15 Businesses Who Have Massively Benefitted From Translation
Want to increase your sales? Translating a website is a project that you can no longer afford to put off in the current globalization climate. Translating a website into foreign languages is the first thing you should be allocating your budget for.
Today we are competing on a global market and our business prospects are so spoiled with a choice that they will only order your product if they understand perfectly what the product is about and how to place the order itself.
Therefore, if you want French or Chinese, for instance, to buy your stuff, translating your website into French or Chinese will make it easier for them to buy it!
Here are 5 secret tips to get best quality translation of website for less
1. Preparation is a key
You can save up to 15% on translating a website by providing the copy in translation friendly format – MS Word or Excel. If you just send the link and ask to quote off the website itself, the project manager of translation agency will have to budget in the cost of working time required to copy all content that requires translation from your website to MS Word or Excel. Copy everything you need translated yourself and save on translation costs!
2. Prior Instructions
How do you want to receive your translation? In what format? In a table with translation being put opposite the original text? Or under each line of the original text? There are dozens of ways of translating a website in terms of formatting. Each client needs are unique. Don’t assume translation agency will know what your need themselves!
Be sure to let the translation agency know your preferences before they start the work, otherwise you may have to pay extra charges for any additional formatting work that you forgot to mention upfront.
3. Names, terms and abbreviations.
You can save up to 20% of the cost of translating your website by providing a guidance for translating names of people, companies or products, terms and abbreviations….Provide written instructions, or better a mini dictionary or simply previous translations if you have them. Remember, translators are outsourced professionals – whilst they have knowledge and experience in translating for your industry, they wouldn’t know your business as well as the in-house staff. The more reference materials you provide the less time translators will spend researching for the best translation, the cheaper translating a website will be.
4. Specifying what to translate and what’s not
We often get emails from clients asking to quote for translating entire website off the website itself. We then take into account every single page and very often the client is surprised to find out the amount. Why? Because when you don’t specify what to translate and what not – we include virtually everything in the quote even pages like T&Cs, articles, news, blog and other text pages – often very lengthy. When the client is told that these were included, it turns out that it’s not needed. Best practice is to advise upfront what pages to include or exclude. You will get best price straight away!
5. Cooperating with translator
Outsourcing translating a website to external translation agency requires cooperation between the client and the translator – you will get much better result. We once had a situation when translator wanted us to find out how the client prefers to translated a particular phrase (as in option A vs. B which are synonyms), but the client reaction was: “it’s a strange question to ask, I assumed translator was a professional – if so, he should know himself”.
Does this help the project? No. The translator was a professional, choosing between 2 synonyms is a matter of individual preference. This translator, of course could have chosen himself, but instead he chose to cooperate with the client to make sure that the translation is absolutely perfect!
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Sincerely yours,
Tatiana Lapteva
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