TWM 239: How to Give International Visitors to Your Website a Great Experience w/ John Yunker

Speaker A: You're listening to the Worldly Marketer Podcast brought to you by verbaccino.com. Welcome to the Worldly Marketer Podcast. I'm your host, Kathryn Bussman. In the digital age, brands of uh, all sizes are building their global presence by leveraging the right market research, positioning online channels and localized content. On this show I talk with a variety of experts who specialize in helping brands expand internationally and succeed in today's increasingly digital, social and multilingual marketplace. Join me as I explore this ever evolving landscape of global possibilities. My guest today today is a well known pioneer in the field of web and software globalization and by now one of the perennial contributors to this podcast. I featured him on three previous episodes, episodes number 59, 182 and most recently episode 221. He is the co founder and president of uh, Byte Level Research, an agency that specializes in researching, research, promoting and advising on best practices in website globalization. Based in Ashland, Oregon, my guest has been helping companies improve their global content, websites and software since the year 2000. He has worked with many of the world's biggest multinational corporations, providing them with web globalization training, specialized reports and benchmark services. His Web Globalization report cards have become required reading for global brand leaders everywhere. These annual reports provide an up to date evaluation of how major global companies are performing relative to each other and to current industry best practices. Besides his client work, my guest writes the popular blog Global by Design and and he has authored several books including Beyond Web Globalization Strategies which was the first book devoted to the emerging field of web globalization and more recently, Think Outside the A Guide to Going Global and Succeeding in the Translation Economy. I'm absolutely delighted to welcome him back to the show to talk about his 2022 Web Globalization Report card which he published earlier this

Speaker B: John Yuncker, welcome back to the Worldly Marketer podcast.

Speaker C: Hi Katherine, thanks for having me back.

Speaker B: It is a pleasure to have you back on the show, John. Uh, I just checked and last time you were on the podcast was about a year ago in July 2021 and a lot has happened since then, I'm sure. So, uh, catch us up a little bit. Uh, what's been happening at Bite Level Research since then?

Speaker C: Well, gosh, you're right, a lot has happened. Uh, I feel like with these Covid years, every year has felt like 10 years and I'm glad to see signs that we're emerging from it. I've been busy with Bite Level. I've been doing a lot of work in the fintech space in the past 12 months and from a globalization perspective, I will just say that more than 500 million people have become new Internet users in the past year. And that's something just, I like to remind people of that. Uh, here in the Western, uh, in the US in particular, the assumption is often among many companies that everyone's online and in fact everyone is not yet online. And there's still a lot of new Internet users around the world and we always have to keep them in mind when we develop websites and uh, mobile apps. And then finally there's Russia, which has been really tragic and it's ongoing and it has huge implications obviously human level. But from, you know, from a web globalization perspective, it's the first time since I've been doing the report where I've seen so many companies pull back on a significant level from Russia and you know, from the Russian language, from the Russian market. It's really, uh, it's tragic on so many levels. Obviously you know my perspective and you know, I'd like to think that that globalization there are negatives to it and you know, I'm well aware of that. But I generally think it's good for people to, to be culturally aware and curious and for countries to engage with one another, you know, economically, socially, politically. And what's happened in the past, uh, six months has just been a massive step in reverse and a little depressing, quite honestly. Um, but I, you know, I just, I just hope that things can, can end. But you know, from a business perspective it's definitely been, um, there's been a lot of uh, second guessing from a lot of multinationals who were well invested in Russia and now have had to, you know, some have actually completely withdrawn. Some companies are in the process of withdrawing and it's been a challenging time from that perspective.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Mhm. Well, so last time you were on the show we, we talked about your web Globalization Report Card 20. Um, you've published this year's edition, the uh, Report Card 2022 earlier this year. For anyone who's not yet familiar with these annual report cards that you've been publishing for I think 18 years now, give us some background info. What is it that you're evaluating exactly? What's uh, the methodology? And who uh, are these annual report cards actually meant to help?

Speaker C: The report cards are a reflection of the leading global brands first and foremost. They're not inexpensive reports. Um, my background is in marketing, web development and web localization. And many, many years ago I began localizing websites and I realized that there were no at the time established Best practices, if you will. And so this report card evolved to identify those by looking across all the major industry sectors and really focusing on the leading global brands, large multinational companies, and looking at what they're doing and then ultimately over the years talking to the people that manage these websites and the marketing executives and finding out what's working and what's not working and using that to evolve the methodology. Uh, the methodology is consumer customer focus. So it's not focused on what happens behind the scenes within the company. It's about the user experience ultimately and how well, well we serve customers and prospects, uh, from a web globalization perspective. And so yeah, that is the methodology in a nutshell. And the report cards have helped companies improve their websites quite simply or help executives within these companies make the cases for improving the design of their websites and also make the cases, uh, really effective cases for expanding their linguistic footprint. Because that is, you know, you talk to anyone in any global company that always feels like a never ending battle to get funding for translation quite simply. And it's something that I feel very strongly that most companies under translate, uh, under support the world, world's Internet users. And so this report is designed to help uh, these executives make their cases internally to increase funding.

Speaker B: And have you like, now that you've been doing this for going on two, uh, decades, have you actually kind of followed up with the companies to see if by implementing the best practices that you've laid out, it makes a difference to their bottom line? Because yes, it's nice to have a more global friendly website, but at the end of the day what the companies really care about is this going to help our business. Right. So have you been able to kind of connect the dots for them in terms of business results?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And there's a number of ways at looking at it. There's the cost, the overhead, and one of the key categories of the methodology is internationalization. And internationalization is all about scalability. So if you're a company that supports just a few markets right now, you're probably not thinking yet fully about scalability. But you have to think, you know, 10 years down the road you might go from two languages to 20, uh, you might have 50 country region websites. And how do you manage those efficiently? So you're not, you know, spending too much money. So scalability is really important. So from a cost perspective, a lot of these best practices really have had a tangible impact for the companies that I work with and uh, are in the report card or who I've talked to researching the Report card. And then of course there's revenues. You know, um, one thing I'll point out, with the exception of Russia, um, most companies that expand into a new market tend to stay in those new markets. Uh, and I always say actions speak louder than words. And that, that has borne itself out. Not to say there's not exceptions to that. And there are, there are companies that for various reasons, their products don't resonate in various markets, or they're, they haven't really localized their business strategy for these markets. And of course there's geopolitical issues, which we're seeing with, with Russia and Ukraine. But even keeping in mind, even with all of that, the trend has been towards companies that have invested, really well invested in going global with, you know, a depth of localized content and a real focus on the culture and the customer. They've, they've had success. So that the trend line keeps going up. You know, for example, this recent report card, the average number of languages supported by these leading Global Brands is 34, which is up by one language from the year before. Um, so the trend line is definitely up. Companies continue to expand, and, um, of course, the number of Internet users continues to go up as well. I mentioned that. One thing I mentioned in the report card is back in 1994, there were approximately 25 million Internet users on the planet. Today, there are more than 25 million Internet users in the state of California. That is just one indicator of just how important your Internet strategy or your web globalization strategy is. You are ultimately following your customers, your perspective, customers around the world. And of course, if they don't speak English, you have to meet them where they live in their language, their culture, their time zone, their preferred payment methods, their preferred delivery methods. And it goes on and on and on. And of course, the devil is in the details. But companies that invest in those details do see positive results.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's important to kind of keep in mind, right, all those new Internet users that are coming online, they're not native English speakers, right? The markets where English, uh, is the dominant language, those markets are already sort of pretty much at maximum capacity in terms of Internet adoption. They're already mature markets in terms of Internet penetration rates. It's the markets where English is, ah, certainly not the dominant language, where there's still lots of growth happening in terms of Internet adoption. Just before we move on to this year's report, what kinds of companies, what kinds of brands are you covering in your report? Because are we talking tech companies? Are we talking companies that are Basically delivering their products or services digitally. Or are we talking CPG brands? Like what kinds of brands are we talking about here?

Speaker C: All brands. And in fact one tool that I use is the best global brands report. And so this is just looking at the most valuable brands. And so about 80% of those top 100 brands are included in the report card. And the report Card only includes 150 companies. So it's not uh, taking a survey of mid sized companies or startup companies. I am looking at fast growing global brands as well as established global brands. So you can have, you have consumer product companies, you have Nestle, for example, automotive, a lot of the major automotive brands, delivery, you know, DHL, FedEx. So we have logistics, we have delivery, we have, we definitely tech is well represented. Ah, fashion, uh, luxury, we have a fair number of luxury brands. Rolex and, and so for. So the idea is to kind of span a lot of sectors because I'm looking for patterns, I'm looking for trends and I'm also trying to help companies within their individual sectors look beyond their sectors. And one common mistake that happens is that companies, when they go global or when they redesign their global website, they only look at their competitors. And what happens is you get this negative feedback loop that happens where poor practices get replicated. Because sometimes you can be a leading global brand and still have a pretty lousy global website. You can do some things that aren't ideal. So it's important to look beyond your industry and look at what's working for more consumer oriented brands. I mean we're definitely in the B2B space. What's happening, uh, and this has happened for more than a decade is B2B companies are responding to the usability improvements from consumer oriented companies. So I always say that uh, even if you're a B2B company, you're still competing with the Apples of the world and the Googles of the world because you want your software to be as simple as something like that. Um, just because you're B2B doesn't mean you have a right to be really complicated and difficult to use. So that's why it is important to look outside of your sector.

Speaker B: Yeah. And also just because you're B2B doesn't mean you can get away with, you know, just English or uh, you know, just a small handful of languages.

Speaker C: Absolutely, yeah. And B2B's will make the case that they don't need to support as many languages. And I will agree with them to a point. But the point is this is, yes, at a High level. What happens in a lot of B2B companies is the executives, they travel around the world, they meet other executives and they all speak English. Because English is often the default world's second language. Uh, in terms of, uh, it's the language of business. So if you go to, you'll, you'll hear it spoken in Europe and Asia. Um, because it's kind of a common shared language, it doesn't mean that that is the only language you need to support. And you could have a B2B software application that at a high level, the buyer at a company, say in Japan, the top level executive team speaks English and they can navigate that software. But if that software has to be implemented and used all the way down to your, the executive chain, to the staff level, you can't just assume everyone speaks English fluently. So you have to take that into account, not just the executives who purchase the software, but the entire company, everyone that has to use that software. And what companies find is that that English fluency tends to decline when you look at a total company versus just the executive suite.

Speaker B: Yeah. And uh, I think, I think it was CSA research that published a report that I linked to in a recent blog post that I wrote where um, they actually found that maybe particularly in B2B situations that can't read, won't buy phenomenon actually applies even more because if you have someone who's in charge of researching potential software or something that they need to implement at the company level, and this person, upper management, middle management person, is researching the options online and tasked with creating some sort of shortlist to bring back to the people in charge to kind of make the final decision. If they can't really understand the details of what the product does, what the value proposition is, can't read the supporting literature that goes with it, uh, the white papers, all this stuff, if it's not in their primarily language, they won't feel comfortable recommending this. Because if it's a big investment, if it's a big financial investment for the company to be potentially purchasing this solution, this B2B solution, the person who is tasked with recommending this thing needs to feel confident that they really understand what this thing actually does and what the value proposition is and uh, how it's different from the competitors. Right. And if they can't sort of fully grasp it because it's not in their primary language, even if they have some English, when it's a matter of making a big financial decision on behalf of your company, you want to get it right and you don't want to be misinterpreting what you're reading. So for that reason alone, I mean it makes sense to provide supporting documentation and marketing materials. Everything else in the language of uh, that target market.

Speaker C: Yeah. One of the worst mistakes companies make is they create what I call a local facade and they just, they just do the homepage of their website or their software app or something thinking that, and they can just call it localized and that, that can actually do more harm than good because you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. The line goes. And, and it's true. So if you do that and don't really think through the, the entire, all of the use cases of the product or the website and uh, you're, you're going to lose your prospective customers and it's going to be harder to get them back if you haven't really created a truly end. Localized end.

Speaker B: Well, John, let's dive into this year's report, the 2022 report card. What are some of the standout takeaways this year in your opinion? Were there any, uh, surprises compared to last year's report?

Speaker C: I would say, well, there are a few companies that I would call overachievers and Amazon was one. Dell was another. Um, Spotify. Spotify leapt ahead of uh, Netflix in terms of languages streaming in general. That was, you know, if you go back 12 months, you go back to mid Covid, all the streaming platforms were just booming. Obviously we were all consuming them. We still are, but we really were 18 months ago. And so these companies were really investing in expanding their global footprint linguistically and um, with the product as well as the interface. And so we saw Amazon doubled its language footprint primarily through its streaming platform. And of course Spotify and Netflix had continued to grow. Um, so we saw a lot of activity in that area. Um, Dell redesigned uh, its website and just made some general basic improvements from navigation to global consistency that I found very impressive because Dell had been an underperformer for many years. So that was, that was a positive. The other trend that is not unique to last year but continues to become a really significant trend and disruptive trend is of course machine translation or statistical machine translation or whatever variation of machine translation you want to call it to it, but automated translation. Um, Apple has finally gone all in on this. Of course we know Google has been in on it and invested in it. Microsoft was, was an early pioneer of it. Um, but now, you know, of course we have Amazon and we have Apple and of course Airbnb Less than two months ago, began using what I call, uh, public self service machine translation. So they're actually using machine translation on the front end. So it's not just being used on the back end as part of their translation workflow. They're actually allowing users to effectively opt in to machine translated content. So machine translation continues to evolve. It's still, you know, we're still in early days and I know there's a lot of caveats that go with that, and I'm not suggesting professional translators are in danger of losing their jobs by any stretch, but I, I am a huge proponent of machine translation because it unlocks content that probably would never have been translated anyway into languages that in many cases are not supported because companies won't budget for professional translation into these languages. So the net is, is been pretty positive.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I mean, there's use cases where machine translation is really the only realistic solution, like for things like user reviews. Airbnb is a great example. Right. You can't possibly professionally translate all the user reviews. It's just not feasible.

Speaker C: Um, and a lot of companies don't realize that you can optimize machine translation. If you just look at Google Translate as the best iteration of machine translation, you're kind of missing the point. If you optimize it to your particular company or particular terminology, the quality can get really, really good to the point where you can do what Airbnb is doing.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but that requires some in house expertise around, uh, or a translation partner who specializes in machine translation implementation and who can help you build a term database. And uh, basically build a database that is specific to your company with all the terms that you use in your materials and that customers would refer to. And it's very company specific. It's not like you can just run, uh, everything through Google Translate.

Speaker C: Right, exactly.

Speaker B: Or through a plugin, which we'll get to later. I actually want to talk to you about that. Yeah. So I'm reading through the top 25 list of this year's best, uh, global websites. According to your report card. The things that struck me was, um, compared to last year's list, some big names actually dropped off the list, uh, completely. Not necessarily because they did worse this year, but others kind of overtook them, if you will. Right. So others got better still. They set the bar even higher, shall we say. So companies like Visa and Pfizer and American Express and Sanofi and uh, Cisco Systems used to be on the top 25 list, but maybe they'll come back. Meanwhile, as you mentioned, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, DHL, uh, Intel and Ford actually, uh, joined the top 25 for the first time. What are some of the main criteria that global websites need to aim for now in 2022 if they want to make it onto your top 25 list? And what are some of the table stakes now if you want to be part of that top 25?

Speaker C: Well, yeah, and that's a good question. And you know, to use a sports analogy, I would say this, you know, this is the big leagues, if you will, the report card, meaning it's expensive, you're going to have to support a lot of languages. So right off the bat to get into the top 25, you're going to need to support 25, ideally 35 or more languages. And to the point of the methodology to score, uh, there's four parts of the methodology and one of them, 25% of the score, is global reach, which is language. To achieve a top score, 25 points in that category, you need to support 50 or more languages. And not many websites do, quite honestly. It's aggressive, but it's aggressive because from the user's perspective, if you don't support their language, you've failed. And 50 is actually a pretty small number when you think of the world's Internet users. Wikipedia, which is number one, is a great indicator of that with support for more than 275 languages. Actually I think more than 300 last I checked. But Wikipedia is uh, a great bellwether in the sense that this is user generated content, user created content. And it's one indicator of saying, okay, if the world's Internet users were to tell us what languages they deem important, Wikipedia would be one indicator and that would say, okay, well maybe we need to support 200 plus languages. Well, of course for profit companies are a long way, long ways from there. But that is one, one reason why I have very high targets for language. And, but that's just 25% of the score. So then you also have to look at global consistency, which is scalability, that's internationalization. And then, and then most importantly is content itself. You know, is there a depth of localized content? Is it culturally relevant? Have you really focus on the uh, details? Does it feel fresh? A lot of times companies localize for markets and then just kind of mothball. These localized websites, they look stale. You know, they have content that hasn't been updated in weeks or even months. I'm looking for that as well. So there's a lot of elements to it and it is competitive at the top. So it is easy to drop out if a few other companies have significantly increased the number of languages they support. And Amazon would be one of those. Amazon is relatively new to the top 25 because even though they have very early on embraced global consistency. And if you look at Amazon around the world, they're generally using global templates. Uh, they were on board with that very early, but Amazon has been relatively slow from a linguistic aspect. And Amazon's navigation still needs some work as well, but they're in the top 25 this year because of their language growth. So you're just looking at a lot of elements. And are, uh, you above average across those four criteria, which is languages, internationalization, localization, and then finally navigation.

Speaker B: And by internationalization, what do you mean specifically?

Speaker C: I'm, um, referring to from a design perspective or architecture perspective. I'm referring to the global template. So you're using templates that allow you to provide consistency across all of your localized websites, which of course benefits you, but it also benefits your users because oftentimes users will visit the.com site initially and then navigate, navigate to the localized website. That should be a consistent experience. So that template is important, but it also applies to designing as well, for not just scalability of languages and content, but devices. So have you architected a design that's going to adapt well for mobile devices as well as desktop devices? And specific to mobile, is it going to be lightweight enough? And I also look at weight. I, uh, look at how many bits have to be delivered. And that is a huge issue when you get into more emerging markets where bandwidth is just not so, uh, uh, readily available or where users often pay for the kilobyte. And so consumers are more data sensitive. And quite honestly, I mean living in the US being on Zoom a lot, uh, bandwidth is not as abundant as I'd like, as many of us would like even in the US So we all have to be cognizant of data consumption and be very austere when developing and designing websites when you think of users around the world.

Speaker B: Well, John, now having published 18 editions of the Report Card, how would you describe the evolution of global organizations over the past two decades when it comes to their awareness and maturity around web, um, globalization. Best practices have the past two years of the, of the COVID pandemic, for instance, would you say that they've helped or hindered that evolution?

Speaker C: I'd say helped definitely, in the sense that a lot of companies lost one of their channels. They lost their physical retail channel for a period of Time, So they had to pivot to online. Um, and also a lot of B2B companies quickly became B2C companies. I was thinking of the company Steelcase, which focused on office furniture. While they were suddenly seeing huge opportunity for people who wanted to outfit their home offices. They lost their, uh, conventional office market and then they pivoted to the consumer office market. So, um, we saw a lot of that. And so one thing I would say, and I've said this for a number of years because people have long been fond of saying the Internet is dead. You know, Facebook was going to kill the Internet. And I remember that. And the Internet is alive and well because the website, your website is, it's what you control. It's your real estate. You're not relying on a capricious landlord like a Facebook or a, uh, tick tock or whatever. You, you have total control over this real estate and it's your conduit to potentially billions of customers around the world. And so I think a lot of companies, I know a lot of companies that really resonated over the past two years. And I think evolution, the evolution of web globalization, best practices have come a long way, definitely in two decades. A lot of things that I, 18 years ago I were saying you need to do are now considered, uh, religion if you will, like global consistency. When I started the report card, it was not unusual, uh, to have debates with companies and brands that we would all recognize. Who the executives would say, well no, I want to have a unique website for Italy and a unique website for France and a different design and I've got a different design to team and every country was doing their own thing and there are reasons for not being completely consistent that are valid. But more often than not, if you're looking down the road and you need to support a lot of markets, you're going to err on focusing on the content while leaving global consistency. Once, uh, you have global consistency in place, then you're free to focus on content. And actually global consistency has actually resulted in more locally relevant websites, which is why been proven out over the past 18 years. Um, and then finally I would just say, I always come back to this quote attributed to the author William Gibson. Uh, the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. And I would say that's very true about web globalization because we have the Googles, we have Silicon Valley where they tend to be quite a bit ahead in terms of web globalization best practices or investment in language. And then you have the rest of the world, uh, or you have legacy companies where a lot of these best practices still have not been fully implemented yet. Um, you see this in automotive, for example, like Tesla. The Tesla website was globally consistent from day one because Tesla had just a few models and it was a new company born in an era where those best practices were already well accepted versus say, a Ford, uh, where it's a very globally distributed company, or Honda or Toyota where global consistency is, It's a much more difficult task because there's so many legacy websites and distributed teams and, and hundreds of products, uh, and divisions and sub brands and so forth. So, so yeah, we've come a long way, but we still have a. I still tell myself, I still realize this, quite honestly is, and I sure you've seen this as well. You know, we, in this field, it's sometimes easy to assume that a lot of these best practices are common knowledge. And then you go to a consulting project and you realize, wait a minute, there's a lot of educating yet left to do. And so we're still, believe it or not, in the early days yet of web globalization.

Speaker B: Maybe that explains why, you know, this year for the first time you've published a companion report with your report card called Web Globalization Best Practices and Emerging Trends. Why did you decide it was time for a standalone report on web globalization best practices? And uh, are the target readers for this best practices report the same readers as the report card? What does the best practices report cover that the report card does?

Speaker C: Uh, so the report card is a beast. I think it's over 400 pages. People do read it end to end, believe it or not, But I realized that I wanted to create something that distilled and collected the best practices, not just from one year, but over many years into one smaller report that could be consumed not just within a localization team, but really across the company. It could be a report that you could share with your marketing team, your sales team, your product strategy team, et cetera. And this report was designed for that. So it's a blend. It includes established best practices, but it also includes a lot of the emerging trends that I've identified, not just with this recent report, but over the past few years. And some of these trends would include machine translation, for example. So this report would be a good report to hand to someone who's never even heard of machine translation and doesn't understand the implications. Or, uh, accessibility. What does website accessibility mean from a globalization perspective? Uh, what about country codes or brand domains? Um, so I'm talking a lot about that localization of surveys. Everyone's running surveys these days. Every website you go to pops up a survey request. Surprisingly still, a lot of those surveys are not localized. So you'll be on a local website. So you'll be on the France website. And the survey pops up and it's in English because the team and didn't really think about localizing that. So I'm looking at that and I'm looking at trends, linguistic trends, what languages are becoming, um, must support languages that weren't viewed that way just a few years ago. So that's the focus of this report.

Speaker B: So, John, at this point, after two decades of helping companies make their websites, uh, user friendly for international visitors and writing about web globalization best practices, what are some mistakes that you're finally seeing less of? And what are some mistakes that you're still seeing too much of? Do you have any particular pet peeves?

Speaker C: Well, uh, Catherine, I think you know, one of my biggest ones, I think most people know anyone who knows me or reads my blog and that is flags used in global gateways. And for many years I harped on Apple because Apple for many years used flags in the global gateway. And I noted on my website on, um, Global by Design, my blog, I think it was now two years or maybe just less than two years that Apple dropped flags. So now Apple has dropped flags. And also with this recent OS upgrade, it dropped flags as well. That didn't get quite as much fanfare. Um, so Apple is moving on from flags at long last. And it's not that I don't like flags. Flags are great, but from a navigational perspective, they just cause more problems than they solve. And so I'm grateful that Apple did this because it makes my job as a consultant or just an evangelist much easier. Uh, a lot of companies drop flag, have dropped flags long before Apple. Many, uh, have since dropped flags. But it is a pet peeve because what I always say about flag, well, I say a lot of things about flags, but if you use flags, they actually sometimes narrow your reach. Uh, because your globalization strategy might be language based. So you might be supporting, um, say universal variation of Spanish and you've focused on creating a Spanish that can be effective across a number of different countries. And then you tack on the flag for Spain next to it. Well, that actually is counterproductive because you've invested in a language that could span a lot of markets and then you've thrown up a flag that says you're limiting yourself to one market. And you can make the case with English as well. I see, you know, the American flag used for English, the British flag or you know, so forth. So you can limit reach with flags. And of course there's geopolitical issues as well associated with flags. So that, that's a big thing. The other pet peeve is weight. Um, websites that, that have actually, uh, and this has been a trend across many website companies is they've just every year they redesign and the website gets just heavier. And it's not necessarily with any advances in functionality, it's usually just some extraneous images or some animation or video that is on by default. And these elements just don't necessarily serve customers well, particularly in markets where they don't have great Internet connections.

Speaker B: Mhm. Yeah. Uh, back to the country flags. As a Canadian, that is a pet peeve too. Uh, when the American flag or the Union Jack is used for English, what about Canadians? And plus Canadians are officially bilingual anyway, so that's another. Yeah, flags. Are you talk about that in your book, which.

Speaker C: Oh yeah, which we'll come to.

Speaker B: Um, so is it fair to say that there's such a thing as um, a standard global gateway? Like you mentioned the global gateway concept uh, earlier and for anyone who's not aware of what that is, maybe you can quickly explain that. Is there such a thing as a standard global gateway that you recommend now to companies that you consult with, uh, like a standard format that you recommend that works for pretty much any kind of website? And what should marketers and website designers be taught about that, that global gateway, you know, what should be the elements that it consists of and why?

Speaker C: Great question. And I've actually done entire classes on this so I'll try to keep it short. And I wrote actually a book about it a few years ago because there are standards, um, but it's more of a standard framework because I think your gateway will evolve as your website evolves. So what works when you support two languages or two localized websites will be very different if you get to 20 or more. So it's not just one out of the box solution, but there are four general elements that companies use, um, organizations use. So it begins with your country codes, your domains from.comto.uh ca for Canada, etc. And that's your address. And then you go to a visual global gateway and that's something that the user interacts with to uh, change their, their setting if they want to go to another website. And then there's two backend technologies you can use. One is geolocation, which looks at the uh, location of the device that you're accessing the Internet with, your phone or your desktop and then, and then also language detection or negotiation, uh, and that is done at the server level where the server looks at the language setting of your web browser and responds with the matching language if it's available, or a fallback language. So these four tools, four elements are what uh, organizations use. You can use sometimes all four. Google uses all four. Many large brands use, use all four to varying degrees. Um, one general best practice I always say, if you can, is let users remain in control of their experience. So sometimes geolocation or language detection get used to override uh, intent or, or your guesstimate. You, you say okay, well the user has a, uh, their browser set to German. So I'm going to assume they want German and I'm going to give them German content. Well what if you're a travel website, let's say you're hotels.com and your customer is an American who speaks only English and they're traveling in Germany and they happen to be on a shared Internet terminal, that could be a problem. So keep that in mind. Keep the user in control, allow the user to stay in control and try to be geopolitically neutral and you know, talk to your customers, study them. You know, often what happens with global gateways and when they really fail and fail badly, it's simply because no one has paid attention to that scenario. They're not really thinking about how users around the world actually find their localized websites. And if you on your team, your web team, your marketing team, just spend some time thinking about that and planning for it, then, then you're, you're going to probably solve a lot of these issues yourself. Mhm.

Speaker B: Well, I'm sure there's lots of good advice around global gateways and how to set them up properly. In that new report, the companion report that you published about web globalization best practices and also in the book uh, that we mentioned. So John, I was on LinkedIn the other day and someone posted a survey and what they wanted to know was which multilingual plugin is your favorite to use for WordPress? I think. And so there were a few different ones I think. You know, TranslatePress, WP, ML, Polylang, Weglot. So the survey was sort of meant to get people picking their favorite one. And uh, the assumption was somehow that this is how you create multilingual websites. Right. That's all it takes. It's just you know, a plugin, it's that easy.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And I thought of you and uh, so what is your take on these plugins? Good, uh, idea, bad idea? Is there any kind of place for them at all in your opinion and why?

Speaker C: Well, I would say good idea, yeah, a great idea. Um, but execution is everything and so sometimes they can create more problems than they solve if you haven't really thought through the user experience. Uh, I'm curious though Catherine, which one came out on top in the survey?

Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. The survey was still sort of ongoing so I don't know how it's.

Speaker C: Yeah, I'd just be curious because I'm familiar with them all. I've tested a few, I have clients that have used them and no, they're fine. I think this is just a way of solving a problem in this case for users around WordPress. And of course WordPress supports roughly half of all websites or maybe even more right now. Uh, a lot of large companies use WordPress to host their websites and so these plugins will provide a content management and translation management management tool, a uh, platform to help you work with your translators and to create that content. But that's just of course one aspect of a successful global website. So you know, there's navigation and I will say that a lot of these plugins do a pretty lousy job. They're out of the box global gateways, if you will often use flags because that's what people assume work best. So that's one danger with those plugins but you don't have to necessarily use that. So I think they're great, I think they're great for are companies that want to get started pretty quickly and they live on WordPress. But you have to think about the overall user experience because it's not just about one page being translated from one to another language. You have to think about the user journey. Uh, if it's E commerce then you've got to think about currency and fulfillment and customer support. And so that one plugin doesn't necessarily check all of those boxes, but it is an important piece to solving this overall question. And it also, these plugins are great for small and emerging businesses, you know, because they allow you to get moving. And I, and I do encourage companies that are just starting out do it on the cheap. And these plugins, uh, sometimes they're either quite cheap or they're sometimes free with limited functionality. It's a great way to just get started. And you know, sometimes you just have to dive in and make mistakes. I don't encourage mistakes, but that's how we all learn. Sometimes and even big companies are making mistakes. So mistakes aren't always bad as long as we learn from them. So sometimes the best way to go global is just pick a market, pick a language, get started. And these tools allow you to do that pretty quickly.

Speaker B: Great advice. Well, but to the extent that we don't have to learn everything by trial and error and we can kind of do a little bit of research ahead of time, what resources would you recommend for, you know, marketers or web designers out there who do want to educate themselves on current, uh, web globalization best practices? You know, are there specific books, you know, courses or organizations that you could sort of tap into and, uh, learn?

Speaker C: Right. Well, there's a localization institute from a training perspective, which is excellent. There's. They, they also do conferences. Local is a very important conference in the field. There's multilingual magazine, which is online as well as I believe they still do a print magazine. And then my book Think Outside the Country, which is relatively affordable, is a great resource. Uh, I have a blog called Global by Design as well, so there's a lot out there.

Speaker B: Is your new report on best practices, does that only come with the report card or can that be purchased separately?

Speaker C: It only comes with a report card, but, um, next year I might, might look at different ways to make that accessible.

Speaker B: And so what's next on the horizon for you at byte level?

Speaker C: Oh, gosh, you know, another report card, definitely, I would say. Um, Catherine, we were talking a little bit about this, you know, in terms of other reports. I am always looking at different types of reports. The report card, you know, it focuses on and serves really large companies who have big budgets and they do have a lot to teach smaller and emerging companies. But I would like to make more resources available to small and emerging companies. So that's something that's on the back of my mind that I'd like to focus on in the years ahead. Things that are not quite so expensive. Of course I have the book, which is a starting point, but I'm always thinking about small businesses. How do we go global without million dollar budgets? And how do we do it in ways that can reflect our brands, that can allow us to have some wins that aren't too expensive or too risky. Now more than ever, perhaps, as we potentially enter a recession, potentially a global recession, I mean, costs are really something we're all keeping an eye on, but there are so many global opportunities out there. And that shouldn't dissuade people from starting out and testing the waters.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, John, for Listeners are who, who want to find out more about you and about bite level research. Ah, your books. Who might want to download. You can actually download, um, a little piece of the 2022 Web Globalization Report card for free, just as a little sample. I've already done that. Maybe some folks out there want to order the whole thing, which now comes with the best practices and emerging trends report, which, uh, I would love to get my hands on, frankly, because I think, uh, that would be really, really interesting reading. So where could they go to find out more online? Which website, blog, social media accounts, perhaps could they follow And I will include

Speaker A: all those links in the show notes for this episode.

Speaker C: Great. Well, yes, bytelevel.com that's B Y T E level.com and uh, I mentioned globalbydesign.com it's the blog. And um, yeah, if you go to bytelevel.com, you'll see links to me on LinkedIn. And that's where I'm probably most accessible these days, in Twitter.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And the books are all available on Amazon and your local bookstore.

Speaker B: Fantastic, John, it's been a pleasure to get to catch up with you and yeah, I look forward to, uh, our next conversation.

Speaker C: Same here. Thank you so much, Kathryn.

Speaker A: And that was my latest conversation with John Yuncker. For more information about John and his agency, Byte Level Research. And that's byte spelled with a y as well as all the resources that John mentioned, including his blog, Global by Design, his web globalization report card for 2022, and of course his books. You can check the show notes for this episode and you'll find those show notes on the verbaccino.com website under podcast. Uh, and while you're on my website, do make sure to join my mailing list so that I can keep you in the loop about future episodes. Episodes of the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode of the Worldly Marketer podcast, here's how you can support the show. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app. Um, leave a rating or a review if you can, and spread the word on, um, social media. Thanks so much. I hope you'll join me again for another episode of the Worldly Marketer Podcast. Until then, keep on learning and keep on growing.