In today’s globalized market, the accuracy and quality of your translations can make or break your brand’s reputation. Whether expanding into a new territory or refining your messaging for diverse audiences, precision in document translation is not merely a box to check but a critical component of your market strategy. A flawless translation ensures that your message resonates, maintains the professionalism of your brand, and paves the way for successful international expansion.

We understand the complexities you face as you prepare to enter new markets. That’s why we’ve compiled essential strategies to streamline your translation process and avoid common pitfalls. Implementing these steps will enhance the quality of your translations, reduce costs, and expedite your market entry.

Here are five steps you can take to ensure your translation process runs smoothly.

1. Provide Enough Time

Time is everything, and whether you are tackling document translation, patent translation, medical translation, or website localization, you must give yourself enough time to perfect it. You want to ensure that the translator or translation company has enough time to thoroughly research the subject matter, prepare the translation, and revise and proofread until the final draft is perfect.

Collaboration is key. The more time you have with your translator, the more likely you’ll be on the same page. Effective teamwork and communication are key to localization and translation success.

Tip: If you know that you will need a translation and you want to contact a professional translation company, speak with them as early as possible so that they can build a custom workflow for your project and find the ideal translator.

2. Create a Translation Glossary and Style Guide

A translation glossary and style guide are helpful cheat sheets for linguists to understand your company better. A translation glossary includes the company’s “lingo,” which should stay consistent throughout, and words that should not be translated, such as product names. A style guide describes how a company should be presented visually and textually, as well as the overall style and tone. In short, it identifies those branding elements that must remain, no matter the locale. A translation glossary and style guide for linguists can help ensure consistency. Without this, words and phrases can be translated in multiple ways across different languages, meaning more time is spent revising translations to create consistency. A glossary and style guide can help with consistency reduce the time it takes to complete each document translation, and cut costs.

3. Don’t Use Multiple Linguists

You might think that using many linguists for large projects will speed up the process, but it could have a negative impact on the overall quality and cohesion of the project. Why is that? The more linguists involved, the more prone you’ll be to inconsistencies in the translation. Beyond each linguist’s style and tone, many words have multiple translations that could fit in a given language, and consistency is critical when delivering a message and building a brand. This is especially true if you want to keep with a specific and notable brand image or content style used in the past. The same also applies to your proofreader – give one person enough time instead of forcing the issue with multiple people.

4. Provide All of the Details

The more information you can provide to your translator or translation company, the better. Including more details in the translation also allows the service to choose a translator with expertise in that field more accurately.

When you approach your LSP, you should consider providing your project’s scope, purpose and audience, context and any reference materials, quality expectations, and project timeline.

Providing these details helps the translation provider understand your needs thoroughly and deliver a translation that meets your specific requirements. This comprehensive briefing ensures quality and fosters a more collaborative and efficient translation process.

5. Use Translation Memory Tools

Translation memory tools can store segments, such as sentences, titles, headings, and phrases and create a database for future projects. This helps save time and money for project updates or new content translations. It enforces consistency throughout all project versions and cuts time because the linguists don’t have to spend time re-translating the same thing repeatedly. Morningside works with expert providers, which has helped tremendously reduce client costs.

A high-quality translation is critical to bringing your product or service to a new market, and a poorly executed translation can cost you business. By following the above tips, you can improve the quality of your translation, lower costs, and make your entry into new markets more accessible.

Navigating the intricacies of translation is crucial for any business aspiring to thrive in global markets. As illustrated by our outlined strategies, a meticulous approach to document translation can substantially enhance your brand’s international appeal, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and resonance with diverse audiences. It’s not just about converting words from one language to another; it’s about maintaining the essence and professionalism of your brand in every market you enter.

At Morningside, we specialize in transforming complex translation challenges into streamlined solutions tailored to your needs. Our commitment to quality and innovation helps you overcome linguistic barriers and expedite your market entry—partner with us to safeguard your brand’s integrity across languages and cultures. Contact us today to elevate your translation strategy and expand into new global territories.

About Morningside

Morningside, a Questel Company, equips leading organizations with a full suite of end-to-end language solutions. With over 4,000 clients in 55 countries, Morningside is globally recognized for its subject matter expertise and technology innovation in regulated markets such as legal services, life sciences, corporate compliance, and IP services. Our translation, localization and interpretation expertise equips leading global organizations with the tools to operate seamlessly in foreign markets, overcome regulatory hurdles and connect with audiences worldwide. Global 500 companies, international law firms, and regulatory bodies rely on us as a trusted partner to make intelligent choices for their most valuable assets.

Madeline Sturdivant

Madeline Sturdivant, Brand Marketing Manager at Morningside, a Questel Company, is an accomplished marketing professional with over six years of experience in digital marketing, branding, events, and strategic communications. She leads global marketing strategies, driving brand growth and managing multi-channel campaigns that connect with diverse audiences. Passionate about storytelling, Madeline excels in creating compelling content that resonates with customers and stakeholders. With a proven track record of enhancing brand visibility and fostering engagement, she leverages data-driven insights to craft strategies that exceed business objectives.

Website translation is extremely important for companies who wish to reach foreign markets and expand national trade. Translation can easily be done by copying and pasting your website into a free literal translation service online, but will it accurately explain your company? Beyond the obvious risk of grammatical errors impacting your perceived professionalism, neglecting the importance of cultural cues can be the difference between a website that succeeds and one that just doesn’t translate.

Enter website localization.

Website localization takes the translation process a step further by accounting for the particularities of a given target market. There are professional website translation and interpretation services who understand the importance of these nuances when relating to international customers, and they can do wonders for companies looking to expand globally. However, whether you choose to do it yourself, or you want to better interact with an outsourced provider, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Pick The Right Language:

Research shows that 52.4% of Foreign Market Consumers won’t buy from websites not in their language[1] and 72.1% of international customers spend most of the time on sites in their own language[2]. The good news is that 90% of online business is done in only 13 languages. The bad news is that if you choose the wrong one, you’re chances of penetrating that market are significantly reduced.

Few business people would enter a new country without taking the time to research the potential benefits its market offered. You may look at the hold competitors have, the size of the addressable market, or the amount spent on similar products. But just as important as knowing whether there are people who could potentially buy your product, is knowing how best to sell it to them. The first step in this process is knowing which language that industry speaks. Research the country you’re entering and see what language dominates the sector you’re trying to enter. Many countries are filled with a multitude of spoken languages, but there are generally a select few used in the business world. Knowing these in advance will make sure your efforts to localize aren’t in vain.

Correct Keywords:

Incorporating the correct keywords on your website is critical for SEO and has a major impact on localization success. Keywords are highly determined by the culture and can vary greatly across regions.  For example, most Americans will type in “Vacation” when searching for a resort, but customers in the UK would use “Holiday”. Understanding these differences will help dictate what words should be present in your website’s content.

Keyword research can be a painstaking process, but you’ll have little hope of succeeding without investing in it. If you are going to outsource this type of project, make sure that your provider understands the importance of Keyword research and has the capabilities to properly maximize this critical component.

General Website Layout:

The colors, images, and graphic content can all play a big role in website localization and how it is perceived by that foreign market. Make sure the graphics you use are culturally relevant and that you don’t have any existing materials that may be insensitive or offensive. It’s important to remember that many symbols are used across cultures, but can have drastically different connotations.

Color is another important factor to consider because it can have different meanings or associations. For example, in China white is the color of death and mourning, whereas the same is symbolized by purple in Brazil. Yellow represents sadness in Greece, jealousy in France, but means sacred to the Hindus.

Also, it is important to consider the direction in which your audience reads, depending on their language–whether it be from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom–as this will most likely affect the positioning and layout of your website.

Website translation will be a critical component to your localization efforts, but in order to maximize this opportunity you must consider its full impact. If you hire an interpretation service, make sure they are aware of these issues. If you decide to handle it internally, considering these factors can be the difference between a major victory or a missed opportunity.

When it comes to website translation, we often get asked which languages provide the greatest ROI for website localization.  High-quality translations don’t come cheap, and clients understandably want to reach the broadest relevant audience without spending an arm and a leg.

So how do you choose the best languages for your website localization project? It depends on where potential consumers for your product or service are located. If you are localizing a game app for the iPhone, then a list of top countries for game downloads and revenue includes China, Japan, Russia, France, and Germany. Translating your app into the respective languages for those countries is a good place to start. Of course other considerations familiar to your sales and marketing team will also factor into the decision. Your product may have already made significant inroads in several foreign markets. It makes sense to expand on that by translating your website into the relevant languages. If your Google Analytics indicate that a significant percentage of your visitors are coming from non-English speaking countries, then translating your website into their native tongues is a no-brainer. 72% of online consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their own language, so those foreign visits are likely to become longer and more frequent post-website translation.

But as a jumping off point, the top ten languages for Internet users (according to Internet World Stats) are as follows:

1. English
2. Chinese
3. Spanish
4. Japanese
5. Portuguese
6. German
7. Arabic
8. French
9. Russian
10. Korean

Website translation into the 9 languages on this list (assuming your content is currently in English) means that 82.2% of Internet users will be able to read your website. And given that online consumers are four times more likely to make a purchase on a website that speaks their language, localizing your website into some or all of these languages is a massive opportunity to increase both revenue and market share.