The internet has become the primary method of communicating in the global economy and enabling cross-border commerce at an unprecedented level – making website translation an even greater priority. Research shows that even though English is the most commonly used language on the web, 75% of internet usage is in another language. Based on data from consumers in these non-English speaking markets, 52.4% said they wouldn’t buy from a website which is not in their native language. Additionally, 72.1% of international customers spend the majority of their time on sites in their own language. These statistics are a clear indication that in order to reach foreign audiences, you need to speak their language. Translating your website is a must, but before setting up your multilingual website, here are 3 important tips to consider:

1. Domain Structure
   

When setting up your multilingual website, it is important to identify the URL structure for the different languages. There are several different methods you can try. The first, and most common, is to use country code top level domains. For example Amazon uses Amazon.de for Germany, and Amazon.co.uk for UK. The benefits of using country code top level domains is that you can target your audience in specific regions arounds the world.

The other option is creating separate sub domains for each language. For example, de.hello.com for Germany or us.hello.com for the US. The advantages of using separate sub domains is you can have a separate Google Webmaster Tools for each sub domain – which allows you to set geo-targeting. Geo-targeting allows you to determine the locations of a specific user and deliver specific content based on each user’s location.

The last way to structure your domain is putting the languages in a Sub Directory, for example www.hello.com/de. You can use webmaster tools for geo-targeting with this option as well.

We recommend using the country code top level domain to structure a multilingual website because having a local domain makes it easier for your site to come up in searches and vastly increases your discoverability in new markets.

2. Keyword Localization

Incorporating the correct keywords on your website is critical for showing up in Google searches. Because keywords are highly determined by the culture and can vary greatly across regions, it is important to localize the keywords as opposed to just literally translating them. For example, most Americans will type in “pants” when searching for clothing, but customers in the UK would use “trousers”. Understanding these differences will help dictate what words should be present in your website’s content.

Researching and finding the correct keywords can be very time consuming, but your SEO efforts in foreign markets will have little hope of success without these efforts. If you are going to outsource this type of project, make sure that you’re Translations Company or SEO agency understands the importance of keyword research and can properly maximize this critical component in your target markets.

3. General Website Layout and Design

The colors, images, and graphic content on your site can all play a big role when creating a multilingual website, impacting perceptions in specific markets. Make sure the graphics you use are culturally relevant and that there is no text embedded in any of the pictures. Also, be careful of symbols and icons that are used as each symbol can have drastically different connotations across cultures. Another thing that can be easily be overlooked are currencies, dates and units of measure. Make sure that each is localized and fits the specific region.

It is also important to keep in mind the direction in which your audience reads. For example, Arabic is read from left to right. Knowing this will most likely affect the positioning and layout of your website.

Your website is often your first point of interaction with a new customer and effective website translation & localization is key to ensuring a positive first impression and repeat business from global consumers.

A CEO doesn’t just lead the operations of a company, they serve as the face of the organization. While this aspect of the CEO role can be challenging in an executive’s native tongue, it can be all the more difficult when targeting a new market that speaks a different language. To overcome the language barrier, there are a handful of tactics that companies can apply to establish the thought leadership of their CEO in any language.

Translate Soft Content

A company blog is a critical means to establishing thought leadership and developing stronger customer relationships through impactful content. Taking the time to translate a blog or other soft content can help you put your company’s unique personality on display. The key factor here is to make sure that some of the more casual language you may use translates effectively to other markets. Additionally, if you have speeches, TV interviews or other video content, make sure that it is translated for core markets. Multimedia content can be very popular and lead to impressive conversions so it is critical to make sure you take full advantage of the opportunity.

Language Lessons

Fluency may not be necessary, or even possible, but even knowing a few words can make a difference. The effort that a CEO takes to learn a few basic greetings and industry relevant terms can help endear them to target markets and show that your company genuinely cares about that market. This is also true about countries where your company operates—overseas employees with value and appreciate the CEO greeting them in their native language.

Socially Relevant

Social media content requires rapid translation, but also a level of strategic thinking. Social platforms vary from market to market in popularity. Knowing which social media platforms, publications or websites are the best place to reach potential customers can have a major impact on the success of your strategy. Make sure your social engagement happens in multiple languages and emphasizes platforms that are popular for the region you’re targeting.

CEOs don’t need to be multi-lingual to reach multiple foreign audiences. By following these steps, you can help the face of your company develop a stronger relationship with your target audience and global workforce.

The end of the year is always stressful, between the holidays and trying to beat Q4 targets. The last thing you want to worry about is additional, unanticipated translation costs.

In our “news you can use” series, here are 3 tips that can help you lower your translation costs in 2016:

1. Translate into the languages you really need – and skip the rest

A frequent mistake that companies make when they work to grow their international marketshare is not translating their website, product materials and marketing literature into the common languages of their target audience. If you want to go global, you need to speak your customers’ native language—even if they understand English. 74% of Internet users are non-native English speakers, and most strongly prefer websites in their native tongue. Translating your content makes good business sense. But some companies make the opposite mistake, translating their websites & materials into too many languages, trying to cover every single language and dialect that is native to a potential customer. This is both costly and oftentimes superfluous. A statistic we often cite is that you can reach 79% of global Internet users by having your English website translated into just 9 languages. (You can reach 67% by translating into only five languages.) This is also true for software and mobile apps. If you are targeting a global audience and don’t have a particular region in your sights, a great way to lower translation costs is to focus on the most widely used languages and skip the rest.

2. Choose a translation company that relies on translation memory & other CAT tools

Websites, technical manuals, product UI and marketing collateral are often highly repetitive and include phrases and paragraphs that you have used before. It is faster and less expensive to reuse previous translations where feasible and translate only the new or changed text, rather than paying to translate the whole document from scratch. Language service providers (LSP’s) that work with translation memory and other computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools are able to create a database that stores “segments” (sentences, paragraphs, etc.) that have been previously translated, allowing translators to automatically populate sections of text with previous translations. This can help lower costs, speed up translation times, and improve consistency and quality, since most projects will include the same target-language wording.

3. Give your LSP sufficient time to complete the translation project

Sometimes last-minute translations can’t be avoided, but whenever possible give your translation company enough time to complete your translation project at standard turnaround. Rush turnaround usually means rush fees, and the shorter the turnaround, the higher the rush surcharge. Try to plan ahead whenever possible, and include translation turnaround time in your project timeline. If you are expecting a last-minute translation, give your LSP a heads up to preempt any hurdles in the translation process.

In the November issue of Medical Care, they highlighted a recent cross-sectional study on clinical mistakes due to inaccurate language interpretation. The study found that errors in interpretation are more common when untrained interpreters are used, and that they are far rarer when professional medical interpretation services are employed. The study analyzed the interpreted transcriptions from a large number of recorded interactions comparing professional interpreters with “improvised” interpreters like friends, family and medical personnel without formal language training.

The study found that the most common type of error in interpretation are preemptive answers and omissions. 30% of the text units included wrong interpretation, a massive number especially when considering the nuance of medical diagnosis. Of the improvised, non-professional interpreters (friend, family, or nurse) 54% included inaccurate interpretation, whereas mistakes were found in just 23-25% of professional interpretations. This indicates that inaccurate interpretation occurs twice as frequently with improvised interpreters when compared to professional translators.

The analysts believed that 7% of these interpretation errors were “highly significant.” One example of a highly significant error is an interpreter telling a patient to take medicine every 6 hours as opposed to every 8 hours. Nearly 5% of the errors when using an improvised interpreter were of high significance as compared to around 1.5% with professional interpretation services.

What can we take from these findings? It is obviously better to use a professional interpreter rather than a nurse, friend or family member since it means that you will far more accurately understand the information you are getting from your physician and dramatically lower the likelihood of significant mistakes. Additionally, having a professional translator can actually reduce hospital costs. According to Harvey Castro, an emergency physician at Quest Care Partners,  “When a non-English-speaking patient comes in and you can’t understand what their chief complaint is, you are assuming the worst and tend to order more things, so your cost goes up. It makes sense to deter that cost and have services available.”

Accurate interpretation services are a critical component to effective care for healthcare companies, especially those that deal directly with patients. Investing in a strong and sustainable process for regularly obtaining professional medical interpretation services can help medical and healthcare companies reduce costs and improve patient care creating a critical win/win for everyone.