Your company may have come to the point where they are considering how to expand their footprint in other regions; one sure way to address this is to translate your website. Today it may be easy enough to maintain the English website, or it may be challenging, irrespective of which you will need to deal with some of the following:
- Is your website ready for localization?
- Does your CRM support multilingual websites?
- Into which languages should you translate your website?
- How should you prioritize the languages and regions?
- Should you create a mini-site, translate everything, or even create regional versions?
- How do you select and engage in-country resources during the project?
- What kinds of things should be considered for the target locales?
- What procedures and mechanisms are available for on-going maintenance?
It is difficult to master everything and that is a good reason to look for experienced people when it comes to localization. Here at LangSouls we bring decades of localization experience to our customers. We guide you throughout the entire process.
Tips for preparing your website translation project.
Choose the Right Language Service Provider
If you don’t have an in-house translation department, you’ll want to engage a translation company that specializes in website translation services. Your translation company should be considered a long-term partner, so make sure you carefully select the partner that’s right for you.
Plan Your Website Localization Project
Naturally, you’ll want to make sure that your translated websites are treated with the same attention and importance as the English website, and detailed planning can make the difference between great content and errors or mistranslations. Get off on the right foot with your website localization project by including plenty of planning and time for all the necessary steps, including making sure the site is up-to-date, of high quality and error-free.
Prepare these Two Translation Assets for the Project
1) Terminology Database – a multilingual TermBase is created out of a glossary of the most common terms/concepts used in your content as well as industry standard terms. Our linguists translate the terms and work with your in-country resources to approve the translations. This maintains consistency throughout the project.
2) Style guide – a style guide is a document that contains information about what makes your company’s brand unique, such as logo guidelines, font requirements, tone and voice, capitalization and many other items.
Multilingual Website Testing
Be sure to include time in the project for testing after the translations are complete.
For additional information and to learn more how we can help you with website translations, visit us at www.langsouls.com
Photo Credit by Nick Fewings