Take the leap and translate your web page to reach an international audience. Don’t hesitate to hire a professional website translation service. To get in touch with us, use the contact form that you’ll find in the “Contact” section of our website.
Today, we’re going to look at why translating a website in this day and age is important.
Website translation is becoming more and more important thanks to globalization. Having local and national presence is key, but to keep growing, you need to open the door to the international market. And what’s the best way to make your web page visible internationally? Counting on a team of professional translators.
With people spending more time each day on the internet, the need to make your content accessible to an ever-growing audience from different countries has increased significantly.
Translating your website is an investment that allows you to expand your market and get customers in many countries worldwide.
Here, we’ve picked the 6 most important points that you should consider if you’re thinking about translating your web:
Translating your website is an investment
Although more and more people are realising that translating their website is a must, there are still a lot of web pages out there that use machine translation.
Automatically translating a web page for free might seem like an attractive option, but this practice isn’t widely recommended; it poses a serious risk to your company’s image and doesn’t guarantee the quality of the finished product.
There are examples in the news of just how disastrous a bad translation can be, such as the launch of Amazon’s Swedish website. Several product descriptions appear to have been translated using machine translation, with Calvin Klein trunks, for example, being listed as “men’s luggage space”, while other descriptions saw “rape” (as in rapeseed) translated into Swedish as “rape/sexual assault”.
Examples such as these really hammer home the importance of counting on a professional translator who not only has the necessary linguistic competence, but also the cultural competence to avoid possible cultural errors.A translation agency knows exactly how to translate a web page and the result will allow you to project a more professional image and gain credibility.
When translating a web page, formatting matters
Basically, there are two ways to translate the content of a website in terms of format: translate the content directly in the CMS (the platform on which the website has been developed) or copy the text into an external document so that the translator can work directly on it and you can then upload the translated content to your website.
Translate a website directly in the CMS
Before going into detail on this point, let’s remember that a CMS is a content management system used to create websites. The best known are WordPress, Wix or Squarespace; but with the advent of online commerce, other platforms such as Shopify, PrestaShop or WooCommerce have started to appear.
The best option as a client is to have the translator work directly in the system, but it is also the most expensive option.
Translating a web page directly in the CMS itself has a higher cost because it is a more laborious process for the translator who has to jump from one point of the web page to another, creating his own glossary of terms and, sometimes, waiting a long time for the content to load.
While it is true that there are some solutions on the market that act as translation managers within the same web page and allow you to create a translation memory as you work on it, they are not widely used; therefore, this way of working is more prone to generate errors and inconsistencies in the final text, and in case you modify the original text later on, the translator will take much longer to find the text to translate than if it had done it directly in a text document.
Extract texts from your web page for translation
If you are planning to translate your website from scratch because you are targeting an international audience, we recommend that you copy all the texts you create into a text document such as Word.
If you modify the text online, do not forget to update the text document as well so that there are no mismatches between the original and translated texts.
Doing it this way will mean a reduction in the translation budget, since the translator will not have to waste time loading each of the pages to be translated with all the corresponding content and, in addition, he/she will be able to use a computer-assisted translation tool.
The use of computer-assisted translation tools such as Trados, MemoQ, Smartling, etc. makes it possible to store the translated segments in a database and maintain the coherence of the terms and translations used throughout the entire web page.
This is especially useful for websites with multiple child domains or multiple pages, such as the translation of a large multinational company’s website.
Hire a localization service, not (simply) a translation service
The standard translation process is one that tends to take only words into account; however, in the case of website translation, the process goes much further.
If you have the user in your sights at all times when creating the original text, this can be no different for the translated text. That said, you cannot sell a product or service in the same way and with the same texts to an English citizen as to a Spanish one, for example.
In addition to cultural differences, other more practical aspects must also be taken into account, such as:
- The use of certain symbols such as quotation marks.
- The punctuation of figures.
- The position of the currency symbol.
- The formats of telephone numbers.
- External links to other websites; in this case, it is always advisable that the link leads to a page written in the language in which the user is consulting the website (although this is not always possible).
A web page does not have only one type of content.
If you want to translate the terms of use, privacy policy and customer reviews of your website, these pages will have to follow a more direct translation as close as possible to the original.
However, if what you are going to translate is the blog or guest articles, you can afford to opt for a translation that is more adapted to the local culture and not so direct; this is what we call “localization”.
This may seem like a real headache at first, but it won’t be at all complicated to do if you decide to hire a professional translation service to translate your website.
Here are some examples of web content that might need translation:
Service/product pages
It is important that your international customers understand how you can help them. Service or product pages need a creative translation and not a literal one to awaken in the customer that need that will make them hire your service or buy your product.
Blog articles
One of the best ways to position yourself as an expert in a sector or field is to write articles on your blog on an ongoing basis. Translating these articles will open doors to the international market and allow you to reach a wider audience.
Mail messages to customers
If you have an e-mail messaging system integrated into your website, don’t forget to have all messages translated by a professional translation agency. This is especially important in the case of e-commerce, both for the sales and after-sales sequence that buyers will receive.
Cart and checkout page
If you sell something directly on your website, it is imperative that these pages are also translated if you don’t want to see a significant drop in users at checkout. If users don’t understand what the steps are because the text is not available in their language, they are very likely to abandon the cart and not complete the order.
Translate your website optimized for SEO
Get the most out of your investment. As we’ve already mentioned, translating is more than receiving words in a language such as Spanish and transferring them to English; rather it is a process in which cultural factors must be considered. What’s more, in the case of web pages, taking the positioning of your web into account is crucial.
A professional web page translator gives you the option of implementing an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, whereby keywords are used to improve the positioning of your website, including the translated version.
This is an enormous advantage, as a website translation that doesn’t include keywords would make the page less visible, therefore reducing its impact and your chances of expanding your business and generating more traffic.
Improve your image and build trust
Translating your web allows you to open the door to other countries and offer the content in your visitors’ language. If the web page content is adapted not only to linguistic conventions, but also to the tone or format expected by the user, you’re likely to form a closer relationship with them, allowing you to build trust, as well as project a more professional image.
However, you need to bear in mind the graphic elements on the page. If users find a high-quality translation, they’ll spend more time on the web, which has a positive impact on the positioning of your page.
Don’t jeopardise your image! Count on a professional translator from day one. Here at Tatutrad, we have a team of translation professionals with extensive experience in translating web page. We have the necessary linguistic skills in the languages you require for your translation, and we also carry out quality assurance checks that ensure an optimal result.
What do you need to translate your website with us? Simply request a quote through the “Contact” section of our website. We’ll then offer our assistance and provide you with the highest quality service.