4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
4 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Language to Target Market European Union People

by KingArthur
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello:

I may like to target market the European Union in the future. I suppose it is safe to say that the people living in those countries are accessing the search engines with search terms that are in English and not in their own language?

English the official language of the EU?

Thanks
#european #language #market #marketing #people #target #union
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    I can tell you that many Finns use English pretty well, and some use it a lot. Most surf the wider international internet, and there's even fields and areas that haven't really been translated.

    But why would we be searching in English before our native language? Even Google is taking this in account, and giving results targeted by language and geographical location.

    EU isn't unified or single market in the same way that US is. Many countries have strong national identities, and most have either their own languages or own dialects. Some people don't speak English at all. If you really want to target a market you just have to take that in account.

    EU has 24 official languages. Of course English is the most widely used one, but there's a lot of translation to be done in the official EU meetings.

    I guess it still depends on your site, project, and goals. English only might work.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8979764].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author KingArthur
      So if someone in any E.U. country was looking for a service or product and wanted to not just stick with their home country sources, they might try a search in the English language because they know a lot of websites that may sell what they are looking for are in English within the E.U. search results?

      Are a lot of websites with domain endings .eu in the English language?
      Signature
      FREE LEADS with voicemail marketing system and EFFECTIVE voicemail marketing training
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8981893].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    I think there's no such thing as "EU search results". The concept wouldn't make much sense for the reasons I laid out above. But if your site is relevant to the search for whatever reason it might appear unless the user is explicitly asking for results in a single language.

    If you want statistics on how Europeans behave on average, Eurostat may be able to help. I've also seen continent-wide study from marketing perspective that might've been published by IAB or affiliated companies.

    I'd guess a lot of .eu sites at least default to English, but that's the lingua franca of the internet. Google generally treats .eu as non-geotargeted extension.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8982219].message }}

Trending Topics