At transeuro we also can translate websites. A translation of a website is usually a larger project and should be planned carefully to be ready on time and to keep the cost as low as possible.　In this article we talk about 6 points you should consider in the planning phase.

1. Which parts of the website need translation?

Usually, not all pages of a website need translation. That might be due availability of certain products and services only in specific countries or location-specific content. First and foremost, you should assess your content and define which pages need translation. If a page was translated and you realize that you did not need it later, the translation company will still charge you for the translation work.

Also do not forget that websites usually do not only consist of text. Some images or videos might need translation as well which might require image and video editing. If you use contact forms that send out automated reply messages, these need to be translated, too.

2. Will there be regular updates?

A website usually does not stay the same forever and updates need to be made at times. A lot of sites also post regular blog articles or news posts, too. Do you plan to handle the translation of updates and new content in-house, or will you be sending regular work to a translation company? If you let your language service provider know about upcoming work after the translation of the website itself, they can prepare and assure that resources are available. With a larger volume of work, better pricing conditions might be available, too.

3. How does the website work?

There are different content management platforms and programming languages used for websites. Let your language service provider know how the website works and which import/export tools are available, so they can establish an efficient workflow and provide the translation in the file format that makes implementing the translation easiest for you.

4. Does everything fit it?

Depending on the language the space required for the text can differ greatly. In Japanese, you can express a lot with very few characters, whereas in English or German you need significantly more space. This is especially important for menus and navigational elements that have limited space. Ideally, you factor this in when designing the website, but if you have certain space limitations, we can also offer alternative wordings that fit into the design.

5. Does your website comply with foreign privacy laws?

Protection of personal data is a very important topic and legislation on how to handle this topic are different from country to country. For certain languages, you might have to add additional banners that ask for consent for using cookies or add additional text and check boxes to your contact forms.

We recommend consulting a lawyer specializing in this area. They might even provide standardized text templates that your translation provider only has to adjust based on your special requirements.     

6. Have you considered SEO?

Depending on the target market you might want to adjust your SEO strategy, too. If you have worked out which keywords are important for your country-specific SEO let your translation provider know, so that they may opt to use these phrases instead of a direct translation and adjust headings and subtitles accordingly.

If you are currently planning to launch your website in a different language, feel free to contact us. We can translate between Japanese & English, German & Japanese, and English & German. As a sample of website that transeuro translated we would like to point you the website of W&H Dentalwerk Bürmoos GmbH that we translated to Japanese. We are happy to provide a free quotation and answer any questions you might have.

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