Amazon is making it easier to enter international markets every day. As Amazon expands into new countries, it allows third-party sellers to create international Amazon listings.
And while entering an international market is a great opportunity to increase your profit, you have to make sure you are taking the correct steps to reap the most rewards.
Have Well-Written International Amazon Listings
It’s no secret that an international Amazon product listing will have to be written in the appropriate language. After all, you can’t expect a product to sell very well in Italy when the listing is written in English.
Though it might seem reasonable to hop onto Google Translate and use those results on your listing, you may be setting yourself up for failure.
Invest in Copy Written by a Native Speaker
Think of all that goes into writing well-crafted copy for your product listing. You need to:
- Know all the relevant keywords for your product
- Understand Amazon SEO
- Write copy that resonates with your audience and converts to sales
Now imagine attempting to write these listings in a language you don’t know.
Choosing a native-speaking copywriter will give you a more polished and professional listing with better ranking and conversions.
The Dangers of Poorly Translated Copy
If you’re going to go through the work of expanding your Amazon store internationally, don’t do the work halfway.
Amazon SEO, which helps ensure your products are easy to find, has some guidelines that need to be followed, and language may affect the SEO guidelines. And missing something small, like an accent mark, can completely change the indexation of keywords.
Additionally, keywords will be different in each country. “Moscow mule mug” may be the appropriate keyword for a U.S. listing, but citizens of other countries may have completely different names for that specific drink, or call “mugs” “cups.” That means the direct translation may not be the best keyword for a listing in Spain or France, for example.
For a better understanding of the differences, consider what Americans call a car trunk. In the U.K., that’s referred to as a boot. An American sweater is a British jumper. A cookie is a biscuit. A grilled cheese sandwich becomes a cheese toasty. Fries are chips.
And those are all English. Imagine the dialect differences in other languages.
Don’t Use Google Translate
Google Translate or similar translation software may be a tempting option, but it’s not likely to give you very accurate (or well-written) options.
Languages are complicated, and many aspects, such as dialect, can change what a phrase will literally translate to. The target keywords won’t necessarily be part of the translation, costing you valuable traffic. It’s best to trust a native speaker who can translate the meaning of a sentence, not just the words.
