SEO and translation
Follow up on website translation…
In our last blog we’ve talked about different approaches to translating websites. As your potential clients need to be able to easily find your site, it is crucial to apply some form of search engine optimisation. Today, we’d like to focus on how to approach translation with search engine optimisation in mind.
We’ve recently been involved in translating a list of search phrases for one of our clients and have discovered that the straight forward translation of the phrases was not the best way forward.
They have spent considerable amount of time and money on researching these phrases, but all the research was done in English and on UK search engines, therefore, the translated phrases would not have been as effective as the English ones.
The phrases they’ve chosen were relevant to their business and the text on their website, but in order to gain the most from translation our translators had to do some additional research.
We have therefore suggested to our client that we should deviate slightly from their English phrases, and rather than provide word for word translation of the search terms, we’ve created a bespoke list of phrases for each of the markets.
As a result, we were able to provide phrases that were frequently requested in search engines; in addition, we ensured that the translated text on the client’s web pages did indeed contain the same search phrases.
At the end of our translation/research process the client had a localised version of the search phrases for every of their target markets. The web copy was also localised and the terminology was consistent throughout the entire website, even the meta tags.
Some people choose not to translate their meta tags, but again, they have an effect on the website rating, so it is important to have them localised.
The common issue with meta tags is that they have restrictions on the number of characters they display. And, as we’ve mentioned in the post about voice-overs, translated text often expands in volume compared to English in terms of the number of words and their length.
Therefore, it is important to look at the meta tags with care, and ensure the text is not too long in order to display the entire message correctly.
By no means we are claiming to be experts in SEO or web design; however, we can work closely with your agencies and can improve your overseas online presence.
Our translators can follow specific guidelines in terms of keyword text saturation or placement of the key phrases in order to improve the value of translation and your return on investment in the SEO for overseas markets.
Therefore, if you are working on a website translation and need linguistic help, don’t hesitate to get in touch and we’d love to help you break the language barriers.
