You are an entrepreneur and you want to make your business or your idea grow. To achieve this, one of the first steps is seeking new business and commercial activity in international markets, so your company website becomes the virtual headquarters of your business worldwide. A huge potential market opens before your eyes, but … did you ever stop to think what your website needs to be truly effective in selling your idea or product? Have you ever wondered how to stand out from your competition? Have you ever considered translating your website professionally?

It is crucial to count on the work of professional translators or a translation company that can provide you with a comprehensive service: either in China, the United States, Germany, Russia, Great Britain or Brazil, the work is, basically, an adaptation work (or, as we call it in the industry, localization), not only a translation work into the target culture. Taking into account the differences and features of the target market will definitely be essential when succeeding in the internationalization strategy you will follow, so it is not enough if you give the translation work to that cousin who spent three months doing an English course in London or make use of the dangerous Google Translator. You need your company conveys professionalism and high quality, and that’s not going to happen if you do not count on a team of professional translators.

To avoid getting lost on the way, it is essential to keep a few keys in mind so you can be clear about what you should pursue when internationalizing your business and, specifically, what you have to think about when translating your website, the cornerstone of your business.

1. The benefits from translating your website.

A professional translation of your website is critical for a SEO strategy in other languages and, consequently, in other search engines. Thus, your new prospects will be able to find you through the accurate and appropriate terminology, and you can be sure that your content is naturally indexed and adapted to the different target languages. In addition, it is much easier and quicker to obtain results from your internationalization strategy, as customers you address your business to will empathize with a content which is written in their own language. With all this in mind, your business opportunities will obviously be increased, as your prospect market will exponentially grow and your sales opportunities will be drastically increased.

Let’s see a business case: Alcazaba Premium Hostel, one of our local customers. This is a boutique hostel we made a multilingual website translation into 9 languages for, each of which including its corresponding cultural adaptation based on the prospect in the target language. So, while we use “Malaga” on the Spanish website, in other languages we preferably speak of “the capital of Costa del Sol” referring to our city, which is a more natural and popular way of mentioning our area in the international sphere.

2. The technical features of your website structure.

If computing is not your strong point, you might not even have asked yourself this question but it is essential to know how your website is structured before thinking about making a professional translation. Is your website made in HTML? Do you use a CMS to manage your website content? A CMS or Content Management System is a tool or web interface that gives you access to your website content and allows you to access and configure tags, links, image uploads and general configuration issues. If you do not know, you can ask your programmer or use tools like Builtwith, which lets you find out how you website was structured.

Traducción web: Aspectos técnicos

If your site is made on HTML, it will be easy. Just download the HTML files and send them to the professional translator so he/she can translate them. In our case (always under your permission and authorized access) we can access your website and extract and return them to your site once translated. When doing this, there are many technical issues to consider: not only the content at first glance is to be translated, but also other texts such as image descriptions, interface items (buttons, banners, form fields, etc. .), policies and legal notices, the sitemap, etc.), so it is mandatory to count on a professional advice. There is a world of code and information behind any website, however simple it may seem.

If your website has a CMS, it will be likely to being one of these 4: WordPress, Joomla, Prestashop or Drupal. Each one with its own system for including translations, either by adding plug-ins (like WordPress) or with a built-in standard functionality (like Joomla, for example).

With a CMS on your website, you have several options:

a) exporting the translatable content of your website to XLIFF, PO, XML or CSV files that we will translate and return when translated into the respective languages so you can re-import them quickly, so you will have your website localized and translated with a tiny effort. As a business case, we can mention the Malaga Thyssen Museum website, whose technical team we meet to define their needs and to coordinate the content export that we translated and adapted into English;

b) translating directly on the CMS, so we will require access to work directly on the content on all the languages you may need. Regarding the business cases again… this is what we did with Promalaga website, for which we took care of adapting their content directly on their CMS.

c) mixing options a) and b), allowing our technical team to be in charge of exporting and importing of files, as well as of the adaptation and translation process itself. We will only need some keys to access your CMS and, everything will be ready with zero effort on your side!

3. Your website content for other markets: text selection and adaptation

Because not everything you have on your website in your language is going to work fine in other markets. An example? The country-specific legal notices or product return terms, in the case of an online business. Or less obvious and more commercial issues, like having a bikini section on a website designed to work in Greenland. What would be the sense of it? Therefore, in order to fine-tune your internationalization strategy and (why not) to reduce the cost only to the accurate and necessary; choose well what you are going to translate. If it is not necessary or if it does not have a purpose in other international market, do not translate it. Focus your efforts and your budget in the right content or, also, do it gradually: translate the content into different languages progressively, depending on how you are implementing your first steps in internationalization. Or translates firstly the products or sections that will work best commercially. Think carefully about your business strategy and seek the relationship to your website content, and keep on going step by step. Or you can also ask us for advice in your internationalization strategy so this can be as effective as thoughtful.

Traducción web: Adaptación de textos

4. Use professional translation company services.

Although this may seem obvious, it is difficult to understand. Because speaking a language does not mean you know how to translate it. Because, in order to translate and localize (write it so people can understand it, not only linguistically, but also culturally) with high quality standards you need to count on professional translators who know the culture and the prospect, than can understand how your target market works and that have the language skills required to write content with the right tone and style and take your business strategy to success. That is selling. Something simple in the appearance but complicated in the background. From our translation company in Malaga, Seville or Madrid we can help you out in several ways:

a) Through a detailed analysis of your website and an budget fit to the exact needs of your internationalization strategy, no less no more;
b) By applying timely delivery deadlines adapted to your publishing needs;
c) With a project manager dedicated to your website in charge of leading the technical and language team and the quality of the entire project;
d) With an adaptation and translation made by native translators, who are specialized in your work area, whatever this may be;
e) With a testing of the final website content, so you can be sure that everything looks as it should and is readable and understandable for any final user.

As we have seen, there are many issues implied in a good internationalization strategy and many implications in a professional high quality website translation that must be taken into account. So call us and tell us your needs: we are sure that, thanks to our experience and background, we can help and guide you. In our translation company we can help you make your business be a success here and in any part of the globe!