Points to consider when translating a website

After years of successful operation in your own country, your company has decided to move one step further and expand into new markets. This means your products will now reach customers who speak other languages and have different cultural values, and you will have to speak to them in their voice. In order to do this, one of the first actions you will need to take is to translate and localize your website.

This is an important decision. First impressions matter, and the impact the website has in first-time visitors may be critical for your business in the new market. So you want to do things right the first time.

There are several issues to be considered before you even contact the professional website translation services provider that will guide you throughout the process.

• Which languages should you translate your website into?

While the response to this question may seem obvious, there are some strategic issues involved.

If you will be targeting a single country, it’s important to know if that country is monolingual. If it’s not, you will have to decide whether your website caters to the speakers of all languages or only to some of them.

If you want to target several countries which speak the same language, will one language version suffice to accommodate them all? If you want to translate your website from German into English to commercialize your products in the Commonwealth, you will have to decide whether to use the same content in all countries or to localize it for each country. More often than not, regional linguistic variations, when addressed to the wrong target   group, may have a detrimental impact on the way potential buyers perceive the brand, and so you may want to take cultural subtleties into account and create several versions.

If you are unsure about what the best strategy would be, website analytics can help you determine which countries users who visit your main website come from. If a large volume of visitors from a given country or who speak a specific language show interest in your product, that market might be worthwhile exploring.

• Should you translate your entire website, or only parts of it?

If your website is very large, perhaps you should start by translating only the information which is more relevant to your target audience, and then keep adding additional content as your business gains momentum in the new market.

• How will you manage updates of your main site?

Do you want all the updates made in your main website to be reflected in the new site? If your site is very dynamic, that might push your translation budget a bit too far, and selective updating could be an option.

• Will you be prepared to communicate with your new customers in their language?

An efficient communication is a key factor for successful business. When your new site comes to life, it will probably generate a communication flow that will need to be attended to. Your new customers will place orders and have requests, and they will need a qualified response at your end... in their language. If you translate your website into English, that’s not likely to be an issue, but if you want to sell your products in India, with 122 major languages (2001 census), things may look a bit different.

• Is your website prepared for the multilingual challenge?

How your website is built can also be an important factor when deciding on the best translation and updating approach. If it integrates a Content Management System (CMS) things will definitely be easier, but to which extent will depend on the specific system used: some come with built-in multilingual capabilities, while others depend on third-party plugins, which can be less reliable. The use of content objects will also facilitate the task of developers and translators alike when maintaining multilingual sites.

If you will be translating into non-Roman alphabets, like Chinese, Georgian, Korean or Arabic, or your new customers use right-to-left alphabets, you will have to use the right encoding (UTF-8, UTF-16, etc.).

Also, you should be prepared to update your SEO approach in line with the new language. Setting up a multilingual and multiregional SEO strategy and deciding the most appropriate domain and URL structure can largely determine the success or failure of your site.

Your IT department will definitely play a critical role in your globalization process, since many new technical issues will have to be dealt with. This task might look overwhelming at first, but all the effort you put into equipping your website with multi-language capabilities will largely pay-off in the future.

There are many other questions which may be relevant when deciding to go multilingual. They will spring up during the process, and each answer will lead to new questions and new solutions. Website globalization is a fascinating and rewarding journey.