Do you have a website or e-commerce site? Do you want to optimise it and have it translated into different languages? Are you thinking of entrusting your website to a web agency to translate? Are you thinking of creating a retail or showcase website with several versions in different languages for your target countries? Are you at a loss at where to start?
Have you thought about using a specialist web agency to outsource the website translation? It’s a good idea, however, the costs are likely to be very high, especially for the translation part.
Why shouldn’t you hire a web agency to have your website translated? How can you minimise translation costs?
This article will help answer these two questions.
Using a web agency to create a website: OK
If you are new to the digital world, but still need a website to get your business off the ground, you should, in fact, call on a web or web communication agency.
Web agencies allow you to:
- Improve your company’s digital and communication strategies;
- Use the right communication tools: graphics, natural site referencing, paid site referencing, etc. ;
- Work on your brand image and visual identity;
- Create a bespoke, complete, ergonomic, and easy-to-use website;
- Create a website quickly.
In addition, in the event of a bug or problem, a digital agency has the necessary technical knowledge to help.
Using a web agency to translate your website: NOT OK
On the other hand, entrusting the translation of your website project to a marketing communication agency (web agency) is a mistake. Indeed, these structures (almost) never have professional translators. They focus on the production and optimisation of websites.
In fact, it’s likely that a digital agency will call on a translation agency to carry out your translations. Therefore, there is a good chance that the web agency will take a commission on this service and that your translation will cost you more than it should.
To have a website translated, call on a professional translator!
To translate a site, you should therefore use a translator. There are two solutions available to you: freelance translators and translation agencies.
Freelance translators
A freelance translator is an affordable solution if you want to obtain a quality translation.
First of all, make sure you choose a translator whose first language is the target language of your translation. For example, if you want to translate your site from French to Spanish, choose someone whose native language is Spanish.
Secondly, try to favour a translator who has SEO skills. They will then be able to optimise the natural referencing of your site on search engines in the target language – in Spanish, for example.
It’s important to know that freelance translators are generally slower than translation agencies. The turnaround time will therefore be longer than if you use a translation agency. However, the price will probably be more attractive
Finally, beware! Freelance translators who offer their services are not necessarily genuine professional translators.
Translation agencies
As you might have already gathered, using a translation agency means you’re sure to receive a quality translation. Translation agency teams are only made up of professional translators. You will therefore obtain a professional translation, whatever the language chosen.
In addition, translation companies use translation assistance tools: CAT tools, Computer Assisted Translation. Thanks to these, not only are your texts translated faster, but translation costs are also reduced.
Finally, the vast majority of translation agencies understand the challenges and specificities of natural referencing or SEO. An SEO-translation will allow you to appear amongst the first search engine results. This is essential for your project’s success!
Entrusting the translation of a website to a professional translation agency is putting the odds on your side in terms of translation quality (and therefore credibility), but also in terms of visibility and SEO.
Good to know: Minimise costs and investment time using modules to import and export content to be translated!
Find out about your existing CMS plugins and modules, especially if you use platforms such as Prestashop, Magento, WordPress, Drupal, or Shopify. Thanks to these modules, you can easily export all the text content present on your site. Thus, you can send them to your translation agency so they can be translated directly into an easy format, such as Word. The price will be much lower than if the agency had to extract the content of your site themselves. You can then easily import the translated content, without wasting any time.
