2. MULTILINGUAL STRATEGY CASE STUDY:
SUCCESSES AND FAILURES BETWEEN
INTERNATIONAL AND LOCAL MARKETS
Gemma Fontané

3. Six months after starting a website, what
could happen is either this…

5. Or this...

6. What was a success and what went wrong?

7. Let's start at the beginning...
What happened six months ago?

8. 1.THE IDEA
Sell Tió de Nadal & Caganers online - Catalan Christmas Tradition
April 2021

9. Local Product
Catalan
Seasonal
Unique & original
Why this choice?

10. Do people look for that product online?
Does it have a growing trend?
How high is the demand?
How is the competition?
In which locations do people buy it the most?
Who is the main public that needs the
product?
When do they look for it?
2.PRODUCT VALIDATION

11. Keyword research. How users search for main keywords,
what is their trend and the competition

12. Keyword research. How users search for main keywords,
what is their trend and the competition

13. Study the competition and find out the keywords that
they use and bring them more traffic. Analyze who talks
about them (links).

14. Study the competition and find out the keywords that they
use and bring them more traffic. Analyze who talks about
them (links).

15. Market research. Define your audience and the countries
where you want to start. Talk to people in the industry.

16. Market research. Define your audience and the countries
where you want to start. Talk to people in the industry.

17. Market research. Define you audience and the countries
where you want to start. Talk to people in the industry.
Ecommerce trend Spain

18. ROI. Is the project profitable and viable?
Study if there are enough searches and the probability of traffic
that you may get to reach the minimum number of conversions
to obtain ROI.
*Take into account different scenarios

19. So... Why not?

20. Supplier
Team
Packaging & shipment
Legal and administration
Online strategy
3. DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS

21. We decided to create an online strategy!
Although they are local products, there were searches from around the
world! Do we have to develop an international strategy?
May 2021

22. Are we going to target a country or a language
or more than one?
In which languages and what web structure
does the competition have?
Is it better to have a Generic Top-Level Domains
(gTLDS) or a Country Code Top-Level Domains
(ccTLDS)?
How to select the best international strategy?

23. Which web structure is the best option?
ccTLDS
gTLDS

24. www.tiodenadal.online
We decided to do two different strategies
What would you have done
www.denadal.cat
Country Code Top-Level Domains
(ccTLDS)
Prioritize
In Catalan / Catalonia
Local product = personalized
message
Tradition
Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDS)
Double effort
English
Audience distributed across
different countries with the same
language.
Decoration

25. Strategy: similar for both websites
www.denadal.cat www.tiodenadal.online
Web structure & domain
Keyword research
Content creation
Personalized message (Catalan)
Google My Business
Technical optimization
Social media (Instagram, Facebook
& Pinterest)
Web structure & domain
Keyword research
Content creation
Personalized message (English)
Technical optimization
Social media (Pinterest)
June - Sept. 2021

26. How did we structure the sites and why?
Keyword research & content
Similar keywords. Not a large volume. Prioritize. Unique content. Avoid duplicate pages.
Titles & Meta-descriptions optimized. Quality content. Images & videos (YouTube).

27. How did we structure the sites and why?
Keyword research & content
Transaccional keywords: products & categories.
Informational keywords: blog.

28. How did we structure the sites and why?
Web architecture & URLs
https://www.tiodenadal.online/for-sale/tio-de-nadal-for-sale/caga-tio-log-for-sale/
https://www.tiodenadal.online/for-sale/caganer-for-sale-catalan/
https://www.tiodenadal.online/buy/tio-de-nadal/

29. How did we structure the sites and why?
Web architecture & URLs
https://denadal.cat/comprar/tio-de-nadal/
https://denadal.cat/comprar/tio-de-nadal/caga-tio-de-nadal/
https://denadal.cat/compra/tio-de-nadal-extra-45cm/

30. How did we structured the sites and why?
Internal linking. Categories & filters
Categories & subcategories indexed. Different sizes and function
(decoration & tradition).
No filters. Not necessary. No colours, types, materials..

31. Results: www.denadal.cat
October 2021

32. Results: www.tiodenadal.online
October 2021

33. What happened?
Similar strategy for both websites, but
different results...
Because they have different objectives!

34. What did we learn from here and how did
we still manage to sell the products?

35. 1.Focus & Prioritize

36. 1.Focus & Prioritize
+60 countries English is an official language. Different habits.

37. 2. Language definition
Native writer

38. 2. Language definition
Well definition of the product
and personalization
Language focus: better
results.

39. There are more than 6.500 spoken languages in the world!
Most spoken languages in the world by
native speakers in 2019
Most used content languages for websites
Source: wikipedia

40. "40% of global consumers won’t buy in other languages"
"73% want reviews of products in their language"
"65% prefer content in their native language, even if it's poor quality"
"66% use online machine translation when buying online."
"76% prefer products with information in their own language"
Source: https://alexika.com/blog/2020/08/17/why-translation-matters-40-will-not-buy-in-other-languages and https://insights.csa-
research.com/reportaction/305013125/Marketing

41. 3.Web structure & keyword research
Be clear about the objective of each page before performing the
keyword research.
Do a good competitor analysis

42. 3.Web structure & keyword research
Well-defined architecture
Internal linking

43. 3.Web structure & keyword research
Filters & Categories: Are they
necessary? Are they interesting
to index? And to crawl?

44. 4. Technical optimization
Indexation and
speed

45. 5.Local customs & habits
Marketplaces
Use the common payment
methods
Trust and reliability

46. 6. Multichannel strategy
Social Media
Google Ads
Marketplaces

47. 6. Multichannel strategy

48. Thank you!
Gemma Fontané
www.gemmafontane.com
LinkedIn: Gemma Fontané
Twitter: @gemmafontane