You can now start a company on Monday and be trading with the world by Wednesday. Do you think it’s a joke? Well, that’s what Emma Jones, the founder of Enterprise Nation wrote in her book “Go Global: How to take your business to the world”. She was one of the speakers at the UKTI conference “Sell British: Using Technology To Go Global” which took place in Nottingham on 18 October. The aim of this UKTI event was to give advice to SME’s wishing to use internet technology to grow their business and trade to a worldwide customer base.

Since the UK market is sluggish, there’s never been a better time to leverage technology and look overseas. You need to get your market research right and promote yourself, for example using social networks such Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Flickr.

It is also important to have a website with a simple, visual impact and conversion tuning, as well as a company logo, clear navigation and key words for Google. You also need to translate and localise your website, which means making it feel and look right for the target market. German people, for example, expect to find a lot of technical information, whereas British people value the sales breath of the company.

Even if English is a world language, translating your website shows commitment to your target foreign market. Ask SanTranslate, your professional translation service provider, how they can help you reach a broader customer base.