Website Translation and Localization: Misconceptions
In today’s digital era, the internet has rapidly become the single most popular medium for searching information. As a result, businesses operating in multicultural markets must now modify their websites to meet the diverse linguistic needs of their entire client base. These modifications, which will transform them into “multilingual websites,” utilize services for website translation and language localization, and they are becoming a growing necessity in the world of commerce.
However, the purpose of this post is to dispel a few misconceptions that many people have about website translation services. Many tend to overlook the complex and time-consuming efforts required to accurately produce a translated website that will satisfy foreign clients and attract their business.
Here are three fundamental misconceptions to glance:
- A translation agency can provide a quote and perform the translation using just the URL of the website.
- In reality, the site’s structure and the platform used to store the content must be taken into account. Agencies need to be able to extract content through different tools. Different workflows will be required if the translation agency receives .html files than if it extracts content from a Content Management System (CMS).
- Translating keywords into different languages will enhance the effectiveness of SEO for my multilingual website.
- Keywords rarely translate smoothly, and might not be the phrase of choice for searching in the target culture. One must recreate the keywords in the target language using experienced native speakers who understand the meaning behind the original keyword and have the experience to research for equivalent keywords.
- Using machine translation will suffice when translating my website (or any document, for that matter).
- Using professional human translators should always be part of a marketing translation services project to ensure quality, proper brand management, and show respect to all your audiences and their language preference. Machine translation has come a long way, but it should always be controlled and aided by the expertise of expert linguists. These engines often produce awkward grammar and phrasing that appear unprofessional from a client’s perspective.
When advertising and marketing your company’s products and/or services in global markets, the best approach is to plan and devote enough time to determine your needs. There are several key elements to consider when creating a multilingual version of a site from an existing one or when planning to develop an entirely new multilingual site.
Those elements can be grouped into four main categories:
- Audience
- Budget
- Translation process
- Technical Considerations
Defining Your Website Translation Audience
The planning phase for a website translation and localization project is crucial. Evaluating all essential elements during planning will help the project run smoothly, stay within budget, and meet expectations and goals.
In this translation post, we will cover a vital planning component: identifying and understanding your Audience for your website translation project.
Think About Your Audience:
As previously mentioned, it is crucial to understand your audience when performing a translation, and this is even more important when dealing with website translation and localization.
Who will visit your site, and why they will visit your site, are the two questions to consider when planning a successful multilingual website. It is essential to take the time to conduct thorough research on your target clientele. Understanding the cultural nuances of each desired market will give you a competitive edge, as customers will find your website reliable and appealing.
Take into account the following:
- What countries are you going to target and why? What languages are you going to have on your website?
- When it comes to a particular language with different locales, such as Spanish, French, Chinese, or Portuguese, you must decide whether you want to address a global population (global reach) or speak to a specific region or locale (doing language localization).
For example, targeting Mexicans and Spaniards would require either two distinct versions of Spanish websites or one carefully crafted website that accommodates both countries’ cultural, etiquette, and linguistic differences, such as the spelling of words and word usage. The word ” Cost” is spelled as “Costo” in Latin America and “Coste” in Spain. The first time I encountered “coste” in a text, I thought it was a misspelling.
- Do you want to address your target audience in a casual or formal manner? This factor is essential and varies according to cultures, the nature of your products/services, and how you want to approach your prospect customers.
Establishing the Budget for Website Translation Services
Work on setting an appropriate budget for success:
The elements mentioned below impact your costs, strategy, and work time when introducing a new translated and localized website.
- Do you need a partial translation or the translation of the complete site? Some clients opt for a partial translation, eliminating sections that are not necessary to the new language, such as events, job postings, or other sections of the site that are specific to the source language or the original audience.
- Is the content of your site static, or does your company constantly update it with new pages? The frequency of content updates to your site is a critical element to manage, ensuring you have sufficient funds for ongoing maintenance of the multilingual website.
- How many languages will you include for the multilingual translation? Will you have different locales for languages (e.g., French translation: French for Europe, Africa, or Canadian French Translation)? Sometimes it is better to start with fewer languages and learn from the process before implementing the next set. Do not give in to “get-it-done-quick” temptations by using a non-revised option, such as Google Translate or low-quality services, to reach a wider audience with a lower cost. Many companies fall victim to this trap, tarnishing their image and reputation. Online translation services are an investment in the opportunity to present your products and services to new potential customers.
- Your budgeting must account for expected IT work. The structure, navigation, and storage of the translated content on your website’s platform must be determined and may require revising the activities involved.
- Will your company offer customer support for the new languages? If you publish content in Spanish for your new potential clients, you can expect to receive phone calls from customers who need to communicate in Spanish.
Planning the Translation Process for your Website
Once you have compiled relevant information and made decisions about your audience and budget, you will need to discuss the workflow and details for translating its content.
Time to think about the workflow and translation process:
To achieve significant results, you must work with professional translators and linguist editors, localization engineers, and project managers with years of experience in website localization. People like the team at JR Language’s website localization group, who have experience selecting the best workflow for content extraction, managing the technical settings and elements, International SEO, researching keywords and competitors in new markets, and possess a deep linguistic understanding of the target culture.
- Aim to find an experienced translation agency that can help, advise, and support your company effort during the localization of your content to different markets and languages. For your website to resonate with your localized audience, it must speak the local language and create copy that reads as if it were originally written for that audience.
- Localize your website appearance and metrics. The images, currency, and overall message must be appropriately adapted for the new audience. Additionally, different cultures expect different features from a website, based on what is customary in their culture. Try to maintain the overall look and feel of your original site, if possible, by retaining the same colors and style that your company has established as its brand.
- All the graphics and multimedia elements need to be localized. Graphic translation, subtitling, and voiceovers of videos are essential for the overall user experience.
- When translating your website into other languages, text expansion is a common problem to address during implementation. Plan for this growth by leaving extra white space or enabling text boxes to expand automatically. For example, in German and Spanish, the translated text is approximately 20%-30% longer than in English. Your webmaster may need to adjust the layout to accommodate the proper display of fonts and text.
Translation and localization are the core processes that impact the success of your new multilingual site. If you have any ideas or concerns about the translation process during website localization planning, please leave a comment, email us at info@jrlanguage.com, or call to speak with one of our experienced project managers, who specialize in website translation.
Planning the Technical Aspects of the Website Translation
Technical requirements are essential components that must be considered in advance. After determining the preferences that best suit your business, you can be confident in achieving outstanding results with your newly localized, multilingual website.
Think about the technical decisions:
- Site structure, platform or CMS use, URL naming, Pages to include, Forms, and navigation are key elements to consider before planning the localization of the site.
- How will you host the translated version of the site: on a new domain, subdomain, or subfolder? They all work differently, depending on your objectives and the platform where you host your site (be aware of the limitations and implications of each option).
- How will you navigate from one language to another?
- Will you use a written text link for the language choices, or would you prefer to use images of national flags?
- Will your user be directed to the main page upon selecting a different language, or will they be directed to the respective page where the language selection occurred?
- How about the URL structure? There are different URL naming options in the target language that use specific extensions to help users and crawlers identify the language in multilingual websites.
Examples: “en”=English and “es”= Spanish (Español)
https://jrlanguage.com/en/ translation-content.html
https://jrlanguage.com/es/ translation-content.html
https://www.en.jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://www.es.jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://jrlanguage.com/contenido-de- traduccion.html - Selecting the format of the working files and how to exchange content with the translation agency.
- How will you supply the material to be translated: MS Word, HTML, XML, PHP, JSON or others file types
- Which of the above formats will be more convenient for your IT staff to receive the translated files
- Revise your existing Content Management System (CMS). Look for answers to the question of structure and best practices to incorporate the translated content.
- Website localization quality assurance and testing are perhaps the most critical steps, as they are vital to thoroughly proofreading and testing your website before it is made public. Always double-check connections, navigation, and correct sequence within each language. By carefully reviewing the new site, you avoid the embarrassment of faulty navigation within your site that can render all of your efforts towards a multilingual page useless.
To market globally, you must pause and ask yourself several key questions to ensure success in planning and executing a website localization project. Fortunately, there are translation agencies, such as JR Language, with the experience and expertise to guide you in partnership and facilitate this complex process for you and your organization.
JR Language team of localization engineers has worked in multiple website translation projects. They have years of expertise under their belt to guide and advise on the best approach for your website translation projects, based on your website platform, languages, and requirements. All of our translated content is edited and proofread independently after translation to ensure that your localized content appears original and attractive towards all your target markets when displayed on your site.
Quoting a Website Translation Project
Where to Start?
Getting your website translated can seem like an intimidating prospect, filled with questions and tasks that you are unfamiliar with. Or it may seem like a breeze; you just hand the translation company your URL and tell them what target language you want, right? Not that simple.
Below, we will detail how quoting a website translation project is neither of those situations. It’s not as simple as sending a URL, but it doesn’t have to be complex either if the language provider has the necessary information. You will need to discuss your needs, goals, and scope of translation with the translation agency so they can assess your project and provide a quote tailored to your requirements and expectations. During the needs assessments, they will also advise you on options and recommendations to follow, as well as what you need to provide to obtain an accurate website translation quote.
JR Language is a translation company that believes in educating current and prospective clients to make the website translation quoting process more manageable and smoother. Whether you require a budgetary estimate or a firm quote, we will work closely with you throughout the assessment process to produce a proposal tailored to your company’s specific requirements.
We aim first to understand your needs and goals, including any budget limitations and previous experience with developing multilingual content, to plan a successful website translation project.
It takes time and effort to produce a fine multilingual website that reads and appears as if it was first written in the target language. Every business owner deserves top-tier translation services; however, proper planning and an adequate exchange of information are the key to success.
Let’s review what the client needs and what the translators require. We’ll expose some misconceptions and replace them with good advice.
Website Translation Assessment: Questions and Answers(here)
A website localization project takes time for evaluation and planning. After all the decisions are made, you need time for the actual creation of the multilingual site. That includes the translation of content and the implementation of that new content on the multilingual site.
It takes time evaluating the project since there are several elements to consider before your translation agency can create a quote. They will need to understand your requirements in detail and study your website to be able to offer a quote or quotes according to the options available.
Some companies come with all the parameters ready, others need to ponder the factors and options to decide on the information to quote. Some companies are in a more mature stage and have an idea of deadline, budget, and content that needs translation, others are in an exploratory mode looking for more information.
JR Language has collected the best questions and answers on making a multilingual website.
What Is the Language Market? What is Your Target Audience?
Let’s say you want your website translated into Chinese. We need to know your target country if you do not know specifically if you need translations into Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese.
It may not seem important to get so detailed when getting a website translation quote, but it is. JR Language localizes your content and suits it to the dialect and culture of your market. Different answers to this question can produce very different results and different prices since different language pairs have different costs. For example, translations from English into Spanish are less expensive than translations from English into Traditional Chinese.
The language used also makes the project more complex when it comes to fonts and time for testing. Languages like Arabic involve RTL considerations for the display of content.
What are the Deadline and Budget?
These are essential factors that the translation agency must know to quote your website translation project. It saves time and money when you have a firm idea of when you need the work completed and what you can spend. You may find that time or budgetary concerns necessitate a change of strategy or that you can afford more than you thought. There is a big difference between a single language job on a thirty-page all-text website and a website to be translated into multiple languages, plus e-commerce, videos, images, and PDF’s.
Time for completion is also important to know, since the translation company needs to have that information to plan for the teams they will need to be involved in the website translation project. If there is a time limitation that might impact the way the project will be planned and executed, that needs to be known. Also, do you need all the languages present at the same time or you are going to work in phases?
What Is the Project’s Scope?
Consider what content and pages you want included on your translated website. Will it contain all the pages and features of the original? This can mean videos, graphics, blogs, career section, newsletters, etc. You don’t want to over or underestimate the amount of material to be translated and thus waste time and money.
There are choices to be made about how certain elements should be handled, like captions versus subtitles for video translation. This can make the translated site look very different from the original, as culture and locale exert great influence on images, video, and the general content and look of the site. Be flexible and open to evaluate options to learn more about the options and make the best decisions for your company and website.
Work with a professional and experienced translation company that will help you keep your company’s unique brand authentic wherever it goes.
What Is the Workflow for the Multilingual Website Project?
The client and the translation company need to be sure of the other party’s expectations as well as their own. A website translation project is a multi-stage process where everyone needs to understand their role and the methods and tools they will use. Is the plan to send files between the translation agency and the client via email? Is there a collaborative platform or content management system (CMS) involved? Which people at the client company are supposed to review the material? Who is going to handle the technical aspects of the website? There is more than the translation of content in the implementation of a multilingual site.
How Will We Handle Data?
What kind of website do you need translated? How was the website created or what CMS is going to be used to create it? Does it have e-commerce, or maybe translation for social media needs to be included? What language is the code written in html? Is it a CMS WordPress, Drupal, or Magento?
Answers to all these questions are important since they add tasks and complexity or offer solutions to the project. JR Language can accommodate different file types and code languages, but we need to know which ones the client uses and if any files should be converted to another type.
If a client only provides the URL, a translation agency can extract some information with a crawler. A crawler is software that enters a website and sifts through it for specified information. A crawler is a helpful tool for quoting a multilingual website, but if the client provides a list of files, that is ideal.
The Next Steps
As in any project of any kind, planning and anticipating activities go a long way toward the successful execution of the project. Establishing a solid base for cost, responsibilities, timeline of activities, and time for completion is essential for website translation.
Use these guidelines to help your business get an accurate website translation quote. Preparing this information before approaching a translation company will also serve you well as the project progresses. You’ll establish a working rapport with the translation agency and save time, money, and effort with superior results, fine-tuned to your market, their culture, and your industry.
