Labels and localization for an e-commerce website

The problem: The labels and descriptions for this e-commerce aggregator’s UK site had been machine translated from German and weren’t usable for the UK audience or optimized for search engines, which are the main source of traffic for the site.

The solution: Localization of all the labels, filters, and descriptions, balancing the UX and SEO priorities.

How I got there: For each specific category (here, curtains), I started with competitor analysis to get an idea of what terms were commonly used in the UK market. After narrowing down potential terms, I used search volume and informal employee polling to determine which terms and phrases made the most sense to use. 

The challenges: Some of the translations were technically correct but didn’t match the terms UK customers were using, according to our search logs. For example, changing Eyelet curtains had been translated as Grommet curtains, which is technically correct, but competitor and search volume analysis showed that eyelet was the term our customers were actually using. Changing filter label like Length to Drop, Maintenance Instructions to Care Instructions, and Method of Attachment to Heading Type also helped align the microcopy on our page to our customers’ language.

The biggest win: Through localizing and optimizing the labels, this went from being a category that had lagged behind in customer engagement to being in our top ten for number of visitors and click through rates (the key metric for this e-commerce aggregator).