Address Audience in Your Native Language

December 9th, 2008

Have to say that I made the biggest mistake when I started this blog in English (BTW my native language is Slovene) as I really struggled to find my audience in vast Internet space. I assumed that there will be more readers if I choose the most wide-spread language on the net and got left empty-handed. Actually there were so little visitors at the beginning that I began thinking about quitting the whole thing. The biggest irony was that most of my visitors were from Slovenia and not foreign countries I targeted, that was quite funny really:) Maybe you are in this situation right now?

After that I should quit my blog immediately and start a new one in Slovene,…but as stubborn as I am I stuck with English as Slovenia is really small country (merely 2 millions of people) and nowhere else they speak the same language. Even now I’m struggling to find my space online but am hopping to break the ground sometimes in near future. Thus instead of learning from your mistakes pick my example and start writing for your native colleagues and don’t just assume you’ll get more exposure just because English is most widespread online language. If you’ll play this game than pick Chinese instead, you won’t be disappointed, there are 1.3 billion of them.

Pros of writing in your native language

  1. No language barriers
  2. You can start with your own community members
  3. You are writing about topics closer to you (than maybe to some foreigner)
  4. Your visitors are more loyal
  5. Writing a blog becomes a fun thing to do
  6. Ad money is ‘relatively’ bigger as ads are more targeted
  7. Bonds with readers are more powerful

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5 Responses to “Address Audience in Your Native Language”

  1. fromtheold

    15 years ago

    Brilliant. My native language is Afrikaans. I might just do this.

    Reply to this comment
  2. Željan Topić

    15 years ago

    I say go for it, it should work,…report results if you have time 😉

    Reply to this comment
  3. Joseph Hollak

    15 years ago

    Zeljan,

    Count me in for one of your English-speaking readers. I have added your blog feed to my RSS reader and you should see an additional subscriber the next time you track your subscription numbers.

    I must say bravo on the Igloo theme. You’ve done a great job on that theme and I think we have it up and running now on http://40hourminkey.com.

    So thanks for the theme, the in-depth help on the theme install and the English blog.

    If only there was a WordPress plugin that would translate the blog for both languages. Aw, a future project for you perhaps.

    Hope all is well,

    Joseph Hollak
    6,100 miles away in Fresno, California, U.S.

    Reply to this comment
  4. Promo1one

    15 years ago

    Hello, my native lang. is a Bellarusian (also i can speak in russian too.)

    so.

    1. most of your visitor from Slovenia but blog in english how it posible? when ppl search trough the GOOGLE.. and use slovenian lang. they cant find this blog. right? so.. may be its like VIRUS marketing.. one frend told to another and etc.

    2. btw u can make MultiLang Theme ..for slovenian and for English spoken.

    3. in my personal opinion .. at the moment.. your WordPress theme’s BEST! CHOOSE trough the free theme’s on web(net)

    Reply to this comment
  5. Timtom

    12 years ago

    I liked the image you put in the bottom of the blog. (a woman and loads of words)
    Can you please let me know who designed this image and how I can access to the original image so that I can know the copy right for the image?

    Thank you.

    Reply to this comment

Leave a Reply to Timtom