Content plays a major role in the journey of building your online presence and brand, and choosing the right content management system (CMS) and localization strategy are key pieces of your business puzzle.

Having a strong online presence is a must for digital marketing and localization opens great opportunities for expansion and growth in international online markets. For example, configuring user interfaces or providing customer experience in multiple languages is becoming a top priority for many digital businesses.

However, there is not just one successful way to approach content localization, but from our experience it all starts with choosing a localization-friendly content management system.

There are plenty of different CMS, but not all of them are perfectly fitted for multilingual content. Managing translated content effectively can be a difficult task if the chosen CMS:

• - does not support multilingual content or different locales,
• - does not have a strong translation editor with professional translation features,
• - does not support any translation plugin (that not only provides machine translation like Google Translation); or
• - if cannot be linked to any external Translation Management System (TMS) or localization tool via API.

In order to avoid headaches in localization, the most effective way to tackle the translation part is through a localization tool or TMS. However, not all CMS can be linked to TMS or localization tools using an API, and here is where the key lays.

By integrating your CMS with a translation management system via API, you can automatically select and send content for translation and have it immediately updated in your localized app or website after it has been translated with minimum effort from the dev team. Some popular TMS you can check its compatibility with your CMS are Crowdin, Lokalise, SmartCat or Weglot.

However, if using a TMS or localization tool is not for you, try to find a suitable CMS for you that can export files in different formats such us .xml, .json or even .xliff, as this will allow a smoother localization workflow for both you and your translation provider. It prevents potential security issues, but it also allows the localization team to make use of the latest translation technology available (like CAT tools, translation memories, glossaries and termbases, QA checks…) to ensure consistency and leverage repetitions.

Try to find the CMS that better adapts to your content needs but if you are planning on localizing your content as next steps on your business journey, think ahead and opt for a localization friendly CMS. It will save you time, money and headaches on the long run.