Website Translation for Today s Digital World

Transcription

1 Website Translation for Today s Digital World

2 Introduction 3 Top Challenges of Global Websites 4 Website Translation is Evolving 5 Getting to the Top of the Search Results 6 SEO Translation Global Content Marketing Summary How Lionbridge Can Help 11 CONTENTS

3 Introduction The internet has revolutionized the way you engage your customers. Has your approach to website translation changed too? The Internet can extend your brand to customers all over the world in an instant. At the same time, the explosion of digital channels makes it seem like going global should be as easy as flipping a switch. But reaching your global customers is about much more than simply translating your website word-for-word. You need to consider culture, context and channel in a word, localizing your website to meet the requirements and expectations of individual markets. How do you pull it all off? You need a proven, comprehensive approach that streamlines website translation, ensures keyword optimization, and builds a global content marketing program that creates fully-optimized content, targeted to your specific markets. Keep reading to learn more. 3

4 Top Challenges of Global Websites Even after you ve made the move to adapt your website for your individual markets, there are a couple of big gotchas waiting to trip you up. I m looking at my web analytics and we re only getting 10 visitors a month to our Italian web pages. 1 You built it but they didn t come. If you go to all the effort of building a local web presence, it can be disheartening to see only a trickle of visitors coming to your translated pages. My business ranks #1 in the US for hotel, but we re not even in the top 100 for hotel in any other market. 2 Your search marketing success didn t translate along with your messaging. Search campaigns rarely translate directly into other markets. You need help to retool your marketing with local search behaviors in mind. Knowing these pitfalls is the first step to avoiding them - and turning your website into a global success. Let s see how 4

5 Website Translation is Evolving In the past, the web was static and centrally managed, with a one-way flow of information. Marketing spend focused on traditional media and websites were managed centrally by IT departments. Today s dynamic web offers unprecedented reach for marketers, providing access to consumers anywhere, anytime. It has become an interactive, collaborative dialogue where brands are publishers and consumers are in control. The evolution of the internet and the shift to digital, social and mobile marketing also represent a shift for your approach. Intelligent marketing strategies are now driven by how customers find and engage with your brand. Let s take a look at what that means. SEO Translation 5

6 Getting to the Top of the Search Results Increasingly, companies who have already localized their website are frustrated with the traffic they re seeing on their localized content pages and by their current keyword rankings in various global markets. They re realizing they need to think like their target customers: 72.5% of worldwide Internet users use search engines to find what they need 30-50% of users enter a generic word or phrase as a starting point and refine their search to improve the results until they achieve the desired result.or they give up! Searchers on average scan 3.9 results, assimilate 140 words and spend 6.4 seconds before clicking on a link 79% of users scan your copy instead of reading every word Keywords that are simply translated word-for-word instead of being selected especially for the local market just won t cut it. What s required is an approach that infuses SEO throughout the translation process, ultimately leading to a 15-40% increase in website traffic. 6

7 SEO Translation Transforming your global website from a static content repository to a full-blown lead generation tool requires infusing SEO into your translation process a process known as SEO Translation. Here s how it works: STEP 1 Establish a baseline Benchmark your current search performance in your target markets, including site traffic by language, search results pages (SERPs) for your target markets and keywords, and competitive keyword analysis. STEP 2 Keyword research Identify, analyze and refine optimal keywords by creating a critical keyword list, localize those keywords based on how people search for them, and vet them against various tools to determine traffic and competition. STEP 3 SEO Translation Provide your source content and associated keywords for each language to SEO-trained translators so they can translate to get the appropriate keyword density, metadata, and descriptive sentence for the search results page. 7

8 STEP 4 Localization and SEO QA In a staging server environment, check for completeness of translations, appropriate keywords on each page, optimal placement of keywords and duplicate content. STEP 5 Ongoing optimization Identify keyword performance in each of your markets, trends for that keyword, and any new trending keywords you should be building new content around. 8

9 Global Content Marketing Companies even further along in their website marketing now recognize that an online presence needs to span beyond lead generation to include local content creation. Remember, consumers are now in control of their buying decisions and searching the web for information no matter where in the world they live. Your goal is to be found and recommended and shared. Global content marketing success is driven by the results of your SEO benchmark, so you re able to create significant amounts of fresh, highly-optimized content in the languages of your local markets, and expand it beyond your website to include other mobile and social realms. In addition, content marketing allows you to engage with local market influencers to build inbound links to your content and participate in local conversations around your products and services all leading to significant upward search engine mobility. As you can imagine, what influencers consider compelling content is as unique as the local culture in every individual market you re targeting. So simply translating your core content strategy into a new language is simply out of the question. 9

10 Summary The evolving global web requires a new approach to website translation SEO Translation infuses SEO throughout the translation process, uplifting your global website traffic by 15-40% on average Global Content Marketing produces customized, in-market content that typically drives a % uplift in traffic over traditional website translation 10

11 How Lionbridge Can Help Lionbridge is helping leading companies evolve their website strategies. We can help you too. We are the only company offering all three approaches to global web translation (traditional translation, SEO Translation and Content Marketing) We have the most expertise, giving you the highest probability of success Companies leading in SEO, like Expedia and Microsoft, are choosing our approach We are much more cost effective and skilled in global SEO than a regular ad agency Our delivery model gives you the ability to change your approach without changing vendors Lionbridge brings together unique and proven program management strengths and local market crowd expertise with advanced cloud technology. Based in Waltham, MA, we operate across 26 countries and enjoy thriving, trusted relationships with more than 500 clients. Learn more about our approach to website translation by visiting. 11