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This is the third in a three part series in conversation with Mark Rodgers, the Managing Director of Cipherion Translations where we discuss the opportunities that the internet presents to us if we wish to expand our business internationally.
In the first article we explored under what circumstances we should consider translating our website into another language.
In the second article we covered the three most common issues that people have when looking to implement a website in another language.
This time I asked Mark about the other things we need to consider in terms of translating our website (e.g. does the navigation need to change to fit with standards people expect in that country)
Mark: In general, we find that this area of ‘cultural adaptation’ is now less of an issue than say 10 years ago. The world is now a smaller place, and whether we like it or not, the effects of globalisation are bringing cultures closer together.
We all know the McDonald’s slogan of ‘I’m lovin’ it!’ – a very clever way to get around trying to come up with a different slogan for 140 countries.
Irish organisations can adopt a similar approach with their websites. Create a multi-lingual website and then ‘tweak’ each website depending on feedback and responses. Very often you can get advice during the translation phase – as to whether something will add / detract from a translated site.
For instance, in Chinese, ‘8′ is a lucky number, ‘4′ is associated with death. So in such cases, if you were thinking of entering the Chinese market, you might either highlight the fact that your company is called ‘Lucky 8′… or else decide to change your brand if it was called ‘444′.
Even the large multi-nationals can get it wrong sometimes, so any Irish organisation that is stepping into Europe or Asia should be confident that a strong English website, with good branding and a great product or service offering has every chance of succeeding abroad as the next company. As always, the success will depend on what is done with the website and how it is marketed.
Finally, its important to have the flags (or drop down list of languages) on the front page and to ensure the contact details and customer support services are clearly visible. Many larger Irish organisations now have some multi-lingual staff, so maybe it’s a chance for them to dust off their language skills and start supporting the sales effort.
But what other suggestions do you have – or what have you implemented in relation to translating your website when expanding your business internationally?
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December 14th, 2009 at 10:17 am
RT @krishnade: Translating your website to attract international business http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
December 14th, 2009 at 10:34 am
There are two things that I would like to add to the discussion.
Firstly, taking the example of German from the second article, German words are on average longer than English words so text copy tends to be longer. This factor needs to be considered (and tested) in the design of internationalised websites. Typical problems are if the normal text line is quite short then the result after translation can be excessive blank space and/or excessive hyphenation.
Secondly, for accessibility to screen reader users (predominantly but not entirely blind web users), the language used needs to be identified in the code. This might seem unneccessary as a German blind screen reader user will understand the language of a German translation surely? The need to identify the language is for the screenreader software to be able to correctly pronounce words as closely as it can to the natural language.
December 14th, 2009 at 10:35 am
RT @krishnade: Translating your website to attract international business http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
December 14th, 2009 at 10:52 am
RT @krishnade: Translating your website to attract international business http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
December 14th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Translating your website to attract international business http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
December 14th, 2009 at 10:54 am
RT @krishnade: Translating your website to attract international business http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
December 14th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Translating your website to attract international business http://tinyurl.com/ye6ox6v
December 14th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Things to think about when expanding your business internationally http://bit.ly/7lFYVw @krishnade
December 14th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Translating your website to attract international business: This is the third in a three part series in convers.. http://bit.ly/51WQpd
December 14th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
RT @syafiza Translating your website to attract international business: This is the third in a three part series in.. http://bit.ly/51WQpd
December 17th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Translating your website to attract international business http://ow.ly/N9fV
December 17th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Translating your website to attract international business Krishna …: Leave your feedback and testimonials about … http://bit.ly/8n7a4x
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Interesting way of looking at things, thanks Krishna.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
[...] I have talked about making sure that your website is ready to do business internationally in previous articles including the translation of your website. [...]