Translating your website is much more complex than it might appear at a glance. It becomes obvious how serious this process is when we consider that a poorly translated website can have a very negative impact on promoting your brand and your overall business in the foreign market you’re targeting.
This is why you should observe the following several common missteps when translating your website:
Translating absolutely everything on your website
On of the most common mistakes people make when translating their web page is that they translate absolutely all of the content. If you’re asking yourself “Isn’t that the point of translating your website?”, bear in mind that this process is relatively slow and that some of the content, such as blog posts, for example, might not be suitable for the targeted market. The “About us” page should usually be completely rewritten in order to suit the target market.
Therefore, before you start translating your website, you should first carefully select the content that will be interesting to the country you are presenting in. That way you will save money and make sure your website is interesting to potential clients.
Using automated translation for your website
If your budget for website translation is limited, free tools such as Google Translate might seem very appealing. However, although it’s true that automated translations are improving from year to year, it’s still not completely reliable and you will get a translation riddled with errors.
In addition, automated translation tools can’t localize your content and adjust it to the mentality of the region you’re addressing, but offers purely literal translations of the words. This feature is actually something you can only get by hiring a professional and skilled translator who will take into account all cultural differences and specificities of the target region when translating.
Multilingual SEO
If your potential clients can’t find your website in search results, they will never reach it. Maybe you’re already well-positioned in your home region, but the same won’t apply abroad, in the international market.
Moreover, depending on the target market, you may need to optimize your website for search engines other than the most popular Google.
What does this mean?
It means that you have to translate all the meta tags and alt descriptions into the target language. Also, certain markets demand that you also optimize your website for voice searches in the foreign language in order to make your website more accessible to everyone.
Forms and supporting channels are not translated
If you’ve forgotten to translate your order forms, then all the effort and funds you invested into the conversion will probably be wasted. The potential buyers simply won’t understand what they need to input into every field because they won’t be able to understand the forms.
On the other hand, you will definitely also use social networks as a way to communicate with your customers and advertise to them in your marketing endeavors. Don’t forget that all of that content should also be translated to the language if its target audience.
These are only some of the frequent mistakes made when translating websites. In order to make sure that your internet presentation really reaches your audience in the best way, call our Alfa prevod translating agency, and we will make sure that your website says exactly what your potential buyers in the foreign market want to hear.
