International companies have tried to create cross-cultural websites by using database tables, language IDs, or a translation admin UI. These avenues effectively change the content of a web page. However, only a small portion of the website's overall effectiveness is the text. In order to cross borders successfully in business, the development, layout, design, and functionality of the web page are also factors that must be form-fitted to your new environment.
The Kooboo Solution
With Kooboo CMS, the process of enabling your website to be effective around the world has become much easier! Using site inheritance mixed with site localization, we have created a simple way to manage your website across borders.
Website Inheritance
We use website inheritance to centralize all website elements at one parent site, and at the same time, to allow subsites to inherit or localize whichever elements that it wants.
The most important point with website inheritance is to have clearly defined site relationships. Defining site relationships before the implementation will greatly reduce complications throughout the implementation process. Below is an example of a site relationship hierarchy:
The sub sites shown above inherit elements from the parent site, and they can also localize certain aspects to be better suited for a foreign market.
In the example above, the UK is the main site where all global elements should be defined. The global elements are those which will be used by all of the sub sites.
The CN sub site inherits from the ASIA sub site which inherits from the UK main site. Any global elements in the UK site will be accessible in the CN site as well. However, any localized content in the ASIA site will be passed onto the CN site. This specific relationship would be important to distinguish because East Asia has a very different culture from Western Europe, which means a different market place, different consumers, different preferences, and a different strategy. Therefore, the CN website inherits from the more culturally similar ASIA site instead of the culturally contrasting UK main site.
In order to ensure that private Intranet content is NOT available on the public Internet site, an Intranet site is defined as being a sub site to the public Internet site. You can see that the DE Intranet site is listed as a sub site of the DE Internet site.
Root
The Root application, although not a necessity when using Kooboo, can be very helpful. It was originally a "best practice" we had. The Root serves as a main application to keep global elements in order. When you login to Kooboo, on the left side is the Root menu. There you will see menu options "system", "design", "Extension" and "Content". This provides easy organization and access to the different elements of website creation throughout the entire process.
By putting all of your global elements in the Root, your site relation will end up looking something like below:
It is not required to use the Root application. Depending on the size and organizational structure of your site, it may be of great use, however. If you are seeking to create websites for multiple different markets, for instance, it can be very helpful. The Root application could also be handy if you host several client websites in one Kooboo instance.