Our friends at www.marketingexperiments.com are researchers whose mission is "to discover what really works in optimization".    They offer the following tips for optimizing Spanish-language websites:

• Make sure your landing page answers the following questions for your visitors:

              Where am I?  What can I do here? Why should I do it?

• Your headline should confirm the value of your site and let them know they came to the right place
• Try to quantify the benefit for the visitors: "Save 50% on your calls to El Salvador".
• Are there any cultural elements that will connect with them, such as having a famous Mexican actress endorse a beauty product?
• Test Google ads in Spanish and emphasize value in your ads.
• The entire experience should be in Spanish, including the shopping cart, to avoid losing visitors right before check-out.
• A dedicated Spanish-language site is better than a sub-domain because it communicates more effectively.  It can also improve the site's results in Google searches.

Last but not least, steer clear of online translators such as Google Translate because the poor quality of these translations "undermines your site's credibility, causing anxiety to your visitors...and it becomes insulting".

Photo by marciookabe. Licensed under Creative Commons.

http://www.pandltranslations.com