Translation and interpreting

The world of e-commerce is changing at an incredible pace. Social media and search engine optimisation (SEO) are now a central part of any marketing strategy. That’s why it is vital that your website presence is consistent and fully optimised across your global operations.

At Capita TI we understand that it’s not simply a case of translating the words into another language; it’s all about getting the tone, style and messages right.

It’s also important to address customers and prospects in a way that both enhances the brand and meets the growth and development strategy in each country. What works in one country won’t always work in another. That’s why we take account of the cultural framework and emerging trends and vocabularies in each country where our customers have an online presence. This ensures that our customers always appear relevant, up to date and totally natural when engaging with their audiences.

to successfully globalising your websitesteps

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Following these 10 tips will help you to increase international traffic to your website and grow your business:

Analyse your target market

Success begins with knowing

your market. Market analysis

should start by asking (and

answering) the following

questions:

• What geographic markets are

you targeting?

• Who is your target customer?

• What languages do they speak?

• What market opportunities

exist for which your company

has a product or solution?

Identifying the characteristics

and needs of your market

segments will help you

understand their specific needs

and define any keywords and

specific content to use to

connect, engage and interact

with your target audience.

Research keywords

For each identified market,

you need to build a list of

relevant keywords – i.e.

the words and phrases that

people in your target market

use when looking for your

type of product or service .

This really should be carried

out by a native speaker with a

good knowledge of SEO, who

understands the target market

and the specific search habits

of each country or region.

Often, a direct translation of

an English keyword will not

be appropriate to use in your

target language – so take

some time to get this right.

Select the site structure

There are key three ways to

structure a multilingual site.

You can:

1) Purchase country-specific

domains and set up

separate websites

2) Use sub-domains for

each country

3) Use subdirectories for

each country

If your international marketing

is country-specific, then we

recommend that your site be

structured firstly by location

and secondly by language.

If you plan to market to

all speakers of a particular

language irrespective of their

location, then you may only

need to incorporate language

translations into your site

architecture.

Choose the content

The content you publish for your international

audience should be designed to meet the

specific needs of your market and directed by

the results of your market analysis and keyword

research. What service are they looking for?

How do they talk about your solutions? Much

of the content will be similar to the content

you provide for your English-language visitors.

However, a few new content pages will

probably be required based upon the specific

market and language requirements.

Geo-target using Webmaster Tools

Take advantage of technology. By using

Google’s Webmaster Tools, site owners

can select settings that inform Google

that certain content is meant for users

in particular countries. This is a fairly

straightforward process if you have set

up multiple country-specific sites. It’s a

little trickier if you have chosen to use

subdirectories or subdomains. In this case,

you have to establish each subdirectory

or subdomain as a separate “site” within

Webmaster Tools. Take a look at the Google

site for more details.

Translation and interpreting

6 75 8Use a professional translator

If you are serious about

marketing to an international

audience, employing a

professional translation

provider to localise your web

content is essential. Although

using free translation services

might be quick, they can often

return text that is incorrect

to a native reader. Search

engines are increasingly able

to pick up on this as they can

mark your content as spam

and blacklist your site from

search results.

Don’t forget to localise the content and designIn addition to language

translation, be aware of the

effect of cultural differences

on language and web

design. For example, content

translated into Spanish may

need to be localised for each

Spanish-speaking country of

Latin America. People can

spot a non localised site in

seconds and it is proven to

put them off spending time

on a website. Also, site design

elements are very different

in Asian countries to those

typical of Western sites. Be

aware that localised text can

increase or decrease by up

to 20% depending on the

language, which may impact

on your design templates.

Optimise the content

By this point, you’re hopefully

ready to launch your

multilingual content. So now

it needs to be optimised! The

process of optimising sites for

international search results

isn’t a great deal different from

optimising sites in English.

Optimisation is all about

using keywords that attract

traffic. This is how most major

search engines rank results.

It is advisable to use the

services of an experienced SEO

professional in each country to

give you the added advantage

of insider knowledge, on how

to deploy these keywords

correctly within your page text

and title tags.

On your marks, get set, get your staff ready to go

Don’t forget to brief your

staff about your new

venture so they know

what’s happening. Make

sure you have enough

people on site who can

speak the target language

to respond to all the foreign

language enquiries.

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Good luck.

in touchGetFind out more about how partnering with Capita TI gives you the assurance of quality, global reach and trusted delivery on time, every time by visiting:

www.capitatranslationinterpreting.com

Tel (UK): +44 (0) 845 367 7000 Tel (US): +1 (800) 579-5010

or contact Capita at enquiries@capita-ti.com

Don’t just translate – localise!

Another way of informing Google and other

international search engines that your content is

targeted at a particular country is to acquire ‘links’

from existing sites from that country. The more links

you acquire, the more likely you will be to rank highly

in that country’s search engine results. However, be

warned, you need to be choosy about who you link to.

Links from low quality websites or links that you have

paid for could damage your site rather than boost it.

However, the very best way to acquire valuable links

is to produce high quality, engaging content in your

website so users will want to link to it naturally. If your

content is genuinely interesting and informative, they

will naturally share it amongst their online audiences.

So consider using a professional copywriter who can

make your content stand out.

10Get your links in order