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09 · Korean Localization · Fixed scope

Your site is translated into Korean. A Korean can tell it is a foreign site in three seconds.

A button that says "please contact us" in the stiff Korean nobody writes. Prices in dollars. No KakaoTalk contact anywhere. No business details in the footer. The words are Korean, but it is not a Korean site. So Koreans read it, and do not buy.

We do not translate. We rewrite the pages the way a Korean would have written them from the start. Page titles become the words Koreans actually type into Naver. The things every Korean site has — won prices, delivery and returns, a KakaoTalk button, business details — get filled in. Ten key pages plus ad, social and email copy, in about four weeks.

Who this is for

Three situations we see most.

Online store

You started shipping to Korea, and everyone leaves at the cart.

Prices are in dollars. Nothing says what delivery costs, how many days it takes, or whether returns are possible. There is no KakaoTalk to ask. They like the product, but "is it safe to buy here?" has no answer, so they leave.

B2B · software

You have a Korean partner now, and nothing in Korean to show.

The Korean distributor asks for a Korean introduction page. The Korean buyer searches Naver in Korean. Send an English link and the evaluation slips to next quarter.

Already translated

You translated the site, and no enquiries come.

Machine or agency, the sentences are not wrong. But the tone is stiff, the titles are words nobody searches, and the information Koreans look for is missing. Translated, yes. Localized, no.

Not for you ifYou have not yet confirmed there is demand in Korea — then demand validation comes before the site, in Korea Market Entry. Or you have a Korean marketer who writes your Korean copy — then you only need the standard. The free website audit tells you either way.

Why translation is not enough

Translation carries meaning. Localization earns trust.

Translated copy gives itself away

The sentence is not wrong. It is just something no Korean would write. One button like this tells a Korean "a foreign company ran this through translation".

EnglishContact us
Translated저희에게 연락하세요"please contact us" — grammatical, nobody writes it
Korean sites문의하기"enquire" — what every Korean site says

Koreans search in different words

Translate an English keyword into a title and the grammar is fine, but nobody searches for it. On Naver, that page does not exist.

English keywordbest project management tool
Translated최고의 프로젝트 관리 도구literal — zero searches
What Koreans type협업툴 추천"collaboration tool recommendations"

If the expected things are missing, they do not trust it

Every Korean site has certain things: won prices, delivery cost and time, exchange and returns, KakaoTalk contact, business details in the footer, customer service hours. If any one is missing, a Korean notices immediately.

A page that is too short looks suspicious

Korean product pages are long. Specs, comparisons, reviews and FAQs all sit on one page. A Western-style page with one photo and two lines reads, in Korea, as "why are they not telling me anything?"

What you get

Eight things, all applied directly to your site.

01 · Tone and terminology standard

Whether the brand name is written in Hangul or kept in English, how polite the register is, what each product term is called, which expressions not to use. One page. With it, whoever adds a page later keeps the same voice.

02 · Search term research

For each English keyword, the words Koreans actually type into Naver and Google. Page titles are set from those words. You get the table, and future pages take their titles from it too.

03 · Ten key pages rewritten

Home, product or service, pricing, about, contact, FAQ — the ten pages closest to a purchase. We do not translate the English; we look at what the page is meant to make a visitor do and write the Korean that does it. Where the information Koreans expect is missing — specs, comparisons, FAQ — we add it.

04 · Ad, social and email copy

Ad copy to Naver Search Ads specifications, Korean versions of your Google and Meta ads, ten social posts, a welcome email and an announcement email. Promotional emails carry the advertising label Korean law requires.

05 · What every Korean site has

Won prices, delivery cost and time, exchange and returns, customer service hours in Korean time, a KakaoTalk contact button, business details in the footer if you have a Korean entity, Korean address and phone formats. Written, and placed where Korean sites always put them.

06 · Korean URLs and search engine settings

Whether Korean pages live under /ko/ or on their own host, and pairing English and Korean pages so search engines treat them as counterparts (hreflang). Korean titles and descriptions, and a check that Naver's crawler can get in.

07 · Naver registration

Registering the site in Naver Search Advisor, verifying ownership and submitting the sitemap. Checking that Google picks up the Korean pages too. Skip this and the Korean pages you built never appear on Naver.

08 · Two reviews, then handover

One review after the copy is written, one more looking at the live screens after it is on the site. Korean runs longer or shorter than English, so buttons wrap and cards misalign. At the end, the standard, the search term table, the checklist, and an hour with the person who will own it.

What lands in the folderThe tone and terminology standard, the search term table, Korean copy for ten pages (as documents and live on the site), the ad, social and email copy set, the "what every Korean site has" checklist, the URL and search engine settings record, proof of Naver registration, and both review records. Nothing sits in an account of ours.

How it is built

Not translated. Written in Korean.

01

A Korean writes it in Korean from the start

We do not carry the English page across sentence by sentence. We look first at what you want the visitor to do on this page, then write the Korean that makes a Korean do it. So the order and emphasis differ from the English. This is not machine translation with a polish.

  • Written by Koreans — a company in greater Seoul that deals with Korean customers.
  • Drafts by tools, decisions by people — tools help with drafts and terminology consistency; tone and wording are decided by a Korean.
02

Titles come from search terms

The best-written title is useless if nobody searches for it. So we research search terms before writing anything. Page titles and first headings are chosen from that research.

  • Naver and Google both — Koreans search the two engines in different words.
  • Brand name first — Hangul or English affects search as well as recognition.
03

Add the information Koreans look for

We do not change the design. We add the information Koreans take for granted: a spec table, a comparison with alternatives, an FAQ, a place for reviews. Only as far as your current site editor allows.

  • No new design — that is the Web & Landing Pages retainer's job.
  • No invented reviews — we make the space for them and write down how to fill it.
04

Put things where Koreans look for them

Koreans look for information in fixed places. Business details in the footer, delivery and returns just before checkout, KakaoTalk contact at the bottom right of every page. We do not just write the copy; we place it by Korean site convention.

  • We write the notices; you sign the contracts — Naver Pay, Kakao Pay and card instalments need a payment gateway contract, which needs a Korean business registration. That is handled in Korea Market Entry.
  • What is missing stays honest — no Korean entity? We say so. Saying it plainly earns more trust than hiding it.
05

Reviewed once on paper, once on screen

Perfect copy still breaks when it goes live. Button labels wrap to two lines, card heights drift, lines break in the middle of a word. So after it is live we look at the phone and desktop screens ourselves and fix what we see.

  • First: the copy — tone, terms and search terms against the standard.
  • Second: the screen — overflow, line breaks and fonts on a 375px phone and on desktop.

Process

Four steps, about four weeks.

Week 1

Set the standard

The tone and terminology standard, approved. Search terms researched, ten pages chosen. We confirm what you have in Korea: entity, delivery, payments, customer service.

Week 2

Write

Korean copy for the ten pages. First review, then your approval. Drafts of the ad, social and email copy.

Week 3

Put it on the site

Applied through your site editor or your developer. Won prices, delivery, returns, KakaoTalk and business details added. URLs and search engine settings done, site registered with Naver.

Week 4

Check and hand over

Screen review and fixes. We watch for Naver starting to index. The standard, the search term table and the checklist are handed over in an hour with your owner.

What we measureNinety days after handover, whether the Korean pages produce enquiries or purchases at the rate the English pages do, and whether visits from Naver have started. Visitor numbers themselves are the result of advertising and marketing, so they are not the measure here.

Honest limits

What this project will not do.

01

It does not bring visitors. Localization makes the people who arrive buy. Bringing people is Naver Blog, Cafe and advertising, and that is Korea Market Entry and SEO & Content.

02

It cannot do what needs a Korean business registration. Naver and Kakao ad accounts, e-commerce business registration, Naver Pay and Kakao Pay contracts, KakaoTalk Channel business verification. We write the notices and make the space; contracts and registrations belong to Korea Market Entry.

03

Terms, privacy, medical and financial copy need professional review. We help with drafts, but we do not replace legal review.

04

Ten pages is the limit. A hundred-page site or five hundred products is not this project. You get the standard and the method, so the rest is done in-house or continues in the Web & Landing Pages retainer.

05

It does not invent a Korean brand name or slogan. We decide how your current name is written in Hangul; creating a new name is a different job.

FAQ

Korean localization, answered.

How is this different from using a translation agency?+
A translation agency carries the meaning of each sentence across accurately. We carry the purpose of each page across. If a page exists to get enquiries, we rewrite it in the Korean that makes a Korean enquire. Then we do what a translation agency does not: set titles to the words Koreans actually search, fill in won prices, delivery, KakaoTalk and business details, and register the site with Naver. In return the scope stops at ten pages — we do not do bulk translation.
How is this different from the Web retainer or Korea Market Entry?+
Our Web & Landing Pages retainer has a Korean localization line item. This project is that item done once, in four weeks. The retainer builds and tests pages every month; Korea Market Entry runs Naver and Kakao and handles the accounts that need a Korean business registration. You can do this project alone, or continue into either afterwards.
What do we need to prepare?+
The list of English pages to localize (we can pick the ten for you), edit access to your site or a developer contact, brand assets such as your logo, and answers on whether you have a Korean entity, delivery, payments and customer service. A Korean-speaking employee to check the work helps but is not required. That is why we review twice.
How long does it take?+
About four weeks from access and the page list: standards in week one, copy in week two, on the site in week three, review and handover in week four. If copy approval runs late it stretches by that much, and we say so in advance.
We already have translated Korean pages. What then?+
We review them first, separate the sentences worth keeping from the ones to rewrite, and show you in a table where and why the copy reads as foreign. Titles and tone usually get rewritten; factual body copy can often be kept. If the review says the pages are fine as they are, we tell you so and reduce the scope.
Do you set up payments, delivery and KakaoTalk?+
The KakaoTalk contact button and the delivery and returns information are part of this project. Naver Pay, Kakao Pay and card instalments need a payment gateway contract, and KakaoTalk Channel business verification and e-commerce business registration need a Korean business registration. Those belong to Korea Market Entry. This project does not leave those spaces empty; it fills them with what is possible now.
Will Korean pages affect our English search rankings?+
Not if the URLs are separated and the English and Korean pages are paired with hreflang — each language then ranks in its own market. The problem is getting that pairing wrong. Hreflang that points to missing pages or uses the wrong URL form is ignored by search engines, or makes an existing Korean page look like a missing one. Item six checks exactly that.

Also

Korea Market Entry →On top of the localized site: Naver and Kakao execution, and the accounts that need a Korean business registration. Web & Landing Pages →After the ten pages: the retainer that builds and tests Korean pages every month. Brand Kit →The asset set with KakaoTalk and LINE profile images and Korean social templates.

If you have read this far, the website audit is free.

The free audit is a website audit: how you show up in search and in AI search, whether basic tracking is alive, and the first three things we would fix, in writing. It is the same audit whichever page you came from, and it costs nothing. If it is Korean Localization you want, name the one page you most want a Korean customer to land on in the same form. We will read it as a Korean would, and answer first whether you need this project at all.

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