Benefits of Creating Spanish Content in the U.S.
The United States has always been a melting pot of cultures, and in recent years, the size and influence of the Latino community has been on the rise. Surprisingly this hasn’t translated into changes in marketing strategies.
In fact, at Conversa we’ve noted that a vast majority of business don’t really do anything to attract Spanish-first customers. Which is kind of wild, considering that there are 60 million Latinos living in the U.S. and that “More than 80% of Hispanic Internet users indicated they would be more likely to do their shopping online if they could do so in Spanish.”
If you’re a business owner or marketer at a business that does a lot of it’s sales online, there’s no reason to miss out on this opportunity.
Why is Spanish Content Important in the United States?
Spanish speakers represent a growing portion of the U.S. population. According to the Pew Research Center, by 2050, Hispanics could account for 29% of the total population of the country. This means that if you want your business to be relevant and competitive in this shifting demographic landscape, you need to consider how you can attract and retain these potential customers.
Thankfully, the answer is pretty simple: create helpful Spanish content.
Spanish content is more than just a gesture of inclusion. It is a solid strategy that can result in an increase in customer acquisition, retention, repeat sales, and ultimately, the growth of your business.
How to Write Bilingual Content
If you’re asking yourself “how do I write accurate and culturally-relevant Spanish language content?”, then you’re asking the right question.
It’s important to consider that it's not just about translating words from one language to another. It's about capturing the essence and context of what you're trying to communicate.
A common mistake that businesses make when creating Spanish content is using a direct translation. This approach can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Instead, you should consider hiring bilingual copywriters who can create authentic and relevant Spanish content that truly speaks to your target audience.
Google Detects Content Translated from English to Spanish
It's important to note that Google detects content translated from English to Spanish and can determine the quality of each translation. This means that if you use software to simply translate your existing English content into Spanish without making relevant changes, Google may penalize it.
“Text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing is enough grounds for a search penalty”
To generate Spanish content that is search engine friendly, you need to create Spanish content that is as original as possible. That means that it should be relevant, useful, and of high quality. Furthermore, it’s imperative that you select your target search keywords carefully, considering common terminology used by your Spanish-first audience.
Benefits of Spanish Content for Businesses in the U.S.
Spanish content can benefit businesses in many ways. For one, it can improve your search engine optimization (SEO), as Google values high-quality content that speaks to a users' needs and pain points. By creating this content you’ll not only be driving traffic to your site, but also increase backlinking, internal links and your domain authority score.
Additionally you’ll be able to reach a broader and more diverse audience, which ultimately increases leads and sales. Lastly, offering content and a site experience in Spanish will dramatically increase your customer’s loyalty.
“87% of Hispanics feel businesses that make a sincere effort to speak to them in Spanish deserve their loyalty.”
Writing Spanish Content
There are a variety of ways you could go about creating content in Spanish. You could hire a full-time bilingual content manager, work with a freelancer or contract an agency. The most important thing to remember, whichever option you chose, is that quality matters above all. WIth that in mind, we recommend these three tips:
Learn about your audience: You may have a pretty clear understanding of your English-speaking audience, but your Spanish-speaking one may require a slightly different approach. If you have the means to do it, we highly recommend speaking with potential or existing customers that are Spanish-first and learning about their needs and challenges.
Use relevant keywords: This sounds straight-forward but there’s more to it than you might think. When we run keyword research for a client, we always consider colloquialisms and Spanglish, alongside the simpler keywords. This practice will help you identify the best keywords to go after (highest volume + lowest competition) and improve results dramatically.
Be direct and clear: We recommend creating content that’s direct, concise and as clear as possible. There are a lot of systems and culturally specific things that may not be as clear or obvious to Spanish-first audiences. This doesn’t mean you have to dumb anything down, but try to be empathetic about what may or may not be ‘obvious’ to a non-natives.
Getting results
Conversa Strategies is a content marketing agency that has recognized the value of Spanish content. We focus on providing digital marketing solutions for business that want to attract the Latino community.
If you’re interested in seeing some of our work, here’s a little preview - PODERcard, a digital bank for the Latino community in the US:
We achieved some pretty great results with our bilingual content strategy:
A 4.8 user rating for the app
250k users in the first six months
A churn rate of less than 10%
More than 80k organic visits per month
It’s more than an ‘extra’
Hopefully this article has helped shed light on the huge opportunity you have with Spanish SEO. It’s so much more than an 'extra' for businesses in the United States, it’s a necessity if you want to maintain your relevance and competitiveness.
If you believe, like we do, that it's important to invest in authentic and high-quality Spanish content that attracts the country's growing Hispanic population, then why wait? Were here to help you achieve this goal.
Take that next step and let’s partner!