1. Are you getting emails with strange extensions?
Start getting familiar with the extensions: ca=Canada, au=Australia, sp=spain, mx=mexico, nz=New Zealand, ar=Argentina, as=American Samoa. I send all my subscribers a personal welcoming note, and it’s good to know what country they’re from. Here’s a list of foreign extensions all over the world: http://www.norid.no/domenenavnbaser/domreg.html .
2. What about the exchange rate?
I put a currency converter on my website. There’s a free one at XE.com, the XE.com Personal Currency Assistant™. You can still expect they’ll want to negotiate. Negotiate!
3. Se hable espanol? Do you have “namaste” on your site?
If not, you’re missing a lot of traffic. Reports say the formerly “US” Internet will soon grant a strong second to either India, or Spain. I offer distance learning courses. 1/3rd of the students are not from the US. 2/3rds of the students registered for my coaching school for emotional intelligence are not from the US. Here you can submit to 40 Indian search engines free: http://www.submitshop.com/freesubmit/40indianengines.html.
4. Who’s talking?
Residents of Spain are the biggest users of Instant Message. Sounds to me like they want connection, and fast. If you have consumers in Spain, talk to them!
5. Can I get foreign domain names?
It depends. For Australia’s .com.au, you must have a residence or business residence in Australia. You have the option of buying .au.com as a “foreigner.” Taking my lead from that, I’m naming my webpages: www.susandunn.cc/emotionalintelligence.com.au.htm and www.susandunn.cc/EQ.com.mx.htm . At least my non-US visitors will know I tried to welcome them!
6. What time zone are we in?
With clients and contacts worldwide, you’ll have to get the time zone thing figured out. There are world time clocks: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ . But this helpful Australian site will do the work for you: http://www.whitepages.com.au/wp/search/time.jhtml.
7. What are other advantages?
Well, in addition to swinging a wider net, I received an email from a gentleman in India who’s computer proficient and bi-lingual, who will do virtual assistant work for US$6 an hour, and bills in increments. Also from Spain. What are you paying your US virtual assistant? I was paying mine $30 an hour. And then there’s the time zone advantage. The work will be done before I order it … so to speak.
8. Do you have to have a webpage in the language of the country?
Generally speaking yes. Here’s a place that does a computer translation which will “suffice.” It’s absolutely amazing. It will translate your entire webpage (and mine are long): http://world.altavista.com/ . But use your common sense or have someone bilingual check it out. The French translation I got called me “Susan Dunn/IQ Auto” as in “Susan Dunn, Car [coach].” Important too, the Romance languages reverse things – emotional intelligence is intelligence of the emotions, so the acronym is reversed – EI becomes IE. And while you’re at it, get your metatags translated.
9. Do I need metatags in that language?
Get metatags in Spanish here:
http://www.yatoo-ibiza.com/metatags.html
Get metatags in German here:
http://www.rankhigher.de/meta-tags.htm
10. Need someone to host your foreign domain extensions?
Go here:
http://acehostnet.net/foreign_registries.htm
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
http://www.webstrategies.cc. Marketing consultation,
implementation, website review, SEO optimization, article
writing and submission, help with ebooks and other
strategies. Susan is the author or How to Write an eBook
and Market It on the Internet. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc
for information and free ezine. Specify Checklist.
