If you are familiar with doing business in Germany you know that English is widely used as a second language. And you easily come across Germans who speak English well.
If you speak English and want to get more international clients, you should seriously consider targeting Germany.
Business In Germany
Germany is the world's third largest economy and is the largest national economy in Europe. Germany is the world's largest exporter of goods, and is home to the third-highest number of international migrants.
Germany's population is over 82 million. It has the largest population in the European Union.
E-Business Is Also Dynamic In Germany
Germany also has the largest amount of internet users in all of Europe and one of the highest rates of internet penetration.
Need Visibility In German?
The German market is an interesting candidate for international business.
If the level of English is good and fairly wide-spread in Germany, should you rely on the Germans speaking your language? Do you want to show your willingness to communicate with them on their territory?
English or German?
Relying on Google or local German search engines?
Those are not the real questions. If you want to sell to Germany, you will increase your company's visibility in Germany by having your company's website registered with the local German search engines.
There is a large portion of the German online community using the German search engines.
And depending on your area of activity it might even be vital for any sales at all. You might not have a choice.
But getting your website registered with the German search engines is fairly easy... with a little help from the free online translation tools. So don't miss out on such an opportunity.
If you would like to see more details on these two submission processes, you can find them on the the Cindy King website under Foreign Lingo.
First Step For German Search Engine Submissions - German Content Page
The first step is to get one page on your site in German.
You need at least one page in German to submit your website in the German search engines.
An easy way to do this is to create a new page or blog post that is a translation of your product descriptions or of the services that you offer.
How can you do this quick and easy?
Use the Google English to German translation page You can find this page by replacing the 'www' with 'translate' in the Google web URL address on the top of your screen. Once you are on the Google translate page:
- Copy your text in English
- Paste your text in the main window
- Select translate
- Hit Enter
The text is instantly translated and you will have document in German to work with.
Abacho Search Engine
Abacho is the first German search engine that will be covered. Abacho was founded in Neuss, Germany in 1996 as a full-service advertising agency that merged with Spider, Aladin and Eule in March 2000 to form the new Internet search engine tool. The company rapidly became an expert in the field of Internet search engine operations.
Abacho's search engine tool is one of the top ones in the German-speaking market. It is also present in Austria, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey with country-specific Abacho versions.
Submit Your Website To Abacho
Once your German page has been created and is live on your website you are ready to go.
Submitting your website to Abacho.de is an easy one step process.
From the Abacho site to locate /abacho_dienst/anmelden.html
All you have to do is enter your full URL in the open field.
Hit the URL "anmelden" (Register URL) button and your site is queued to be spidered and registered.
The page does say that it can take up to four weeks for the spider to visit your site and Abacho excludes discriminatory, racist, sexist and adult sites.
As stated above, Abacho also has nine other sites that you can use, each of these sites is identified on Abachos page by a country flag. On each country site there is a link just like the URL "anmelden" link, and it is in the same place on the screen. This link allows you to add your translated URL to that country search engine.
Allesklar
The second German site covered here has two professional service offerings and one free service.
Of course you can choose to sign up for the paid services. If you need assistance properly using either of these services, you can request help from the Cindy King website Foreign Lingo section.
The free Allesklar.de service is located on a sub menu /listingshop2005/index.php
Look for the the "gratis" (free) column on this page
Click on the "auswählen" (select) link in this "gratis" (free) column
Entering Your Website Details On The Free Allesklar Service Option
Entering your site here is a bit more complex than the previous site.
In addition to your URL, you must include contact information.
The first requirement is to enter a country and city.
Choose your country in the list. They are listed in German. Find out what your country is called in German, if your country is not in the list:
Note - "Sonstige" at the end of the list = Other
Then enter your city under "stadt" (city).
After entering these details hit the "weiter" (Continue) button.
More Required Details
The next page requires a dozen bits of information.
Use the city that you referenced in the last step and take special care on the address line.
There is a box on the far right side of the Straße und Nr.* (street and number) field which is your house number. This field must be filled in.
This list is a translation of the long screen below.
All information with a * is a required field:
Anrede means "Title" in English
- Vorname* means "First name" in English
- Nachname* means "Family name" in English
- Telefon* means "Telephone" in English
- Fax means "Fax" in English
- E-Mail* means "E-Mail" in English
- (Wird Ihr Benutzername.) means "(If your user name.)" in English
- Passwort* means "Password" in English
- Passwort-Wiederholung* means "repeat Password" in English
- Anschrift means "Address" in English
- Firma means "Company" in English
- Kontaktperson means "Contact person" in English
- Straße und Nr.* means "Street and Number" in English (please note the highlighted number box)
- Ort* means "City" in English
Make sure you fill out all required lines.
REMEMBER you must include the street number.
Once complete, click on the "Registrieren" (register) button and you will be 3 mouse clicks away from being done.
Terms and Conditions of Service
After completing the fields referenced above and clicking the "Registrieren" (register) button you will come to your final page to complete.
You are required to click the 2 boxes below to accept the terms and conditions of the service.
Your last click will be to hit the "bestellung senden" (Send order) button after having checked the two boxes and you will be sent to the completion page.
After that last click you will get a screen showing that "die registrierung war erfolgreigh" (The registration was successful).
Your website submission to Allesklar was successful.
What Next? Now That Your Website Is Visible In Germany
If you have followed these instructions, your website is now open to the German economy.
In general there is a large portion of the German population that speaks good English.
What can this mean for you? Well, depending on your particular German market, you might be able to start a communication campaign in English, or at least partly in English.
Localization of your website should be easier. You can go through different stages of translating your website and still communicate with your German market. During this transition phase your German market will probably be able to understand you.
There are too many factors directly linked with what you have to offer and the corresponding German market for your products. But the communication barriers to selling your product will be easier to deal with here than in some other foreign countries.
Are you committed to speeding up your international sales cycles?
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