Contents9
- 01An English-speaking market is a country first
- 02Price, taxes and shipping
- 03The competition: the whole English-speaking web
- 04Spelling, tone and trade vocabulary
- 05Proof, contact and opening hours
- 06Opening a market is a decision, and so is closing one
- 07In what order to open
- 08Where to start
- 09Frequently asked questions
In short
English is not a market: the UK, the US, Australia or Ireland are chosen one by one, each with its currency, taxes and habits.
An English page faces far denser competition than a page in French: precision and proof matter more than the quality of the translation.
The useful order: the country, then the offer and price, then the page, then search engines, then service.
English looks like the easiest language to open. Someone on the team reads it, every translation tool offers it, and the market seems huge. That is exactly the trap: you translate the site, put it online, and nothing happens, because an English-speaking market is won on everything around the words.
This article goes through what changes beyond the language, and in what order to deal with it, for a company whose home market speaks another language. It extends our articles on website translation and opening new markets.
An English-speaking market is a country first
“English” is a language, spoken in countries that share neither the same rules nor the same habits. Google plans for this in its hreflang tags: its documentation on localized versions gives the example of en-GB, English content for users in the UK, and recommends a generic English page for countries no version targets.
The gaps between two English-speaking countries show from the first page:
United Kingdom
British spelling: colour, organise, centre
Prices in pounds sterling, VAT included for consumers
Dates written day, month, year
Customers type “postcode” and “mobile phone”
United States
American spelling: color, organize, center
Prices in dollars, sales tax added at checkout
Dates written month, day, year
Customers type “ZIP code” and “cell phone”
The choice is not necessarily one or the other. A single English version can serve several countries as long as prices, shipping and terms do not change. As soon as one of those three things changes, each country gets its own version, its own URL and its own hreflang tag. The pitfalls of these tags are detailed in hreflang mistakes that cost you.
Price, taxes and shipping
The price is the first thing readers check, and the rules change from one English-speaking country to another.
- In the UK, since leaving the EU, British VAT applies separately. For a consignment of £135 or less sold directly to a consumer, the UK government states that the seller charges and accounts for VAT at the point of sale.
- In the US, there is no federal VAT: sales tax is set by each state. Since the Supreme Court’s South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling in 2018, a state can require a remote seller to collect its sales tax even without a physical presence there. Thresholds vary from state to state: check them with a tax adviser before the first sale.
- Currency and rounding: a price converted to the cent gives itself away immediately. We cover that choice in multilingual and multi-currency store: where to start.
Shipping and returns follow: real lead times, the cost of a parcel that comes back, customs outside the EU. The rest of the list, from payment methods to forms, is in localize, don’t just translate.
The competition: the whole English-speaking web
A page in French competes with sites in French. A page in English competes with a mass of content on another scale altogether:
of the websites whose language W3Techs knows are in English
are in French
The consequence is simple: a faithful translation of a page that works at home rarely ranks first in English, because dozens of pages already say the same thing. What makes the difference is what others do not have: your figures, your examples, your proof, a precise offer for that country.
Searches change too. A Briton and an American do not type the same words for the same need, and neither necessarily types the translation of your home-market keyword. The research is redone for each country, as we explain in keywords abroad: redo the research, don’t translate it.
Spelling, tone and trade vocabulary
Once the country is chosen, the variety of English is fixed and stays fixed: spelling, trade vocabulary, tone. In real estate, for example, a Briton looks for an “estate agent” and a “flat”, an American for a “real estate agent” and an “apartment”. Mixing the two on one page signals a translation done from afar.
These choices go into a brand glossary, which the translation tool and the reviewers apply to every page. Machine translation handles most of the volume; it is reviewed where it commits you, as we detail in translating your website with AI: automatic or reviewed?, and the tool is chosen on your own texts, following the method in DeepL, Google or an LLM.
The texts that sell need more: a tagline, an offer page or an argument is rewritten in English by someone who writes the language, copywriter or translator. An exact translation of a French or German text often keeps its length and detours, where an English-speaking reader expects a more direct sentence.
Proof, contact and opening hours
An English-speaking reader discovering a foreign company looks for the same signs as anywhere: customers they can recognise, reviews, an address, someone to reach.
- Proof: references and reviews from the target country, if there are any. If there are none yet, do not invent them: an honest page about your arrival is worth more than a testimonial that rings false.
- Contact: an answer in English, within a stated time. Emails and tickets can go through a reviewed translation, as we explain in translating customer support emails without hiring.
- Opening hours: written with their time zone. The US has several: “9 a.m. to 5 p.m.” means nothing to a customer in California.
- Terms and notices: terms of sale, privacy, returns, adapted to the country’s law and reviewed by a lawyer.
Opening a market is a decision, and so is closing one
An English-speaking market is not a given because it is large. It costs a language maintained over time (translation, review, updates), which we put figures on in website translation cost: per word, per page, per market, plus the costs of the country itself: taxes, compliance, shipping.
From the field
An online plush-toy store we are putting back on its feet ran this calculation for two markets where English dominates, the United States and Canada: €190 of revenue a year, against four stacked compliance costs. Both sales zones were closed. The translation was done; it was everything else that did not hold up.
A translation memory brings down the cost of updates, and for a catalogue, product pages for export says which fields to review. But no translation saving makes a market profitable if you cannot ship to it or answer it.
In what order to open
- The country.
The one where demand already comes from: the Countries tab in Search Console shows it, as explained in our article on international SEO.
- The offer and price.
Currency, taxes, shipping, returns: what makes the sale possible and profitable.
- The page.
A fixed variety of English, a glossary, reviewed translation, rewritten sales copy, proof from the country.
- Search engines.
One URL per version, correct hreflang tags, keyword research redone.
- Service.
Answering in English, in the customer’s time zone.
Where to start
Before translating, write down on one page the target country, the price you will display there, and how you will ship and answer. If any of those three lines stays empty, the website is not the first job. If English is not yet decided against another language, German, Spanish or Italian: which market to open first helps you choose. And if you sell software, its interface is translated separately, following translating software or an app: strings, context, updates.
To prepare this opening with us, tell us about your site and the target country: we start from the country and the offer, and the translation comes after.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a British and an American version?
Not necessarily. A single English version is enough as long as prices, shipping and terms are the same for every country you target. As soon as the currency, taxes or offer change, each country gets its own version, with its own URL and hreflang tag (en-GB, en-US), and its spelling variety kept in a glossary.
Is “international” English enough to sell?
To inform, often. To sell, rarely: readers notice spelling that is not theirs, a price in another currency or opening hours without a time zone. Choose one variety, keep it across the whole site, and adapt at least the pages that sell to the country where your buyers are.
Can I translate my site into English with AI?
Yes for most of the volume, provided you test the tool on your own texts before choosing it. Pages that sell or commit you, such as offers, terms and guarantees, are reviewed by someone who writes English, and taglines are rewritten rather than translated. The glossary fixes the variety and the trade terms before translation starts.
Do I need a domain name per English-speaking country?
No. A subdirectory per version on your domain, for example /en-gb/ and /en-us/, declared with hreflang tags, is enough in most cases and keeps the site’s authority in one place. A domain per country is mainly justified when a local entity, a different brand or a legal obligation requires it.
Sources
- Google Search Central, localized versions of your pages (new tab)developers.google.com
- GOV.UK, VAT and overseas goods sold directly to customers in the UK (new tab)gov.uk
- Supreme Court of the United States, South Dakota v. Wayfair, June 21, 2018 (new tab)supremecourt.gov
Google Search Central, localized versions of your pages
Read on developers.google.com(new tab)Supreme Court of the United States, South Dakota v. Wayfair, June 21, 2018
Read on supremecourt.gov(new tab)Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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