The Best Way To Translate A Website

Successfully translating a website takes skill, strategy, and a lot of know-how.

It requires a lot more work than just directly translating your website into a few different languages.

Localising your content, developing a search engine optimisation plan, and ensuring you have a slick design to support it all means you’ve got your work cut out.

Let’s go through our top tips to help you to translate your website efficiently and effectively!

Importance Of Brand Localisation

Global businesses must adapt their approach to different countries and their cultures.

The process of doing so is called ‘localisation’.

Without adapting, your business may not attract your target clients. Your business needs to speak to them in an understandable, relatable way. This paints your organisation in a positive, appealing light.

If you apply a one-size-fits-all approach to all your target locations, you’ll not be able to provide the personalised value that draws loyal customers to businesses.

Brand localisation and website localisation mean you can conquer language and culture barriers that hinder your global sales.

There are many steps to take to translate your website and optimise it for your targeted local regions.

Multi-Site Or Multi-Lingual?

Do you want to build separate websites for different languages? Or would you prefer to install a tool that allows site visitors to translate the website themselves?

You’ll need to decide which route suits you best before you proceed any further.

Search Engine Optimisation Strategy

To make sure your website ranks highly on search engines for people in your target areas, you’ll need to develop a local SEO strategy.

Keyword research will be important here. Your current keywords might not directly translate in your target languages. Recruiting interpreters will ensure your keywords make sense for your business and the region.

Remember that, whilst Google is the shining star of search engines in the west, other regions favour other search engines, so you’ll need to account for this in your optimisation.

The same goes for social media. Social sharing icons are important for on-site optimisation. Make sure that you use accounts that fit your audience. The west is hooked on Facebook and Twitter, but in China, WeChat reigns supreme.

This may mean employing an SEO expert in addition to an interpreter to ensure your potential clients are reached.

Content

Your content marketing strategy is crucial in your website localisation strategy. You need to engage and inform your audience, providing added value for them.

Determine whether your existing content is appropriate for a global audience. Chances are, some content can be translated easily and others must be fully rewritten for you target location.

If some of your content needs re-worked, an interpreter will be able to seamlessly translate idioms and turns-of-speech into well-written pieces that engage native speakers.

Website Design and Development

There are some more nitty gritty factors to take into account.

In terms of web design, you’ll need to make sure your website is set up to handle multiple languages.

Some coding systems are not able to display other languages so make sure you check this before proceeding.

In terms of visual design, you’ll need to account for text reduction and expansion. Some languages take up less or more space than English.

Your graphics and text spaces should all look clean and tidy, providing a positive user experience.

Keep in mind that if your site requires regular updates, you’ll need to make sure that your written content is updated in all required languages. Coordinate with your content manager and interpreters to keep this process smooth.

Ready To Translate Your Website?

These are just a few things to consider when you want to translate and localise your website.

Having experienced interpreters and digital marketing professionals on your side can be invaluable.

With the right support, you’ll be surprised at how straightforward the process can be.

For more translation information and business interpreting tips, take a few minutes to click over to our blog or contact Global Language Services direct to find out how we can help!