In which language should I publish my content in Germany?

9 replies
Hi there,

I am a Yoga teacher based in South Germany / Switzerland and am getting more serious about content marketing. I recently started a Youtube channel which is what I want to focus on going forward.

One question I have been wrestling with for some time is whether I should go with English or German with my videos and I was hoping to get some feedback on this forum! :-)

Some information that might be relevant:
My product: Live Yoga courses, mostly over 2 days in weekend format in South Germany and Switzerland.

My target group: People between 30-45 years, educated and good income living in South Germany and Switzerland. I am charging premium prices. Since I have been trained in a very traditional style of Yoga in India (where I spent 3 years) many of my past clients have immigrant background from India. These are Indians who moved to Switzerland and Germany, mostly working in the finance and technology sectors. But I want to reach more into the mainstream, i.e. reach more Germans and Swiss people too.

So all people in my main target group do speak English, but the question is whether creating the content in German would still be better since it would be the native language of the majority of my target audience?

A few pros and cons that I see at the moment:

Pros (English):
P1: Building a worldwide audience (possibly important if I would come up with an online information product at some point going forward)
P2: Most of my current followers are non Germans (since I spent many years abroad), switching to German would mean I would have to almost completely start at 0 and lose all of current followers (though many of them anyway live abroad and hence are not able to attend my courses)
P3: Both Switzerland and Germany become more and more "international". So English becomes more common. In many of the large companies a lot of the communication is now taking place in English.
P4: It will be easier and cheaper to outsource some work like video editing, transcription, etc. for English content than German content. This would allow me to scale up faster at the beginning.

Cons (English)
C1: Not the native language of large portion of target audience. Even though understanding is not an issue...
C2: ...possibly disadvantage for SEO? and
C3: ...possibly less impactful communication because it is not native language for them and therefor creates some kind of emotional distance?
C4: More crowded competition in English speaking world

Going forward I am planning to have my videos transcribed and converted into blog posts both in German and in English and also offer a bilingual website. So the question is really specifically about my Youtube videos.


I would appreciate any feedback on this!!

Warm regards
Fabian
#content #germany #language #publish
  • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
    Hi Fabian,

    Originally Posted by fabyoga View Post

    Hi there,

    I am a Yoga teacher based in South Germany / Switzerland and am getting more serious about content marketing. I recently started a Youtube channel which is what I want to focus on going forward.

    One question I have been wrestling with for some time is whether I should go with English or German with my videos and I was hoping to get some feedback on this forum! :-)
    auf Deutsch!!!


    Originally Posted by fabyoga View Post

    Some information that might be relevant:
    My product: Live Yoga courses, mostly over 2 days in weekend format in South Germany and Switzerland.

    My target group: People between 30-45 years, educated and good income living in South Germany and Switzerland. I am charging premium prices. Since I have been trained in a very traditional style of Yoga in India (where I spent 3 years) many of my past clients have immigrant background from India. These are Indians who moved to Switzerland and Germany, mostly working in the finance and technology sectors. But I want to reach more into the mainstream, i.e. reach more Germans and Swiss people too.
    German language fits your target market, so in a sense you are using the internet to do rather broad "local marketing".

    "Local marketing" is more targeted for your prospect clientele and will be much easier to rank for SEO purposes.

    Originally Posted by fabyoga View Post

    A few pros and cons that I see at the moment:

    Pros (English):
    P1: Building a worldwide audience (possibly important if I would come up with an online information product at some point going forward). There is no reason that you couldn't develop English language language pages at some point in the future. There is no reason that you couldn't have an English language sales page for such a product. German and English can easily co-exist on the same web site.
    P2: Most of my current followers are non Germans (since I spent many years abroad), switching to German would mean I would have to almost completely start at 0 and lose all of current followers (though many of them anyway live abroad and hence are not able to attend my courses) Again, you could easily retain any existing English language pages and transition to primarily German language as you build up your German language content over time.
    P3: Both Switzerland and Germany become more and more "international". So English becomes more common. In many of the large companies a lot of the communication is now taking place in English.
    P4: It will be easier and cheaper to outsource some work like video editing, transcription, etc. for English content than German content. This would allow me to scale up faster at the beginning.
    This, of course, is just my opinion.
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    Sid Hale
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    • Profile picture of the author neiliusmaximus
      Originally Posted by Sid Hale View Post

      German language fits your target market, so in a sense you are using the internet to do rather broad "local marketing".

      "Local marketing" is more targeted for your prospect clientele and will be much easier to rank for SEO purposes.
      This is a great point. Using Germany would help you significantly in reaching the local German speaking audience you're targeting for precisely this reason. This way you can really focus on your local SEO ranking.
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  • Profile picture of the author neshaword
    What's stopping you from launching a bilingual website? It doesn't have to be expensive. You can hire a translator to do some work for you. On Upwork and Freelancer you can find native speakers who offer their translation services for a respectable price. So, why making a painful choice when you can have it both ways? Of course, I am not an SEO guy so I don't have a clue how multilingual websites function from this point. MFG
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  • Profile picture of the author HellaLeadz
    I would leave all pros and cons aside, and I wouldn't deny any of those two audiences. I know many people in Switzerland & Germany speak English, but at the same time, we (non-native users) all know that in terms of languages - expressing ourselves, joking, socializing and so on - nothing feels as good as speaking in your native tongue. Therefore if I were in your place, I would embrace all of those who might be interested in your services, both in German and English. As neshaword already suggested, translation won't be very expensive, and you don't have to create everything in both languages from the get go. Build everything in your mother tongue in the first place (it's obviously easier) and keep translating to the other language in your own pace, starting with the most important things, like your front page or anything else that you think gets you clients in the first place, and then keep adding other elements. Over time you will be surprised how much you have accomplished while it all looked so overwhelming at first.

    All the best Fabian!
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  • Profile picture of the author fabyoga
    Dear all,

    thanks a lot for your input!

    To clarify: I agree that the website could be offered in both English and German and I am planning to do so. I consider this the "easy" part because it will not change that often, so it is just a one time investment of time and money.

    My main concern is regarding the Youtube videos.

    @Sid Hale: So do I understand you correct that you are arguing for German, essentially because of SEO purposes? I.e. most native Germans would search for German terms and hence find my videos much easier if they are in German. Does this in your opinion outweigh the potential benefit of English videos which would allow me to reach out to that growing audience of non-Germans living in Germany and Switzerland?

    @HellaLeadz: Thanks for your input too! If I consider what language I would feel more comfortable I would actually have to go with English. This is because I spent many years abroad, do most of my reading and video watching in English for over a decade by now and even teach all my workshops in English until now.

    I appreciate any further input!!

    Thanks,
    Fabian
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    • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
      Hi Fabian,

      Originally Posted by fabyoga View Post

      My main concern is regarding the Youtube videos.

      @Sid Hale: So do I understand you correct that you are arguing for German, essentially because of SEO purposes? I.e. most native Germans would search for German terms and hence find my videos much easier if they are in German. Does this in your opinion outweigh the potential benefit of English videos which would allow me to reach out to that growing audience of non-Germans living in Germany and Switzerland?
      SEO is certainly an important consideration, but as I said before...
      your classes are going to be marketed primarily to a more localized audience. It's been decades since I lived in Germany (and I'm sure that the demographics have changed quite a lot since then), but I think the items you listed as the English language "Cons" are also VERY important for the short term.

      Originally Posted by fabyoga View Post

      Cons (English)
      C1: Not the native language of large portion of target audience. Even though understanding is not an issue...
      C2: ...possibly disadvantage for SEO? and
      C3: ...possibly less impactful communication because it is not native language for them and therefor creates some kind of emotional distance?
      C4: More crowded competition in English speaking world
      You need to recognize that you are selling into a localized market, and you should concentrate your efforts toward addressing that market first - with content that is best suited to that market.

      My impression was that you already have a web site.
      While you may need to reorganize somewhat as you add additional multi-language content, I do not think you should just scrap the existing content to radically change focus onto an international market. Plan out any anticipated reorganization first, but then begin adding content that most benefits your current market focus.

      As you progress with that effort, you may decide that certain videos need to be translated (to help broaden your international appeal) and offered in both languages, but the primary focus initially (6 mos. - 1 yr.) should be directed toward your actual market for better monetization.

      Hope this helps...
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      Sid Hale
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris-
    The only real answer is to do both and see which works best (or if it's worth continuing to use both).

    Any other answer is an assumption. May I suggest that facts are more use to you than assumptions

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Tony Marriott
    Sounds like this is something that needs testing.

    You say are mainly talking about your youtube videos. I am assuming you are refering to organic views/conversion of those videos.
    From what you said I am also assuming they are currently in English. But in any case the following is something you could do pretty easily.

    Take a few of your currently best performing videos and add a German voice over. Change the title/description/ etc (seo stuff) into German.
    If your other videso have backlink etc then also link to the new videos.
    If you are sending paid traffic then do that.
    Basically do to the new videos whatever you do to your current ones.

    See how they perform.
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  • Profile picture of the author fabyoga
    Thanks a lot for all the input! I think it comes really down to testing! I think what I will do for the next couple of months is to publish alternately English and German videos and gather some data!
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