Nowadays most companies have blogs. They use them to publish all sorts of content. This includes information about products and activities, explanations about the processes they use and general advice, among other things. According to a study in 2020, seventy six per cent of consumers on the Internet prefer to buy products that feature information in their own language.
The Internet makes it possible to access the whole world, but to target the right readers you need to increase your international reach. This is why it is so important to translate your blog. But it’s crucial to make sure it’s well translated.
What factors are important for translating your blog?
Imagine you already have several well-written articles that feature content you’d like to share.
First, you need to know what language your target audience speaks. Translating your articles into British English is not the same as translating them into American English. Similarly, Portuguese used in Portugal is different from Portuguese used in Brazil. The differences may be small but significant. Properly defining the languages used by your target audience can mark the difference.
Second, you need to define keywords and make sure your blog post is optimised using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Keywords are words that readers frequently use in their language to search for information about the topic featured in your article. Using keywords in your article helps the search engines find your text when people search for those terms. The higher you’re positioned in the search engine results, the better. You can read more about it in this article, although we recommend you ask a professional.
Finally, you need a good translation. It must be easy to understand and written in language that sounds natural to native speakers. The person who does the translation must be proficient in the topic. We also recommend that you help the translator by providing reference material whenever possible.
Earlier we talked about keywords. They’re usually very concise. It’s important to ask translators to use them in the title and two or three times throughout the text, if possible. Keywords need to be used correctly so that the text is grammatically correct and makes sense. There’s no point in forcing the use of a keyword that will make the overall text difficult to understand or sound odd in the target language. Readers need to be able to focus on the text, and be wowed by it, so that they revisit the blog and trust in the product or service you’re writing about. Make sure you check that the article sounds natural. It shouldn’t read like a translation.
It’s also better if any links are localised or adapted. For example, if you’ve asked for an article to be translated into Italian, and the article contains links to other articles or websites, the links in the translated Italian article should connect to texts written in Italian.
As articles are translated, it’s a good idea to create a glossary and keep updated translation memories. This helps prevent errors while ensuring the same terminology is always used. It also saves time and money once a high volume of articles has been translated.
For the translation process, we also recommend you seek the help of a professional who can provide guidance and manage the whole process.
After translating, you’ll need to upload the article to your content management system (CMS). There are some good open code CMS, such as WordPress or Drupal, although you’ll need to add a plug-in to adapt the translated articles before uploading them.
It’s better if the formats used for the titles and bibliography in your article are well defined and standardised. You’ll probably need to add the keywords again to your CMS along with an image for the article.
For some customers, the process is incomplete once the articles have been uploaded to the CMS (without being published). Sometimes the SEO tool might make final changes, based on what search engines such as Google are taking into account at a particular time. Subsequently the article is published.
At LocalizationLab, we can help you translate all your articles properly and upload them to your CMS to make sure your message reaches the right people.
By LocalizationLab
1st image by Kutz and 2nd image by Headway.