We all create and view user-generated contents every day while using our internet devices, but how can they be actually useful to online businesses? Let’s discover all the advantages of UGC localization.
What is a UGC?
A UGC is any sort of content, such as comments, feedback, images, videos, etc posted by users on online platforms like websites and social media to inform other users on the given product. UGCs are a huge part of the internet. Every day billions of users upload more of them on social media, blogs, forums, and e-commerce websites and this makes them very important for any kind of online business.
How are UGSs useful to online businesses?
86% of users think that authenticity is the most relevant factor when choosing a service and 60% of them think that user-generated contents are the most authentic form of information and the most influential when it comes to purchasing decisions.
People should know that search engines like Google award businesses that offer consistency and quality by putting them first in search results, so if your business offers a lot of UGCs relevant to your products, it has more possibilities to be seen by users.
A higher priority in researches results is vital to your website. Data shows that the first result on Google is clicked by 25% of users while the last ones draw only 2.5% of them.
Why is UGC localization important?
94.35% of e-commerce website users consider reviews as the major source of information when they purchase products online. Due to their primary relevance, feedback localization is very important for them to be understandable by everybody, consequently empowering the business itself.
Translating and localizing pre-existing content can be more useful than creating new ones because it stimulates the search engine making your website more visible and it’s also useful to catch new clients all over the world.
UGC localization becomes even more important in countries using non-European alphabets like the Arab or the Chinese ones. Many people may abandon the idea of purchasing from Gulf businesses as soon as they realize they can’t understand reviews in Arabic. By translating and localizing UGCs this problem won’t occur and new foreign users will be able to visit your website posting new content in an upward spiral fashion.
What is machine translation for UGC?
Many businesses can’t translate all UGCs themselves because new ones are posted every day, that’s why machine translation for user-generated content, or MT for UGC exists.
MT for user-generated content is a type of software designed to translate a large volume of words in a short time. They can be a valid solution for many businesses because they are more cost and time-efficient than language professionals, even if they may be less precise sometimes.
Even though MT is already being widely used by many huge companies like Microsoft and Facebook when it comes to dealing with large volumes of data, it may have problems when it deals with unusual types of content like slang.
Some companies handle this problem by implementing aggregators and glossaries to the MT and making it work along with a professional translator.
In conclusion, no matter what your online business deals with, user-generated content is the most important kind of advertising and guarantee you can give to your customers. Localizing them is essential to reach everyone and to always be in the spotlight!
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