This post is an explanation of how our International Blast service works, as it’s something we are often asked about.

International Blast was developed as a first step localisation for companies who wanted to begin trading internationally online, but preferred a cautious approach rather than investing a larger amount of money, time and resources in localising their whole website.

Even localising just one or two key pages of a website yields results, and often generates sales in a new target market. By pricing the service at £295, it is also an affordable option if a company wish to test several new markets at once. (more…)

We’re pleased and proud to welcome Technical Sales Director, and eCommerce expert, Raj Jadeja to the team.

Raj is heading up our London office, in the Clerkenwell area of the city, and has been appointed to meet the needs of our growing community of eCommerce clients, and also to provide a local presence for many of our other valued customers based across the capital.

If you’d like to meet Raj, give our London office a call on 0207 193 0441, or drop him an email at raj@web-translations.co.uk.

Yorkshire companies are “well-positioned to sell into Scandinavia”, according to Danish business expert and former diplomat, Benny Sørensen.

At a recent event to inform businesses in the region about opportunities in Scandinavia, the organisers (Import-Export consultants SØRENSEN, and Denmark’s inward investment organisation Copenhagen Capacity, teamed with the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce International Department)  experienced unprecedented demand from Yorkshire businesses wishing to attend, and have urged companies who are interested in trading with Scandinavian countries to act quickly to make the most of the opportunities available. (more…)

We’re going to take you step-by-step through a localisation project to explain how it’s done. The example we’ve chosen is the multilingual site we did for Loc8tor.

Loc8tor.com is an ecommerce site where customers can buy Loc8tor devices to help them keep track of keys, mobile phones, pets and all sorts of other belongings. This is an ideal showcase for the different elements involved in the professional localisation of a website.

With any website, the first step is to get the content into a format that translators can easily work with.

There are two main ways of translating content from a CMS - the translators can work directly into the system and input translations as they go along, or an export can be obtained from the system - usually either XML or Excel format.

Translation is not always done in a linear fashion - starting at the beginning and finishing at the end - a translator needs to be able to skip parts and come back to them later, raise queries if something is unclear etc. When it comes to proofreading the translation, a file will usually be easier to work on and edit than the content within the CMS. With this in mind, an exported file is often the best method.

So, the Project Manager will deliver the file to the translators, or give them access to the CMS as necessary. Once the translation is complete, the proofreaders do their part. Any images or other parts of the website not already part of the CMS/export file would be localised at this stage too - a professional localisation includes everything, not just the obvious text components of the website.

If an export file has been used, then this needs to be imported back into the CMS. This is usually done by the client’s web team, but sometimes we are given an access login to the system and can upload it ourselves.

The published sites we localised for Loc8tor can be found at www.loc8tor.eu, www.loc8tor.fr and www.loc8tor.es.

With some projects, this is where our involvement ends, but there are other stages that are recommended in order for the localised website to be a success:

Usability testing - this is especially important for eCommerce websites or any others where transactions take place. The localised site is tested from the user’s point of view to make sure all functions work correctly, links lead to the pages they should, etc.

Multilingual SEO & eMarketing - just because you’ve invested in localising your site doesn’t mean that customers in that particular country know it is there! Submitting your site to local search engines, building some inbound links and promoting the new website online will all help get more traffic, and these initial measures are included as standard in our Strategic Approach to Localisation packages.

Managing updates - it’s important that you consider how updates to the website will be managed. Many CMSs can be configured to send updates for translation, which minimises the delay in keeping the multilingual site current.

Keyword Research - Knowing the most popular search terms for your product or service is critical. We help to capture maximum exposure by identifying not just your keywords, but also complementary keywords and competitive keywords to help you optimise your website, and maximize the effectiveness of your multilingual Pay Per Click campaigns.

Pay-Per-Click - ideal for giving your web traffic a boost, for promotions, sales and to announce new content. In most industries it will be expensive to stay at the top of results using PPC alone, but it should form part of your overall web strategy if you have sufficient budget.

A good localisation strategy will consider these additional elements of the process as well as simply translating the main body of text on a website.

If you have any questions about website localisation, or any comments about this article, please let us know.

Take your share of the global market

According to a recent EU report, 2 of the main obstacles faced by UK businesses who are exporting for the first time are language and cultural barriers, and how best to promote their websites using SEO and online advertising.

The first step in trading internationally is to localise your website. This way, you can gain enquiries and orders from overseas customers with only a small investment - with even just one or two pages translated into foreign languages you can use your website to “test the water” in a number of countries at once, and see which ones gain you the most web traffic.

By monitoring the visitors to your localised webpages, you can choose the countries which warrant extra investment and focus on marketing your product or service there.

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Europeans are buying more online as confidence increases and companies deliver a better user experience.

As e-tailers prepare for another record Christmas period they should consider the changing trends in consumer confidence across Europe for new opportunities. Consumers are buying more frequently in every country in Europe, but as the pace of growth slows in the UK and competition stiffens, smart businesses will look to serve multilingual markets where consumerism grows faster and is less competitive.

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We are undoubtedly in times of fiscal ruin. Whole countries are going bust (how does that even happen?) and there is an impending sense of stagflation, or worse, deflation in the air…or even relegation if you are George Dub-ya.

“…Let’s stick to what we know, then, and make cut backs: no investment for a while, let’s just ride it out…” might say a chief decision maker whom, in doing so, will ensure his business only treads water for the foreseeable future.

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A study of more than 27,000 web users in 16 countries has shown that the Chinese spend the largest fraction of their leisure time online.

The survey also showed, however, that UK housewives spend even more of their free time online - a surprising 47%.

A total of 27,522 people aged 18 to 55 years old were interviewed online by TNS Global Interactive in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. 2,500 were surveyed in the UK.  The questions focused on online behaviour and, interestingly, also raised the issue of trust in traditional versus online media.

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Now, the unwritten rules of this company blog (which, post-ironically, have been written down), clearly state that any self, or client slanted, promotion is punishable by death: we have a website for such things. Having said that, and at the risk of corporate punishment, two projects deserve to have at least a little digital ink spent on them…

Most summers are remembered by an effeminate pop song, the social slaughter that is Big Brother and, in this country at least, an ongoing disappointment at the crude and rainy weather. Not so for Jenn, though, Chief Project Manager here at Web-Translations, who was pinned down with the task of coordinating the translation, localisation and launch of over 2000 products and 500, 000 words into German for online camera specialists, Warehouse Express.

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