App Localization Tips – No matter how popular your app is, for an excellent ranking and a constant flow of daily downloads, the need to localize your app remains an essential step for effective app optimization. So to fill the gap between global availability and accessibility, app localization is necessary.
App localization is customizing your app’s elements to suit the regional audience’s cultural, linguistic, and technical requirements. Hence, align the app’s look and feel to the beliefs and queries of the local audience.
Effective Tips for App Localization: Step-by-Step Guide
- At the initial stage of localization, there is a phase of internationalization. Localize everything from the app’s visuals, contents and references, and UX (user experience) to adapt to the local users. At this phase, the coding is re-designed to retrieve texts in the user’s native language. As a result, the app becomes language-independent.
- Then, redesign other key elements in the app to give the user a native feel. For example, consider the following app elements to re-design:
- Text in the FAQs, user instructions, and terms and conditions.
- Images, pictures, and colors that contain cultural and regional elements.
- Audio and video as spoken words or music.
- Currency, time, and date formats
- Designs that suit the moods and emotions of the local audience.
Key Points for App Page Localization
To localize your app/game in India, app marketers must understand the target audience and customize the content to reach a diverse audience. Therefore, analyze the following points before localizing your app.
Tips for app page localization
1. The app market for Google Play and Apple
In India, Google owns 95% of the app market shares Google and Apple only 3.7%. The app developers can list their apps in Google Play in other Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Marathi, and Kannada. So, it is wise to target Google Play’s audience for better reachability.
2. Most Popular Games and Apps
Among the Top 10 listings, 8 Music apps have been made available for Indian users, while only one in games and 4 in the finance category. Spotify is one of the ideal examples of app localization. So, it is essential to understand the category and utility before localizing your app.
3. In-App language
Although Hindi is widely spoken in northern India, 60% of the population does not speak Hindi. So English remains the bridge between these two groups.
Indians find it easy to navigate the app in English, which is why Indian smartphones are set up in English. But giving the app user options to choose the default in-app language will surely increase the reach and retention.
4. App title and description
The most popular Indian apps combine English and Hindi in their title and short description. e.g., Ola, MakeMyTrip, Swiggy. The key is finding popular keywords that the larger target audience will understand to drive conversions.
Long descriptions in Indian languages look lengthier and heavier than in English because of the complexity of the languages. Therefore, it is better to have a store listing preview the localized app page.
5. App icon and screenshots
Most Indian app icons use warm colors and, simple text and graphics than Western apps. Use local characters in the app screenshots along with a combination of Hindi and English words in the caption.
- Google Maps Go is the best for translating visuals and captions to suit Indian Users. The customization of the app screenshots is significant to appeal to the user’s various language and regional beliefs.
- Some Indian apps use graphic elements in place of popular Indian models to effectively represent India’s diverse cultures and religions. PhonePe uses one of the best visual marketing strategies in this regard. Some Indian game apps try to include local elements to give an appealing look to the audience.
- Times of India is the best example of the clusterization of the content in the news app category. It highlights trending local news in an engaging regional language to improve user engagement.
6. App videos
Indian app videos are pretty similar to TV commercials, where you can observe the appropriate setting and the scene, the characters, and the dialogues. This works well for those users who are not comfortable reading long descriptions in English.
Best Tips to Localize Your App
- Know and appreciate the target audience to prioritize translation and localization of the app.
- Concentrate on the most popular and preferable play store in the region
- Ensure to preview screenshots and captions in large text when localizing the app language.
- Customize the app’s message and graphic elements to suit the demography and its likes to increase app conversions.
- Use friendly symbols and warm colors to align with the culture of the local users.
- Localize the language while providing voice assistance or videos to make it relatable and develop a relationship with the local audience.
Follow these tips to localize your app effectively, and make it accessible for more people to download the app. Remember, even if the app is available in many languages,you have to localize the app to adapt and appeal to the requirements of the regional audience.