Learn how you lose about 95% of your visitors and how to get them back. Demographics play an exceedingly pivotal role in determining the fate of your website. Language does pose a barrier if you want your blog to go truly global.
Codemakit ran an article on “Why do some countries hate your website?” answering the question how a simple change in spelling can cause your blog to stop receives visitors/readers from certain countries. On similar lines, the language in which your blog was written in bounds the overall reach of your blog.
Languages Based on Mother Tongue
According to Wikipedia, the percentage of world population speaking English is about 5.43%. Considering many WebPages and websites are now made in English, you would wonder, that you're losing about 94.57 % of your potential readers just by writing in English!
Table 1 : Languages (Mother Tongue) spoken by people around the world
| Rank | Language | Native speakers (millions) | % of world population |
|---|---|---|---|
1,
|
Mandarin
|
955*
|
14.40%
|
2,
|
Spanish
|
405*
|
6.15%
|
3,
|
English
|
360*
|
5.43%
|
4,
|
Hindi
|
310*
|
4.70%
|
5,
|
Arabic
|
,295*
|
4.43%
|
Source : Wikipedia Retrieved on 10th June 2014
Here comes the need for a language specific approach towards webpage creation. But there is a catch; the above data is basically for mother tongues. So 5.43% of the world's population has their mother tongue as English. (Now the figures do not disappoint).
Languages Acquired By Readers
But what if your mother tongue is not English and for answers you have to look towards English content on the web. So you use the language skills hammered in by your teachers at school and look for content published in English. Using this scenario in mind, you get almost 27% of the world as your potential readers. (Now that is pretty and believable)
Table 2 : Languages (Acquired) spoken by people around the world
| Rank | Language | Internet users | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 565004000 | 27.00% |
| 2 | Chinese | 509965000 | 25.00% |
| 3 | Spanish | 164969000 | 8.00% |
| 4 | Japanese | 99182000 | 5.00% |
| 5 | Portuguese | 82587000 | 4.00% |
Source : Wikipedia Retrieved on 10th June 2014
Languages of Existing Webpages
In the previous Para we discussed a problem. A Problem often faced by readers all over the world. You do not find WebPages with content in your language. Would you like to hear what the language most websites are made of is? The answer not surprising is English or Anglais (I'm learning French). But what alarms is not the language, but the sheer number of WebPages using the language. What would be your estimate? Huh? 20% or 25% or 35%? Prepare to be floored; it is a whopping 56%, followed by 6% of Russian and 6% of German.
Table 3 : Webpages Existing on the web (Based on Languages)
| Rank | Language | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 55.70% |
| 2 | Russian | 6.00% |
| 3 | German | 6.00% |
| 4 | Japanese | 5.00% |
| 5 | Spanish | 4.60% |
Source : Wikipedia Retrieved on 10th June 2014
This was the problem I was talking about. You need answers; you have a presentation/ test/ viva tomorrow and all you find are WebPages in English. Hence you force yourself to plough deep into the webpage and try to understand the obscure language (The sentence might be futile for codemakit readers reading the blog in English). This might lead to visitors leaving webpage in search of a non Shakespearean website where the language is much simpler. This would increase your bounce rate, maybe this is the reason why your blog is not growing.
A Comparison
Here's a comparison of the languages discussed above.
Table 4 : Comparison of Languages, Based on demographics, Analytics and Website Content.
| Rank | Language (Mother tongue) |
Language (Internet Users) |
Language (Website Content) |
|---|---|---|---|
1
|
Mandrin
|
English
|
English
|
2
|
Spanish
|
Chinese
|
Russian
|
3
|
English
|
Spanish
|
German
|
4
|
Hindi
|
Japanese
|
Japanese
|
5
|
Arabic
|
Portuguese
|
Spanish
|
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident from the fact that we would always like to be presented with content in our language, and the apparent lack of content on the web based on reader demographics, we should strive towards WebPages/ Websites with localized content presented in local languages. Even General Elections of countries were affected because of such tactics. Online Giants are doing it (Example : the Case of Wikipedia) and so should you (Unless you’re a potato blogger)
This answered your Question
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