated around 1.3 billion, Mandarin are 1.1 billion, Hindi 637 million, Spanish 537 million (numbers account for both native and non-native speakers)
- Of course, there are some other factors that come into play like search volume in other languages, how many people from that demographic are in your niche, etc etc (hundreds of factors)
- Apparently, Google also said that of all of the searches, 20% are being carried out in local languages, and there's a massive trend of increasing local language searcher

I just want to know if any of you have tried going into other languages with a content site, and what has that process yielded? Or those that have explored this possibility, but have chosen not to pull the trigger, what was the reasoning?

 

[Ryuzaki]

How would you plan on monetizing all these people? I’d answer that (if you haven’t) before going any further mentally.

 

[DuckDuckLit]

How would you plan on monetizing all these people? I’d answer that (if you haven’t) before going any further mentally.

Display Ads. Even with calculations of minimum returns / minimum RPMs, it still seems to be worth it. Obviously, the margins are much more razor thin, but brand exposure and accessibility to more demographics is what I'm going for.

 

[Potatoe]

I could see there potentially being some gaps there, where there's either some easier-pickings niches or some advertisers who are overpaying, but I could see it going in the other direction in some cases, too. I think a lot of us are based in NA so the views here are going to be centered around that, and targeting that specific audience.

Or those that have explored this possibility, but have chosen not to pull the trigger, what was the reasoning?

I've thought about doing a site in my 2nd language, then I was like ehhh - I won't be able to really judge the quality quite as well as I can in English. Having said that, a lot of dudes here are killing it with English sites written by people who struggle with the language, so maybe there's hope for me.

Memes aside, I think it's worth exploring.

 

[Ryuzaki]

@DuckDuckLit, I've seen sites do sub-folders with translations of their entire site, but the sites were static in size. Say they were 50 pages. They did 50 pages for every language in subfolders for every main two-letter language code. Like /es/ and /ja/ for instance. Seemed to pan out for them.

But you gotta think about what the big exchanges offer their advertisers and what your network expects. If you end up with like 90% "not premium country" traffic, you may get booted out.

 

[DuckDuckLit]

I could see there potentially being some gaps there, where there's either some easier-pickings niches or some advertisers who are overpaying, but I could see it going in the other direction in some cases, too. I think a lot of us are based in NA so the views here are going to be centered around that, and targeting that specific audience.

I've thought about doing a site in my 2nd language, then I was like ehhh - I won't be able to really judge the quality quite as well as I can in English. Having said that, a lot of dudes here are killing it with English sites written by people who struggle with the language, so maybe there's hope for me.

Memes aside, I think it's worth exploring.

Logistics is a pain in the ass, have to establish some hardcore quality checks. Either way, I agree, worth exploring.

@DuckDuckLit, I've seen sites do sub-folders with translations of their entire site, but the sites were static in size. Say they were 50 pages. They did 50 pages for every language in subfolders for every main two-letter language code. Like /es/ and /ja/ for instance. Seemed to pan out for them.

But you gotta think about what the big exchanges offer their advertisers and what your network expects. If you end up with like 90% "not premium country" traffic, you may get booted out.

I need to speak with someone from my Ad partner. But even if that is the case (if they don't want non-premium traffic), which I don't believe it will, cause I'm not expecting a higher amount of traffic from this strat, OR worst case scenario: I go with other Ad Partners on the subbed pages. While the numbers suggest that there are not that many English speakers, its not like the numbers are the same with Google Search.

And yeah i know about some static sites that are doing good, downside is that my site isn't that static... Have to translate more than 1.7k posts already published, and continue with the fresh content.

 

[secretagentdad]

Here’s a theory.
You can use translations or even low text user interfaces to outperform in foreign serps. Given how google claims they work. It seems like it could eventually result in performance improvements or extra testing opportunities in your higher value target languages.