The internet has made the world a global village, and for any business wishing to go international, its website as the first touchpoint is of utmost importance. Having your website translated into more than one language is an effective tool for any business looking to reach a wider audience.
With about 75% of people preferring to buy products from websites written in their native language, this userbase’s sentiment can no longer be treated as an afterthought, and this is where translating your website comes into the fray.
Factors to Consider when translating your website
The first thing to consider when translating your website is language intricacies. Often, the exact words placed the exact way may not mean the same thing in another language. Hence, when translating your website, be sure to factor in the subtle nuances that make languages and cultures differ (Localization).
Another thing to consider is local SEO. There’s no point in having a website if it can’t be found organically by visitors and potential buyers. Hence, you must optimize your translated content for the target country’s search engine in website translation.
When translating your website, you must also consider your page’s UX, appearance, and branding. Some languages are naturally longer than others. You must ensure that the translated text sits well with your site UX (Takes us back to our post on internationalization).
Lastly, do not forget to translate multimedia such as infographics, illustrations, etc.
The top 5 website plugins out there
If you run a WordPress site, plugins are probably the cheapest and most effective way to translate your website yourself. There are numerous plugins from which you can choose. They differ by how many languages they offer, how much of your site can be translated, and the method of translation, i.e., manual or automatic.
Here’s a list of 5 of the best plugins out there.
1. TranslatePress
TranslatePress is one of the easiest and most effective translation plugins out there. It allows you to control every aspect of translating your site with ease, quickly translating your written content without changing the interface.
With TranslatePress, you can translate posts and pages from the front end of your website, and the live preview allows you to view the changes you’re making in real-time.
With this plugin, you can either translate your website manually or automatically — allowing you to use google translate or AI-powered translations.
TranslatePress can also help you boost your local rankings by generating SEO-friendly URLs in different languages.
2. WPML
The WPML plugin is one of the oldest plugins available. It tackles both translation and multilingual management, giving you the choice of placing translations on the same domain, a subdomain, or a different domain entirely.
WPML is designed to be efficient enough to be used by corporate sites but simple enough for small businesses. Its key features include translation widgets, multilingual eCommerce support, cloud services for autotranslations, and iICanLocalize synchronization.
WPML also addresses multilingual SEO and works effectively with the most popular SEO plugins.
3. GTranslate
GTranslate, powered by google translate, allows you to translate your website to 103 languages. It offers google automatic translation, which you can manually correct to your preference. It also comes with widgets allowing users to select their preferred language. You should always keep in consideration that Google translation will need to be manually revised by a translator and that can be quite consuming and more expensive than translating from scratches.
4. Polylang
Polylang is a free WordPress self-translation plugin that allows you to choose the language of your choice from your profile and automatically download the corresponding language pack. It can separate the versions of your site into subdomains for each language and also adds widgets in the navigation menu to enable visitors to shuffle between languages. The plugin supports sticky posts, RSS feed, and custom taxonomies.
5. Google Website Translator
With the google website translator, you can translate your webpage into over 100 languages through an easy setup process. This plugin is excellent for complex or heavy content since it stores everything in a single database record, hence, having no impact on page loads.
Although this plugin has no free version, it requires a one-time payment of $50 to access all the features.
Translating A Website In 6 Steps
Using a plugin to translate your website is pretty straightforward even for non-tech enthusiasts. You will have to download and install the plugin, select your languages and then manually or automatically translate all the relevant content on the webpage. Although the details will differ depending on the plugin you choose, the steps are generally the same.
- Install and configure the translation plugin
- Translate your menus.
- Translate your website content (blogs posts, pages, CPTs, contact forms, etc.)
- Ensure you translate all the images containing text.
- Translate your SEO elements so that your website will rank in the local search engine.
- If you have a WooCommerce store, then translate the products into your catalogue.
Why Language Service Providers Are Better Than Plug-Ins
Using plugins may be an easy way to translate your website, but they have their limitations. Translating your website goes beyond just replacing words with another. There is a role that human nature and emotions must play for your content to be relatable to your target audience.
Also, in translating your website, you must watch out for cultural nuances and preferences of your target audience, i.e. their greetings, idioms, proverbs, and the likes. Translating some sentences word for word as a plugin would cause some sentences to lose meaning. Some sentences, when translated, could even be offensive in another culture.
Hiring a Language Service Provider, someone who is not only versed in the language but also versed in the culture of your target audience, bridges all these limitations. An LSP will ensure that your website is translated and adapted to the desired language and cultural preference without deviating from its original content.
Conclusion
If you have plans of reaching a foreign audience, then you cannot overlook website translation. When done correctly, website translation will increase your market reach and consequently boost your sales. And although plugins act as a simple, quick, and cheap option to translate your website, they do not match the specialty of the human input.
That said, utilizing the services of a language service provider like Translationsinlondon who understands both the technical and linguistics need of global brands, would help place your brand in the global scene in no time.