Many marketers have embraced the motto Think Global, Act Local in their efforts to reach the remotest corners of an increasingly globalized world. Are you one of them? If so, you're on the right track.

With the exponential rise of the multilingual Web in recent years, that strategy is more timely and effective than ever. Numerous businesses have experienced massive growth as a result of something as simple as... Web optimization.

For example, JRS Consulting, a marketing and management consulting company, had an impressive 95% ROI on its painstakingly localized French website, and 15% of its revenue now comes from France.

And Skyscanner, an airline flight price-comparison website, turned truly global after localizing its website into 23 languages. The overseas markets now account for 70% of the site's revenue. The Russian version of the site was received with such enthusiasm that the number of its users rose from 30,000 to 1 million in 18 months.

Multilingual digital marketing is the perfect way for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) to maximize their profit and achieve considerable search engine prominence while minimizing costs.

Most online searches are carried out in languages other than English, and the use of Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, is rapidly increasing. The Web is no longer English-centric. Global consumer demand for website localization has grown, too: 85% of online buyers now require information in their own language. A 2010 Internet World Stats report found that Arabic online use increased a whopping 2,500% over the previous 10 years.

And last year's introduction of URLs with non-Latin characters opened the Internet to an even more diverse global community.

Naturally, since foreign-language search engine optimization (SEO) is a relatively recent phenomenon, businesses find it easier and cheaper to achieve search-engine prominence in foreign language searches rather than the heavily saturated English Web. And don't underestimate being at the top of the search rankings in any language; Chitika Research reported that 35% of all traffic goes to the much-coveted Top 1 Google search spot (double the traffic of the second-ranked website).

With the multilingual Internet promising to grow, the returns that SMEs can expect in the foreseeable future look promising. Though the process appears easy and straightforward, it's not.

Here are five tips for tapping into global digital marketing trends and catering to different local consumer needs.

1. Know the target culture

You might translate a website but still fail to fully address the consumer needs of the target market. The key to effective foreign-language Internet marketing lies in making the Web content relevant to the target culture by taking into account culturally determined consumer behavior.

You must have an awareness of the cultural norms, which you can only achieve by making an effort to get to know the target country and its people. Your best bet would be to hire a professional in-country translator who would understand linguistic and cultural subtleties, and so nip any cultural faux pas in the bud.