Website Translation - Mistakes To Avoid

By Author: shreyagupta
Total Articles: 50
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Despite numerous advancements and examples, companies tend to forget that websites are not just a tick in their marketing or communication boxes. When they pick a translation agency they should consider website translation service with the focus and unique treatment it direly needs.

Those who still handle them in a cursory way, bring the same careless approach for translation.

But it can cost a business precious time, dialogue, connection, web traffic, and sales conversions when it makes the mistake of either not paying attention to website translation service or worse, doing it in a wrong way.

Here’s what can go messy:
Translating websites but not tuning them in a target market domain or sub-domain for a region-specific website.
Giving prospective customers a feel that even though the website has been translated it does not really care about the respect and differences that should exist in an ideal world of marketers connecting with the customer.
Doing complete translations where time and money are wasted on sections that do not necessarily need a local touch.
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... Doing incomplete translations where a translation agency goes only in a linguistic loop, thus ignoring other layers of culture, dialect, colloquial effect, tastes and peculiarities of a given market.
Translating without a proper strategy for multilingual optimisation.
Having communication gaps that can prove costly in a bilingual market.
Undertaking translation projects without preservation of source language flow, tone and core messaging.
Continuing mistakes or oversights that existed in the source language.
Approaching legal, medical, marketing and government documents with the same resources and mindset.
Not following up and updating the website with consistency and attention.
Not aligning the website in a 360-degree manner with the overall brand strategy and imagery.
Ignoring crucial keyword trends.
Putting SEO focus as an afterthought or on the sidelines.
Ineffective localisation from the perspective of overall culture, sub-culture and lifestyle nuances.
Not tweaking the product or service enough for the specific needs and gaps present in the target market.
Local website not linking back to original content wherever a need exists.
Website translation missing app-related content changes or other design aspects.
Jumping into translation without addressing target market’s general Internet penetration rate, mobility usage, screen and UI choices, consumption patterns and online behavior.
Not filling in extra information that may be an important requirement for the given market.
Bad design decisions and layout or navigation problems.

Like you can see, it is pretty easy to fall into the trap where it appears that website translation has been taken care of but in reality, it is not helping or worse, ruining what the business expected and planned for.

A good website can capture a bigger range of customers and it can do that at the smart moment when they are ready to consume the product or service. The right multi-lingual strategy and a professional translation agency are the hallmarks of a good beginning. What would define its success is the right execution.