Website Translation Services
Accurately Translating Your Website and Other Content into the Language of Your Target Market Audience
Translation, and in particular website translation, plays a big part in international marketing and is a key part of website localisation. It is vital so your website can be found and understood by your export market audience. A high quality translation is also a great way to show your prospects and customers your commitment to them.
aber wenn du mir etwas verkaufst, musst du Deutsch sprechen” […but if you are selling something to me, you must speak German]
Willy Brandt made this statement well before the Internet and was only referring to the need for German language to support the sales conversation. Today, of course, search engines make this need to have a native language website even more urgent, as a foreign language website will not be seen as relevant to a search done in the market’s native language. And when it comes to translation, quality is key: A bad quality website translation will reflect negatively on your company image and your overall attitude to quality and your customers. In contrast, a good professional translation shows you value quality and your customers. A really good translation, or for marketing purposes often transcreation, will persuade and convince your customers.
Website translation and SEO
And last but not least, a professional SEO-optimised translation will ensure that native speakers looking for your kind of products and services can easily find your website in their market. Content and in particular text content is critical for any website: Search engines use the quality and substance of website content to make a decision on how relevant and interesting a website is in relation to a topic searched. Equally website visitors make decisions on how long they stay and to what extent they engage with the website based on content.
Therefore, our website translation services typically also include international and/or multilingual SEO. This means we will perform keyword research for the target market and target language and select focus keywords per page for inclusion in the translation of on-page content. In addition we recommend to translate and/or transcreate metadata, e.g. titles, descriptions, alt-tags etc. – all with close attention paid to selected keywords. The result is a SEO optimised translation of your content.
Translation of other documents and texts
In addition to website translation, we also provide translation services for other documents and texts relating to your business, e.g. translation or transcreation of your marketing materials, such as brochures for trade-shows or technical information, such as handbooks or manuals. SEO considerations are typically less important here, but may also apply, if the documents are made available online. In addition to translation services, we also provide interpreting services, i.e. translation of spoken language, e.g. for client meetings, training sessions, trade shows etc.
Translators, languages, and translation tools
As an IT professional, I am also a strong believer in the use of suitable technology to aid the translation process, where possible and appropriate. Unfortunately, machine translation is typically not suitable yet for website translation. However, where possible our translators use appropriate technology that improve quality and efficiency of the translation and localisation process. One such example is the use of SDL Trados Studio and its translation memory and terminology management software. In some cases, we also leverage machine translation tools to speed up the translation process. However, it should be noted that this is just a tool in the translation process – only suited for selected translation scenarios and only suited in combination with post-editing and post-MT quality assurance processes.
