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A global website works when technology, governance, data, and brand standards support experiences designed for local buyers. Tom Bianchi and Hannah Grap explain how customer journeys, first-party data, localization economics, accessibility, SEO, content operations, and pipeline measurement shape investment decisions. The result is not one identical site everywhere, but one coordinated system serving many markets.
A global website serves customers, prospects, employees, partners, investors, analysts, and the media across markets with different languages, expectations, regulations, and levels of commercial support.
That complexity cannot be solved through translation alone. The website needs a shared operating model covering technology, governance, content, data, localization, accessibility, search, and measurement.
In a CMO Huddles conversation, Tom Bianchi of Acquia and Hannah Grap of Zscaler explored how global organizations can create more relevant experiences without allowing every market to build an independent website.
Global website programs often begin with design preferences or internal organizational structures. Tom and Hannah instead described organizing the site around customer expectations and journeys.
A journey-based structure asks what buyers are trying to understand, compare, or accomplish. It can then connect content and conversion paths with those needs across markets.
The shared journey creates a common foundation, while local teams contribute information about regional buying behavior, terminology, proof, and requirements.
This distinction protects the website from becoming a map of the company’s departments. Buyers do not necessarily understand or care how the organization divides its functions.
Hannah described beginning with a customer data platform and bringing together the data sources required to understand how journeys could operate.
Starting with the desired appearance of a personalized experience would have risked designing interactions the company’s data could not support.
After strengthening the data foundation, the organization improved digital asset management to create a more reliable source of truth for content and images. Those systems could then support a redesign based on experiences the company was capable of delivering.
The sequence matters:
Personalization becomes more credible when it reflects known behavior and consented data rather than assumptions.
A translated website can appear to be an obvious sign of global commitment. It can also create substantial cost while setting expectations the company cannot fulfill.
Tom shared an example involving an Italian-language site with only 73 monthly active users. The company was spending approximately $30,000 per year on translation, while many visitors were using Google Translate on the English-language site instead.
The evidence changed the investment decision. Maintaining the translated site did not appear to justify its cost.
Localization decisions can consider:
A fully localized site may imply that the company can sell, onboard, support, and communicate in that language. If the surrounding operation cannot fulfill that promise, translation may create disappointment rather than trust.
Global consistency does not require every page to be identical. It requires clarity about which elements remain fixed and which can adapt.
Central standards may govern the brand identity, core positioning, technology, privacy practices, accessibility, analytics, and major product claims. Local teams may adapt examples, customer proof, terminology, campaigns, imagery, and calls to action.
This model gives the company a coherent global presence while recognizing that relevance is produced locally.
Governance can specify who may create, approve, translate, update, and retire content. Without that clarity, local pages may become outdated while central teams remain unaware they exist.
Accessibility is easier to maintain when it is part of the platform, components, templates, and publishing process.
A fragmented global web estate makes consistent accessibility more difficult. Independent sites may use different standards, vendors, and content practices, leaving the company without a reliable view of compliance or usability.
Shared design components and editorial checks can improve consistency. Local teams still need to evaluate language, reading direction, imagery, forms, documents, and market-specific requirements.
Accessibility belongs in website governance because it affects whether people can use the experience, not merely whether the company can pass a technical review.
Search behavior varies by market. Direct translation may miss the terms buyers actually use, while a centrally dictated keyword framework may ignore local language and intent.
Hannah described rethinking keyword strategy around audience needs rather than the theoretically perfect way to structure keywords.
That approach can combine central topic authority with local search insight. The organization may define the strategic subject areas while local teams identify relevant language, questions, and competitive results.
Global SEO also depends on technical consistency. URL structure, language and regional signals, canonicalization, redirects, page speed, internal linking, and content maintenance can affect whether the right page appears in the right market.
Tom described organizing website analytics around customer journeys and backing performance down the funnel.
The organization examined visitors, conversion rates, high-performing assets, opportunities created through the website, and closed business. Because B2B sales cycles could average approximately six months, the team optimized website activity and opportunity creation while evaluating later sales outcomes over a longer period.
Hannah also emphasized high-intent conversions such as demo requests and contact forms. As more content became ungated, the team could examine whether journeys still moved visitors toward those actions.
A global dashboard can combine common measures with local context:
The aim is not to reward the market with the largest traffic volume. It is to understand how effectively each experience serves its intended audience and business purpose.
A practical operating model can define:
Central ownership
Local ownership
Shared decisions
This division creates control where inconsistency would introduce risk and flexibility where local knowledge improves relevance.
No. The decision can reflect audience demand, commercial potential, regulatory needs, support capability, and the cost of maintaining current content.
Data determines which journeys and personalization experiences the organization can execute reliably. Designing beyond that foundation may create an experience the systems cannot support.
It can define fixed global standards while allowing local teams to adapt proof, terminology, imagery, campaigns, and calls to action.
High-intent conversions, opportunity creation, pipeline influence, journey performance, localization cost, accessibility, and content freshness provide a more useful picture.
Listen to the full conversation with Tom Bianchi and Hannah Grap.
CMO Huddles helps B2B marketing leaders win by bringing together peers, fresh perspectives, and opportunities to build stronger personal brands. Want to join the huddle? Learn more about CMO Huddles and join CMO Huddles Starter.