How to translate my website
How to translate my website.
You may want to translate your website to another language for many reasons: Perhaps, you see an uptick in visits from a particular foreign country. Or maybe, your business has outgrown your local market, and you’re looking to expand into new markets.
No matter the reason, however, for wanting to translate your website, you will need web copies that accurately communicate the precise meanings you intend. While at the same time are well adjusted for the cultural nuances and social norms of the target audiences.
In theory, this should be a pretty straightforward and easy thing to do, right? Especially with the giant strides made in language synthesizing technologies and the availability of so many translation bots and apps on the market. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different.
Should you use machine translation?
For simple, one-way, short phrases, machine translations are probably fine. Since in most cases, the sentences you want to translate are not complicated and often not for general consumption and errors don’t have far-reaching implications, you are better off using machine translations.
An excellent example of a machine translation app is Google translate web service. Sure enough, the search engine giant has made tremendous strides in improving its translation service.
However, we believed it is not adequately suited to handle large volumes of translation projects. Nor is it able to adapt your copy to the cultural nuances essential to building trust with visitors to your site.
So, in essence, while Google translate and other services in the same mould, are great and quite handy for short translations, you should not rely on them for your website translation job.
pIf Google Translate and other plugins are out of the question, how do you translate your website then?
Naturally, your next option is to use human expert-led translation. As mentioned earlier, translating your web copy goes beyond replacing words – it is much more complicated than that.
A quality translation job takes into account the cultural nuances of the audience, the norms, idioms and colloquial expressions of the target language which machine translation struggle with. Thankfully, an experienced professional human translator will pick these markers.
Native speakers of the target language
Another reason to hire professional translators for your website translation is that not only are they subject matter experts; they are usually native speakers of the target language.
Now, that bit of information might not seem like much. But trust me, it plays a significant role in how well the copy reads. You want to be in a position where site visitors get the sense you actually took the time and effort to write your web copy. Which also means you care about them. And this in turn makes them trust you.
And as you know, once you can get a customer to a place where they trust you, it becomes pretty easy to make the sale.
Conclusion
So, while hiring professional translators might be a tad pricier in the short term, the investment pays for itself several times over. You gain customer trust, loyalty and of course get to make the sale.
