If you’re looking to enter the field of online marketing, you probably know that English is most favored among the leading search engines. But while your knowledge of the English language may prove beneficial, other global languages offer a great deal more when it comes to search marketing.

For example, Italian is currently ranked 13th worldwide by SEO importance, just behind Spanish, as per the Google search interest data. If your product or service is targeted at the Italian market, you can bet your bottom dollar that thousands of people will be searching for it on a regular basis.

The Importance of Being Acutely (And Acrobatically) Aware Of Language Barriers

In 2019, Italian products and services accounted for EUR 190 billion of total retail sales, or 17% of the European market. So if you’re thinking about marketing your products or services in the Italian market, you need to have a good grasp of how language barriers might pose a challenge to your strategic plan.

Why should you consider localizing your website for Italian-speaking markets?

First off, let’s not kid ourselves: The Italian-speaking world is a big place, with a lot of audiences to gain traction with. According to the United Nations, there are over 420 million native Italian speakers, living in countries like Italy, Brazil, and Argentina. In 2021 alone, over 66 million Portuguese speakers will be living in countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Portugal.

So, if your product is suitable for sale in any of these countries, you’re already halfway to reaching a global audience. Add to that, the fact that over 400 million people globally speak Spanish and you’ve got yourself one heck of a potential audience.

Where should you focus your online marketing efforts?

This question is all the more pressing given the above statistics. Although we’ve established that English isn’t the only language used online, it still predominates. And while the popularity of other languages and their respective online communities is increasing, it’s likely not fast enough to counter the trend of digital nomads and social media users gravitating to platforms and communities in their native tongue.

So if you’re looking to penetrate the online market in an Italian speaking country, where should you invest your time and resources? We recommend leveraging the power of Google in your country’s language, choosing a domain name that’s localized for your target audience and investing in local SEO to propel your product or service to the top of the search results.

Ready to enter the Italian speaking market?

Above all else, the first step to online marketing success is knowing what you should be doing and how you should be doing it. Without a clear idea of how to navigate the process, it’s almost impossible to optimize your results and establish yourself as an expert in the field. In the same way that a French speaker wouldn’t have the same experience successfully marketing products or services in English as a German speaker would, you need to be able to tailor your approach to the language barriers you encounter.

The fact that Italian is one of the six most-spoken languages in the world means there’s a very high chance you’ll be able to secure sales in countries like Italy, Brazil, and Argentina. And if you can get your product or service to market in one of these countries, you’ll be able to attract an audience in the others as well.