There are so many blogs out there offering advice on how to create a multilingual website (and you’ll find plenty here too), but few offer relevant advice on what not to do when creating a multilingual website.
Having a multilingual website can help drive sales, promote your products or services, build brand trust, and maintain positive communications with clients, but only when it is professionally translated and localized.
Grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, poorly localized content which is inappropriate for a local audience, or low-quality translations, can all spell disaster for a company making its first foray into a new, overseas market.
However, these are just the tip of the iceberg.
The following tips show what not to do when creating a multilingual website…
1. Do Not Forget to Localize Content
Translation is only the first step in creating a multilingual website.
If you translate your website, your new target audience will be able to understand the language and access content, but your site will lack the depth of a website which has been created specifically for that particular audience.
A recent Statista survey highlights some of the issues which consumers face when accessing translated websites or Apps but with localization, many of these issues are easily surmounted.
Localization is an in-depth adaption which considers factors such as;
• Currency – customers prefer to make purchases in their native currency
• Images – your website users prefer to see familiar landmarks, people, cultures, and so on
• Colour – colour choices are important and influence and impact those viewing your site
• Weights and measures – customers can appreciate products more, and make informed buying choices, if they understand the relevant information linked to products
• Regional dialects – adapting language for a particular audience is essential in creating a positive brand image
• Logo and taglines – sometimes logos and taglines don’t translate well. Localizing these ensures your message remains intact and relevant, without any risk of causing offence
• Formatting – formatting address, phone number, contact us forms, and so on, ensures that customers are able to fully interact with your site without any issues
• Layout and Design – different text/reading directions (left-to-right or right-to-left), and text expansion or contraction upon translation, can have a huge impact on the visual layout of a website so localizing these elements is vital for an improved user experience
2. Do Not Think Multilingual Websites are a DIY Task
It is always tempting, especially for smaller businesses, to try to save money by performing a D0-It-Yourself job on various tasks.
However, when it comes to translation, localization, and multilingual websites, a DIY job is rarely as successful as a professional one.
This is because language is a fickle thing; it adapts to societal changes yet links us to our traditions, alters our emotions yet centres us in our thoughts, and unless you fully understand a particular culture, and are fluent in the language, you’re unlikely to be able to do it justice when it comes to translating.
Professional translation and localization are more expensive than a DIY translation but well worth every cent and you’ll get a better ROI.
3. Do Not Choose the Wrong Language Services Provider
It’s clear from the above section that using a professional Language Services Provider (LSP) is preferable, and more successful, than doing it yourself when it comes to translating content for your multilingual website.
But choosing the wrong LSP can also be detrimental to your multilingual website.
This is because the choosing the wrong LSP can limit your ability to access the right expertise – slowing down project turnaround time, reducing accuracy, and increasing costs.
However, choosing the right LSP with whom to partner for your translation project will give you access to specialist linguists in your preferred language(s), industry experts capable of giving a relevant and high accuracy translations, and native speaking translators with an in-depth understanding of the culture, people and society.
The right LSP for your multilingual website will also offer additional tools which can save time and money on future translation projects such as, glossaries, computer aided translation memory, design experts, native language copywriters, and so on.
At Creative Word, we only work with native speaking linguists and offer translation in over 80 languages, so we’re sure we can help with your next translation project – simply contact us here for an informal chat.
Alternatively, more information about creating multilingual websites, translation, or localization can be found by clicking the links.
