Competing on the local stage has its benefits for businesses. But the most striving business owners inevitably pursue global ambitions. Tech upgrades for business can assist you to perform well on the worldwide level in 2024.
It’s the logical route once you’ve threaded the needle of launching and stabilizing a startup. Expansion on that level gives you boundless opportunities to earn more money, and grow a memorable brand. Also, it enables you to form interesting new partnerships and test your skills against the savviest entrepreneurs in your industry.
While embracing a global mindset, you have to muster the courage to face the accompanying workload. Still, it will only get you through the preliminary stages. Making your business internationally viable is a long process that requires considerable effort.
You need to consider new markets, research new competitors, and get your finances in order. First and foremost, you need to invest in some technical improvements. Keep in mind that building your website provides the first port of call for your brand across the world.
When prospective clients or customers come to it, they must have a great experience. Regardless of who they are or which country they happen to call home. After all, when users are happy, they are bound to come time and again.
5 tech additions for businesses that take them global
Every company hunts for tech upgrades for business to efficiently make them truly global. This post looks at five of such technology additions that are in great demand worldwide and the USA. Implement them all correctly and you’ll vastly improve your chance of thriving on an international scale during 2024.
- Website localization
- High-performance CDN
- 24/7 chatbot support
- Broad knowledge base
- Multilingual SEO
Let’s explore these tech upgrades for business in detail.
Website localization
Getting your website into a state to properly serve people from different cultures is known as website localization. L10n is a numeronym that abbreviates localization (in American English) and localisation (in British English). Realize that website localization is crucial if you want to expand your audience.
There’s much you must achieve while localizing the websites. Like, everything from nailing your cultural references to avoiding translation issues. There are two common alternatives, of course.
You can stick with locally-relevant content and hope that people elsewhere will get to grips with it (they likely won’t). Or you can make your content as generic as possible by removing all elements of pop culture. This will sap it of personality and still fail to impress native speakers of other languages.
Why is this among the tech upgrades for business then? Because you can automate — much of the L10n process. Thanks to the localization services.
Nowadays, machine learning can produce surprisingly-good translations. Subsequently, human translators can polish these content pieces. This allows you to get numerous versions of your website in place without contributing much effort.
High-performance CDN
Remember that sophisticated animations and glossy effects can certainly make a company look impressive. But only if you handle them well. Any website that looks good but performs poorly is bound to fail.
This doesn’t mean that a minimalist website is necessarily going to function swiftly. As there are factors that go beyond the complexity of your on-site content. When you serve overseas users, the apparent simplicity of the process hides the complexity behind the scenes.
Each request is routed through various nodes before it reaches your host, and the response must follow in kind. There’s much that can go wrong with that process. Even a page of modest size can load slowly if network issues arise.
To combat this, it’s important to set up a high-performing CDN (content delivery network). One that can quickly deliver your digital assets around the world. CDNs copy and store the components of your website in numerous nodes.
Then, they provide these components to local visitors upon request. CDN services like Cloudflare are easy to configure. Often, you can enable them natively through big CMS software and eCommerce platforms just like Shopify. They can do much to improve your site speed.
24/7 chatbot support
People expect more from businesses now than ever before. They want businesses and startups to get more vocal regarding different matters than earlier. For example, about social issues, proactively addressing their shortcomings, and keenly getting aware of how things come across their customers.
Most importantly, they want them to remain available at all times. Adhering to classic office hours is turning obsolete. This issue only gets complex when you take into consideration people overseas (and their varying time zones).
Trying to address support queries around the clock poses a substantial practical challenge. Consequently, hiring additional support workers is only viable to an extent. This is where chatbots enter the picture.
Today, a modern chatbot is far beyond the limited plaything of yesteryear. It’s capable of running through smart routines, answering common queries, and providing key functions. Adding relevant chatbot routines to your website will ensure that a customer can always get some assistance.
Stand mindful, though, that you’ll need to offer a clear route to escalation. Chatbots can’t resolve all issues, and not all customers are willing to use chatbots for long. Therefore, pass major issues from chatbots to human support staff and you’ll strike the right balance.
Broad knowledge base
The need for 24/7 support doesn’t just encompass those who want to pose questions. It also includes people who rather like to find the answers for themselves. Thus, supporting autonomy in customer service is an increasingly-valuable move.
Make it easier for customers to get the information they need without directly dealing with you. This delivers advantages to all parties across the board. Accordingly, you don’t require to field additional support workers, and your customers don’t need to engage with you.
Some brands focus on creating blogs, while others prioritize resourceful guides. What you should do (either instead of those things or in addition to them) is create a knowledge base. So, get a flexible knowledgebase system, where you can quickly pool your internal resources.
You can tag everything from whatever contributions your employees make, so answers are easy to find. Ensure that everything’s translated and tweaked as part of your localization process. Hence, you’ll have a shining asset that can serve people around the world without adding to your workload.
Here’s a selection of relevant services to help you choose. You should pick a knowledgebase solution that’s easy to use. Incorporating one can offer an outstanding user experience to your prospective customers.
Multilingual SEO
The localization process isn’t enough in itself. Also, you need to handle the promotion of your revamped site, which chiefly means investing in SEO (search engine optimization). Organic search is likely to remain your biggest traffic-generator as things stand.
This is going to play a key part in your business growth worldwide and in the United States. This is true for both local and international SEO — but you don’t just need to rank for relevant keywords. You must have the right pages to rank at the right times.
Multilingual SEO ensures that the translated versions of your pages don’t compete for traffic or appear at the wrong times. A core part of this involves using the hreflang tag attribute to position these pages correctly. Likewise, you need to think about design as well.
A common problem with translations is that they don’t fit existing page layouts. For instance, a text box set to accommodate a small paragraph may suddenly have to contain several lengthy passages. Recall that SEO also considers on-page factors.
In other words, the experience of a page will impact how it ranks. So, just having good content won’t do everything for you. Think about matters like website structure and accessibility too.
Which colors are you using? Make sure they are culturally appropriate and viable for people with issues like color-blindness. Simple mistakes with website experience can cost you manifold. Aim to make your website as accommodating as possible for every audience you target.
Conclusion
These are some tech upgrades for business that can launch it into the global landscape. Together with highlighting them, we’ve explained the value of these tech additions for business progress. Moreover, we’ve provided resources to help you get started with adding them to your company.
Do you want to hit the global stage by transforming your business? Techliance can join hands to ease your digital transformation journey. Together, we commence the initiative of integrating futuristic technology upgrades into your business.
