The Art of the Global Gateway

Build a world-ready web site

A global gateway is the initial point of contact between your web site and the world -- it is, in effect, a web user’s first impression. To truly welcome visitors to your web site, you’ll need a welcoming global gateway.



While web globalization opens your web site to the world, it also opens you up to a number of new challenges, namely how to ensure that visitors, no matter what language they speak, can find their local content. This is why the global gateway is so important. Well executed, the global gateway functions like a multilingual tour guide, helping people find exactly where they need to go. The techniques and recommendations in this book are the result of more than a decade spent studying the process of directing web users to local content. We've interviewed hundreds of executives and learned firsthand what strategies work and what strategies don't.



This unique book will help you:

build global gateways that support any languages
understand geolocation and language negotiation
build gateways for mobile web sites and iPhone apps.

You'll learn from the global gateways at 3M, GE, Google, IKEA, Emirates, and Facebook.



Who this book is for

This book is for web designers, copywriters, marketers, localization vendors, project managers, and developers. In other words, this book is for those who create web sites and applications and those who take them global.