Translation and localization
A topic available in the Cross Border Course / Web to go Global Course
Translation and localization
Topic available in the Cross Border Course / Web to go Global Course
How to translate and localize a website for international expansion
If you’re expanding into markets that aren’t similar to your home market, you need to translate nearly every facet of your site, including language. More than a simple transposition from one language to another, localization is the complete adaptation of a website to a culture.
According to Common Sense Advisory, most consumers will not buy from a website that is not in their native language. So the best way to boost your business at an international level is by translating / localizing your website into the languages of your target customers.
In the course , we will show how we can use machine learning to reduce language barriers in global trade. A recent research published by the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, using eBay data, found a 10.9% trade increase due to Artificial Intelligence translation. Another example is Alibaba. Machine translation is vital to the survival and growth of Alibaba’s cross-border e-commerce business.
However, adding localization into the mix adds a whole new layer of complexity. It begs the question: how do you scale your entire website site from one language in another without adding people, delays to market, and at a rate of return that far exceeds the investment?
Machine translation has come a long way in the recent years. Brands wouldn’t consider using it five years ago, but it has now become a big trend in the industry for translating content.
Lower your translation efforts and costs
In this training session, we will describe the way to translate and localize your website, at an affordable cost. Whether you decide to use your own translators, machine translation, or a combination of both, we will be reviewing some tools for that process vital to your international expansion.
A human translator would charge up to 20 cents per word. And if you consider that this is on-going work that might also involve translating into multiple languages, you will see your cost rising pretty quickly in the long run.
Automatic translation is faster, cheaper and easier to implement than hiring a human translator, but machine-powered engines cannot produce the sort of quality translations you’d expect from a human.
A good option is to improve and control the quality of translations by combining pure machine translation with human improvement, and we will review the best approaches in the course.
Translating your website has to be done for SEO purposes. Confirmation emails, packing slips, invoices, creative assets should also be included,as well as localizing the checkout process, images, and videos.
