As professional translation agency, we are often asked to perform website translation services.  Most of our clients have already asked themselves the question on whether they should actually translate the website.  By the time they call us, they answer is 'yes'. They understand that people prefer to read websites in their own language; even if they are bi-lingual.

However, it becomes more complex and discussions are required on the extent of the translation needed.  Many business websites contain hundreds of thousands of words.  Given that for a traditional human translation, most translation agencies charge based on the number of words; it can get very expensive to translate the whole site.  Therefore, we focus on what should be translated on their site.

Determine what should be translated on your site

For most of our clients' sites, there is no need to translate the whole website.  Like any business decision, start by understanding your objectives.  For example, if your company is sponsoring a tradeshow with international visitors then you could focus on the core brand messages of your site and tradeshow specific pages and marketing collateral.  If you are mining company and you have plans for a JV, then you may need to focus on the specific aspects of that deal.

Human Translation or Machine Translation?

Clients should consider a hybrid model.  A combination of machine translation and human translation should be considered if your business objective requires your whole website to be translated.  A machine translation is where the site is translated automatically without human involvement. One of the most cost effective paths is to use an automated web translation solution that you can load on your site and it will do all of the translation work.  While these tools have improved considerably over the past decade, the results are still not up to standard for critical business website content.  Some translation agencies and translators are zealously opposed to machine translation.  They point to the possibility of offence to the reader, the inaccuracies in the translation and the inability to really capture your brand essence. They are right on many of these points.  However, in some circumstances using the automated tools should be an option. 

Human translations are our method of translating when you have business critical content on your site.  A human translation alone does not guarantee high quality translation.  We have used some translators as part of a well known crowdsourced website, and the machine translation was actually more accurate.  Whether through a machine or a human, a bad translation can be worse than no translation at all.

Consider the use of translation tools 

When the client expects there will be ongoing translation work for the website (which there almost always is), we often recommend the use of translation tools.  For larger corporate clients, there are number of tools that we use to translate and maintain the mulit-lingual website. 

Large websites should use translation memory

Translation memory is highly recommended for clients that have ongoing website translation requirements.  Translation memory captures and stores the words that have been previously translated and then suggests those translations when the same words need to be translated.  This improves efficiency and also the consistency of the brand on your site.

Websites built on a CMS can be managed more easily

When managing the translation and updates to websites, companies that are using Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Joomla, Wordpress or Drupal have a distinct advantage.  They lend themselves to effective translation management.  This is particularly true when using some of the translation modules available for those CMS solutions.

Landing page translation

If you are not translating your whole website, then consider a landing page. A landing page is a webpage that serves as the entry point for the specific targeted language. Using landing pages can dramatically reduce your project schedule to have your website ready for your specific needs.  This can be a very effective strategy when you couple the landing page with multilingual pay per click campaigns (on Google Adwords or Bing) to drive traffic. You are more likely to see results and the be able to change your content and approach based on specific results.

Translation of website and SEO

One of the most often neglected areas when translating a website is taking into account Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).  The rankings of the page on the search engines depend more than the actual text on the page.  The alt text for the pictures, the url, the page title and the meta description can all help determine the where your page shows up in the search results.  You should discuss this as part of any website translation project.

Adam Hodgson