Craig Witt
Online merchants have long provided Spanish-language websites for their Hispanic customers. They know that most U.S. Hispanic people speak Spanish fluently and use it regularly—at work, at home, and online.
It could cost B2B companies lost revenue if they are slow to catch on: Sales at Hispanic-owned businesses have grown by 32% since 2012, more than double the growth rate of all businesses in the United States, according to a report by Geoscape, a provider of demographic data and analytics services.
Many B2B buyers base their purchasing decisions on online content. If your website isn’t in their preferred language, they won’t buy from you. Hispanic business owners prefer to interact with companies that understand them, value their business, and market to them in Spanish.
Why B2B websites must be translated into Spanish
B2B sellers will see both short- and long-term benefits when you translate your website for Spanish-speaking customers, including:
- Increased engagement: Translating your website shows Hispanic customers that you’re committed to them. They will want to engage with you more because you’re speaking their language—literally.
- Cost-savings in sponsored content and advertising: Pay-per-click ad rates are cheaper in Spanish because there are fewer competitors marketing to Hispanic B2B companies.
- Brand recognition: Translating all of your digital content, including social media posts and e-newsletters, will resonate with Spanish-speaking business owners who are inundated with English-only outreach. This will help you stand out from the crowd and ensure that your prospective clients remember you.
- Increased organic traffic: A fully translated SEO-optimized website ranks high in Spanish-language search results. This will improve your rank and relevance in online searches and boost your company’s reputation.
- Internal support: A translated website won’t just affect your buyers and their customers, it will also support your Spanish-speaking sales staff. In-language content will allow employees to offer great service to Hispanic customers.
Speaking the local language supports global expansion
When you expand into new global markets, you need to speak the local language. You also need potential customers in those new markets to easily find you on the web if they don’t know who you are. You need to create searchable, indexable versions of translated web pages. You also need to translate the SEO-rich structured data behind your site. That’s the stuff that helps websites rank higher in search engines and appear in relevant search results over the long haul.
To make sure search engines find and index your content appropriately, don’t forget to translate keywords, metadata and more to match the searches that Spanish speakers use most often. This process will also support your company’s expansion in Latin America, where many companies are eager to do business with U.S.-based companies.
The growth of Spanish-speaking businesses across the United States offers B2B marketers a huge opportunity—if they can present their products and services in Spanish. Hispanic business owners and decision makers are looking for companies that demonstrate an understanding of their needs. Those who understand this will surely reap the benefits of this growing market.
Craig Witt is executive vice president of global sales, marketing and go-to-market at MotionPoint, a company that delivers technology and services for website translation, localization and optimization. Follow him on Twitter @CraigWitt_.
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