Going global: nine elements to consider when evolving your website to a global presence

Businesses are always evolving and growing. They develop new services and products, they restructure, they execute a new brand or marketing strategy, they expand their reach and presence. A website must evolve to reflect these changes and at times may need a substantial refresh based on the extent of the changes.

Recently a couple of our clients have evolved their website to reflect a more global presence. In doing so, they are aiming to:

• Demonstrate an increased reach across international markets.
• Emphasise a more joined-up approach across jurisdictions.
• Beef up their web presence outside the UK.
• Reflect a more global and less UK-centric worldview.
• Showcase the ability to service global organisations.

There’s no right or wrong way to establish a more global presence for your website. The extent of any changes can vary from adding a few pages to an entire site restructure and rebrand. You may also be incorporating “local” or country-specific sites into one new global website.

In this post we’re going to explore some of the elements that teams need to consider when planning a project to make a website more “global”. Of course, there will likely be additional changes that come with any major website overhaul project, including new page components, designs, and so on.

1. The URL

When you change to a more focused global presence you may want to also change to a new URL that better aligns with a global brand. A couple of clients have carried out this move.  For example, moving to a new URL can mean going from a “.co.uk” to a “.com” address.

Moving to a different URL requires careful planning. Have you got the preferred URL and is it available? To what extent will the move confuse visitors? When is the best time in the year to make the switch? How will it impact hard-earned SEO? Should you also change your email address accordingly? How do you then communicate the change?

There is no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. The balance between the shorter-term disruption and cost of the new URL and long-term value will be a factor in making any decisions.

Changing the URL will also require working on all the redirects you need including from any sites incorporated into the new site. Redirects may also be necessary if you are changing your site structure and content.

2. Structure

When you move over to a global website you may need to change the structure of the site to reflect different locations or languages. For example, when a visitor enters a new global site, they may now need to choose a language or a location to view relevant areas. To introduce this kind of user experience, you may need to structure your content along those lines within your CMS.

Restructuring your content takes some planning and there may be limitations based on which platform you are using. The incorporation of any future locations or additional languages also needs to be taken into account.

3. Multi-language

Some global sites incorporate multiple languages. This can be complex and involve various practical considerations:

• How do you actually translate the content and who is responsible for reviewing it?
• Is there translation workflow between an original page and its translated version or versions and what happens if there is a change in the original page?
• How do you translate of navigation items and other global items?
• How do translated pages render in search and how do you avoid duplication of original and translated versions appearing in the search?
• To what extent do you translate pages such as the privacy statement?
• How far does your CMS support muti-language content and the above considerations?

Multi-language content and translations is a wide topic in itself and is a separate article in itself.

4. Personalisation

Recent research from Sitecore shows that while personalisation is an aspiration for many, actual real-world progress is much slower. Many websites don’t have any personalisation on them at all, which is the case with some of our clients.  

If your site is going to becoming more global it’s an obvious time to consider introducing some limited personalisation in terms of location-based content appearing for the audiences based in certain countries. For example, you might want a visitor from Singapore to view details relating to that country on the homepage compared to someone visiting from the UK.

5. People profiles

We work with many professional services firms and law firms where partner and associate profiles are critical because they showcase specialisms, sector expertise, areas of experience and more. How to present these skills and experience areas is often a cause of much debate and discussion around the list of terms used, which attributes are described on which profiles, and so on.

Going to a global structure may involve integrating more profiles and reopen debates around:

• How to describe skills, specialisms and expertise where terminology previously used may be different across different countries
• How to present a wider set of specialisms in a location for a profile where there is a smaller office and therefore more areas are displayed to local clients, but where the depth of expertise may be less than in larger locations where there are more experts.

6. Localisation of content

As well as translated content, you may also need to “localise” particular content in order to:

• better engage and resonate with a local audience.
• reflect specific, country-level regulations.
• highlight market-specific products and services.
• take in any cultural considerations.

What works for a UK audience may not work  for an audience in Singapore.

7. Content workflow

Previously digital marketing teams based in other countries or markets may have been responsible for their own site or content. Bringing these sites into a global website presence using one single CMS may require new content workflows.

For example, will the central digital marketing team based in the HQ need to approve content submitted by local teams? And if they do, what will the local team think who previously had complete autonomy?

8. Images

By going global you may need to reconsider use of images if they are too UK-centric or if some locations are under-represented. That could cover images of locations and people. Global companies have highly diverse workforces and customers, so you want to ensure you are reflecting this.

9. Timing

The timing of any website project is always a point to consider. “Going global” may be a good time to being in other changes such as design improvements that you have been planning.

Going global

A new global website presence can help reflect your international brand and joined-up services across markets. Like any website project there are considerations in scoping the project and what you want to achieve.

If you’d like to discuss going global with your website, then get in touch!