Essential Preparation Tips for Website Translation Services

Website Translation and Localization: Misconceptions

In today’s digital era, the internet is the 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,” are why the use of translation and localization services is becoming increasingly necessary in the world of commerce.

However, the purpose of this post is to dispel a few misconceptions about website translation services. Many overlook the complex, time-consuming effort required to produce a translated website that will satisfy foreign clients and attract their business.

Here are three fundamental misconceptions to glance:

1. A translation agency can provide a quote and perform the translation using only the website URL.
   • In reality, the site’s structure and the platform used to store the content must be considered. Translation 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) or automates the extraction process.
2. Translating keywords into different languages will enhance SEO effectiveness on 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 equivalent keywords.
3. 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 respect for your audiences and their language preferences. Machine translation has come a long way and can be used for website translation projects, but it should always be reviewed and refined by expert linguists. Using AI Translation can reduce costs and improve delivery speed, but a linguist should review it, as it often produces awkward grammar and phrasing that can appear unprofessional to users.

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 website translation project’s audience.

Think About Your Audience:

As previously mentioned, it is crucial to understand your audience when performing translation, especially in website translation and localization.

Who will visit your site and why they will visit it 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 audience (global reach) or speak to a specific region or locale (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 word spelling and usage. The word “Cost” is spelled “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 casually or formally? This factor is essential and varies by culture, the nature of your products/services, and how you want to approach your prospective customers.

Establishing the Budget for Website Translation Services

Work on setting an appropriate budget for success:

The elements listed below affect your costs, strategy, and time when introducing a new, translated, and localized website.

1. 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 in the new language, such as events, job postings, or other site sections specific to the source language or the original audience.
2. Is the content on your site static, or does your company constantly update old pages and add new ones? 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.
3. 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 at 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.
4. Your budget 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.
5. 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 linguistic 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.

1. Select a trusted and experienced translation company. Aim to find a professional translation agency that can help, advise, and support your company’s 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.
2. 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.
3. All the graphics and multimedia elements need to be localized. Graphic translation, subtitling, and video voiceovers are essential to the overall user experience.
4. Prepare for changes in the space your content occupies on the page. When translating your website into other languages, text expansion and contraction are typical issues 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 ensure proper font display.

Translation and localization are the core processes that impact the success of your new multilingual site. If you have any questions 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 you will achieve outstanding results with your newly localized, multilingual website.

Review technical decisions and select your options:

1. Site structure, platform or CMS use, URL naming, Pages to include, Forms, and navigation are key elements to consider before planning the site’s localization.
2. 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 you use to host your site (be aware of the limitations and implications of each option).
3. How will you navigate from one language to another?
4. Will you use a written text link for the language choices, or would you prefer to use images of national flags?
5. Will your user be directed to the main page when selecting a different language, or to the page where the language selection occurred?
6. 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)

1. Selecting the format of the working files and how to exchange content with the translation agency.
2. How will you supply the material to be translated: MS Word, HTML, XML, PHP, JSON, or other file types
3. Which of the above formats will be more convenient for your IT staff to receive the translated files?
4. Revise your existing Content Management System (CMS). Look for answers to the question of structure and best practices to incorporate the translated content.
5. 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 the correct sequence within each language to ensure a good experience for your website users.
6. By carefully reviewing the new site, you avoid the embarrassment of faulty navigation that can diminish all of your efforts towards a multilingual site.

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.

The JR Language’s localization engineering team has worked on multiple website translation projects of diverse levels of complexity. They have years of experience 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 to all your target markets.

Quoting a Website Translation Project

Where to Start?

Getting your website translated can seem like an intimidating prospect, filled with questions and unfamiliar tasks. Or it may seem like a breeze; you 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 translation scope with the translation agency so they can assess your project and provide a quote tailored to your requirements and expectations. During the needs assessment, they will also advise you on options and recommendations, 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 constraints and prior experience 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 were first written in the target language. Every business owner deserves top-tier translation services; however, proper planning and adequate information exchange are the keys to success.

Let’s review what the client needs and what the team executing the multilingual website project requires. We’ll expose some misconceptions and replace them with good advice.

Website Translation Assessment:

Your Questions and Essential Answers for your Multilingual Website

A website localization project takes time for evaluation and planning. After all the decisions are made, you need time to create the multilingual site. That includes translating content and implementing it on the multilingual site.

It takes time to evaluate the project, as there are several elements to consider before your translation agency can provide a quote. They will need to understand your requirements in detail and study your website to provide a quote or quotes based on the available options.

Some companies looking to localize their site come with all the parameters ready; others need to discuss options to provide information for a quote. Some companies are in a more mature stage and have clear ideas about deadlines, budgets, and content that needs translation, while others are in an exploratory mode, seeking advice and consulting. Regardless of your stage, our translation agency is here to assist you.

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, and if you do not know specifically, whether 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 yield very different results and prices, as different language pairs have varying costs. For example, translations from English into Spanish are less expensive than translations from English into Traditional Chinese. On the other hand, Japanese translations are even more costly.

The language used also makes the project more complex when it comes to fonts and time for testing. Languages like Arabic and Hebrew involve RTL (Right-to-Left) display considerations for the way readers will use the new 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 may impact how the project is planned and executed, it needs to be known. Also, do you need all the languages to be present at the same time, or will you work in phases?

What Is the Project’s Scope?

• Do you need a subset of the pages for translation?
• Do you need the blog?
• Do you have forms with emails to produce?
• Does your company have a chart and an e-commerce site with products? Do you need all the products?

Consider the content and pages you want to include 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.