How to Get Started Translating Your Website

The benefits of translating your website today are clear: reach new markets, grow your audience, and ultimately grow your customer base. However, there are also SEO benefits that a second language can give your website, such as improved domain authority.

If you are at a stage where you or your company are contemplating jumping into a new market in a second language, you are going to need to translate your website. Here are the first four steps you need to take to get started.

1. Get clear on your target market

If you’re at a more vague ‘breaking into new markets’ stage, you need to take the time and do the research and get really clear on what market you’re going to go after.

Is it country-based or language-based? For example, French would likely be mostly targeted around France, but you’d also reach other French markets - think Canada, Belgium, Switzerland. This may impact not only how the translation is done, but also the type of content you create, how you write and speak to this audience, etc.

The most important thing is that you need to be 100% sure this is the right business decision. This is not a project to take lightly, especially if you have a large website.

2. Determine what URL you will use

Before you start any of the actual translation, you need to decide how you want it to be set up alongside your current website. The three main options are:

Country-specific domain: yourwebsite.de
Subdomain: de.yourwebsite.com
Subdirectory or slug: yourwebsite.com/de

The two biggest things to consider are price and SEO. The short answer on price is that a yourwebite.de URL is going to cost the most. You can add a subdomain or a subdirectory for free, whereas you need to purchase a new domain for country-specific top level domains (TLD).

Changing your TLD is seen as having the most authority and trust within the local market. However there are some limitations: you cannot share cookies across domains and you do not get the SEO benefits of your main site. This is key if you are planning to use SEO & SEM as part of your new market strategy.

Our company chose to go with a .com/de because our current SEO & domain authority is strong and we wanted to be able to leverage that in our new market. Before even translating the website we were ranking well in Germany and with German searchers, so we did not want to lose that. We would have essentially been starting from SEO scratch (more or less) with a new TLD.

However, if your URL is already a country-specific, for example a .co.uk, you might be better off swapping the .co.uk for a .fr (new top level domain) to avoid confusion for the user.

3. Find a tech solution that works for your website

So you’ve decided on your target market and your domain, now you need to figure out how to make this happen on a technical level. Depending on who hosts your website you will mostly likely need a plugin or a widget.

For New Generation, I chose to use the widget TranslatePress for our Wordpress site. Other options I looked at were Polylang and ConveyThis. For Squarespace users Weglot is a popular option.

This main reasons I went with TranslatePress were these key features:

The ability to have a custom menu for each language.
SEO tools such as Yoast, alt tag translation and image translations came built in.
The ability to add numerous languages, ensuring it’s a long-term solution if/when the company branches into further markets.
User-friendly interface, directly on each page.

I recommend browsing the different options to see how they compare for your needs. In my research I found that, overall, these tools offer similar functionality, at relatively similar prices. What sold me on TranslatePress was the user interface - it was much better than the other two in my opinion.

4. Figure out what else needs translated

This is not to be overlooked. What else is essential in the client’s purchasing journey that also needs to be translated aside from the website?

For New Gen, that was automated emails related to the purchase itself (ex. confirmation emails), and the online booking system (which is separate from the main website). There is no point in setting up a website in another language if the client can’t go all the way through purchase without every step being translated. Not only is that a horrible CX, but you’ll likely see a drop off along the way.

Extra things to consider

How to list the different languages via toggle button

This was something I came across in my research that I found valuable. How will you signify the different languages in the toggle button on your website? There are 3 ways:

Country flag
Country flag + Name of Language
Name of Language

Flags originally seemed modern, user-friendly, and more engaging than just text, however it goes deeper than that. For countries that have more than one official language, this can be a point of contention and you might be dipping your toe into murky waters without meaning to.

Also, in the French example given above, you may end up seeming less relevant to Canadian browsers when using a French flag. Another great example is the German market. If you’re targeting both Germany and Austria, stick with ‘Deutsche’ to be safe.

Find a native speaker to do the translating

If possible, choose someone you know is fluent to do the translation. Finding someone online can be hit or miss. I originally hired a freelancer who I didn’t know personally. Later when a native speaker reviewed the translation, it was clear this person was not fluent. Having a translation done properly will set a professionalism tone, and ultimately you’ll be seen as a more trustworthy brand in your new market. Don’t skimp on this key area.

Translating a website is just first step. SEO, GoogleAds, social media, and content all need to be part of your strategy in a new market, no different than what you’re doing currently. But more importantly, you want to ensure that you can provide the same level of customer experience that you provide in your current market, along every touchpoint in the customer journey.