Multilingual Mastery: Amplifying Your Business Reach Through Localization

Have you wondered how to expand your business’ reach across different languages and cultures? Do you know what role multilingual and localized content can play in your business?

Naoko Takano, Localization and Community Program Manager for WordPress, joined me on the SEJShow to explore the significance of localization and internationalization in WordPress’ mission.

Naoko has been involved with WordPress localization since its infancy and has seen firsthand how multilingual localization has built larger communities around businesses.

Learn the power of multilingual content and what it means for effectively broadening your reach online. Discover tips and opportunities for your business to collaborate across different cultures and how to leverage this power to improve your ROI.

WordPress, being an open-source solution from WordPress.org, your mission is to empower the publisher. –Loren Baker, 06:45

One of the advantages WordPress has is that we have so many different types of languages, and it’s possible to add more languages as long as there are translators. –Naoko Takano, 13:49

The mission of WordPress is democratizing publishing. Our mission is to reach all the people using the internet and want to publish, not only in English-speaking countries. So yes, we want to expand beyond. –Naoko Takano, 23:28

[00:23] – About Naoko.
[02:18] – WordPress localization and global growth.
[06:45] – Open source as WordPress.org’s growth driver.
[08:49] – The role of translation in WordPress business expansion.
[10:58] – Volunteer-driven operations at WordPress.org.
[12:55] – WordPress plugins vs. enterprise CMS for expanding businesses.
[13:49] – WordPress’ multilingual capabilities.
[14:55] – Anticipation of multilingual support in WordPress core software.
[16:07] – Balancing WordPress’ multilingual offerings with business interests.
[16:54] – Gutenberg’s fourth phase: Multilingual support?
[17:07] – Adapting translation plugins for WordPress’ block editor.
[19:54] – WordPress’ growth in the Spanish market.
[21:52] – The most active countries in WordCamps events.
[23:12] – The impact of translation on WordPress.org’s international usage.
[24:42] – Democratization through cultural collaboration in WordPress.
[26:12] – Localization in WordPress: More than translation.
[30:15] – The future of multilingual WordPress.
[32:48] – The international WordPress community’s size.
[34:07] – Site translation and localization for various audiences.
[36:24] – Connecting with the WordPress community online.

Resources Mentioned: https://wordpress.org/

I would like to see a more technology-assisted way for us to read and reach the audience in different parts of the world. That helps us find more engaging content and allows the content provider to reach further than the limitation of their language area. –Naoko Takano, 30:55

We benefit as a community by using the version we are familiar with and providing that to the client. The backend is also translated, which helps people make the plugins usable without the language barrier. –Naoko Takano, 08:49

We, the translation community, always say over 20,000 active people have been translating something within a year or so.–Naoko Takano, 32:52

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Connect With Naoko Takano:
Naoko Takano is the Localization & Community Program Manager at Automattic with over ten years of experience in the US. She specializes in software localization and English-Japanese translation and applies her expertise to WordPress support, technical writing, and community organization.

A full-time contributor to the WordPress Polyglots and Community Teams for almost two decades, Naoko works as a Polyglots Global Mentor and General Translation Editor (GTE) for Japanese, aiding translation contributors and enhancing WordPress accessibility across different languages.

Connect with Naoko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naoko/
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/naokomc

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:
Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker
Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker