Without a doubt, the support of a website translation service is key to the growth of any company. Today, thanks to the endless possibilities an e-commerce business can offer, anyone can take their brand to international markets and trade there in a profitable and scaled way. That being said, to take this step, having a properly translated website is essential. In this post, we’re going to analyze the factors you need to consider, as well as give you several practical tips that are sure to help.
What to keep in mind to properly translate your website
Before moving on to the more practical part, it’s important to consider the following aspects:
- Which languages are you going to translate to? Ideally, you should conduct a market study to identify the countries where your website or business will have more of an impact or be more likely to succeed. Next, it is highly advisable to study the audience and competition you could be up against, to have a more refined and better thought-out approach.
- What do you know about the region in question? The cultural aspect is very important when it comes to understanding whether your products, communication strategy, or content will be well received in your target region. Just like nobody would think of selling pork in an Arab country, perhaps it wouldn’t make much sense to try selling salmon to Nordic audiences or fast fashion in Italy. A cultural study will help you approach the translation process, the search for keywords, and it will also help you better understand how likely your company is to succeed.
For the first point, all you’ll need to do is a preliminary market study. However, in order to eliminate the risks associated with the second one, you will need to work with a translation agency that can help you with the following steps.
Technical aspects to properly translate your website
Once you have checked that your business is financially viable, this is what you should do.
1. Keywords study
Keywords will determine the ranking of your website. For example, it would be a rookie mistake to directly translate your whole website maintaining the same keywords structure. Think about the fact that not all places are looking for the same thing, and not all countries will have the same competition.
The keywords study will also help you better understand how the industry works online in the country where you’re looking to trade or position yourself. As a result, it is a very useful and necessary preliminary tracking task.
2. Translating content from the right cultural perspective
The examples provided above can help you understand what you need to do in this regard. Adapt your webpages or blog articles depending on your target audience’s needs. Similarly, carefully localize the language to find expressions that match the tone you’re looking to convey, as well as examples that are easier to understand.
This entire process is known as localization, and it involves looking for ideas, pictures, or examples that are equivalent between two cultural communities, for a single message to have the same meaning in both. This way, you’ll be able to maintain a solid, consistent brand wherever you want to go.
3. Adapting the metadata
Titles intended to make it easier for Google’s crawlers to do their job and any image descriptions you’re planning to use will also have to be translated. Follow the same steps as if you were doing it in the original language. Keep your keywords strategy in mind and the rest of the work will be just as convenient and straightforward.
Always follow expert advice
As you can see, planning is key for an operation of this kind to run smoothly. What’s more, the way you execute and implement this plan will depend on the team you choose to work with.
When it comes to translating and localizing your texts, ideally you should hire a team of expert translators. There is a very good reason for this: nothing fosters more mistrust than a disjointed or poorly written website. If you’re looking to access international markets, you’ll need to adhere to their rules and sales criteria. This also means using native-quality language. The truth is, you’ll only achieve this with an expert team by your side.
Now you know why the support of a website translation service that can offer you professional answers and efficient solutions is so useful to have. Get in touch with us if you’re looking to start this process.
This post is also available in: Español (Spanish) Français (French) Nederlands (Dutch) Deutsch (German)
