Opinion: Growing 10X users in languages from Search isn’t really a success but there is more to-do!
In India, a 10X increase has been witnessed in the number of Indian language publishers’ websites. Languages have the quickest growth rate, according to my analysis and observations. Early in 2019, Google introduced additional language support to Search where users could see search results in their chosen languages based on the location. Initially, Google launched this for Hindi and later moved to Telugu, Kannada and Tamil but lately they have rolled back from search tab.
As an Search practitioner we come across many obstacles and here in this blog I shall address the most frequently asked questions to me on the growth prospect of multilingual languages.
What is the cause of the language expansions, and can company owners consider it a success? Why is there such a rapid uptick in Indic languages that don’t have keyboard support?
In view of the statistics, despite the user’s inability to input in languages in India Market, Google Discover and the Google News Language tab in search & showing the languages results for english queries, are assisting users with TAP rather than Search.
The share of Google Discover users is higher than the percentage of brand/direct traffic. Regrettably, this is the case for the majority of Indian businesses. Google localisation and personalization has resulted in a recent increase in all languages, compared to when Google Discover initially appeared in Hindi.
High Google share of users for Indic Languages is a sign of business SUCCESS?
In my opinion NO, because the company is heavily reliant on all Google Channels traffic such as Google news, Top Stories Carousel, Google Search, Google Discover, Googel Showcase in discover and Google APP notifications, and on other side, Direct traffic is the lowest compare to sum of all Google Channels. This indicates that Search Users are more tend to trust the SEARCH and the results that comes up first than searching the brand names or going directly to the brand sites.
Whats the best way to measure this surge in language users in Digital media?
We may call it a success, in my opinion, if Google Search channels traffic converts into loyal users, such as:
1) Download an app (web to app conversion) from M-Web, AMP pages. While the % of traffic from the desktop is very less but moving them to signups/newsletters target is a easiest win
2) Sign up for website newsletters targeting by category such as Education, Lifestyle, Religion, Finance categories where the users engage more with the content.
3) Pay for Content (Subscription) that is only with your brand and no one else can thought about these ideas. Dont include every normal news content as paywall as it will backfire the loss in users esp. when your competition is offering the same content for free.
4) Ad revenue, as search users have strong intent so will get better CPM’s. Always make sure we follow Google Guidelines to avoid any penalty from ads perspective esp. intrusive interstitial ads, full screen ads with no close button and many more.
5) Content commerce: letting users to purchases the products/offering via. affiliate links from news sites. (revenue)
If any of the above is not the metric you have to present in the board meetings to call out the success then its not a long run and sustainable business model but a short win with no vision to win the market for the next NBU’s.
