Importance of Content Translation

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Creating a global website is a huge task. In order for a global website to be successful, it needs to have content that has appeal on a worldwide scale without making any country feeling alienated or disconnected. One of the most important steps in achieving this is translating your website's content into various languages. Professional website translation has been an essential component of successful global websites for years, but many people simply don't understand the importance of content translation. There are many reasons why professional website translation is important to global websites.

Global Connection

Your website can be available to every country in the world, but there will be little point if the majority of the population of those countries can't read your content. This is especially true of eCommerce websites. Few people will want to buy items or services from a website that isn't written in a language that they understand. This is mostly because they don't want to buy something that may not be exactly what they need or could possibly be a scam. In addition, they may not be able to buy the product or service anyway if they can't read the checkout screen properly. Content translation will hook in more visitors from other countries, keep them browsing longer and may prompt them to buy goods or services from your website.

Respect

If you're going to have a globally available website marketed to other countries, it seems disrespectful to not offer your website's content in their native languages. It makes it seem like you care about their business but not their experience in using your website. Translating your content to the languages used in the countries that you're offering your goods and services too seems m...

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...any changes that need to be made. A professional translator generally does a good enough job to begin with, but if a proofreading job is needed there are usually proofreaders from their company that will include the proofreading in the package for the job at a much lower price.

Finally, some people can easily catch on to the fact that translation software was used to translate a website's content. While they may appreciate that you bothered to include a translated version of your website, they may find it slightly insulting that you merely copied and pasted the text into translation software instead of hiring a professional to do the job properly. This insulted feeling may be increased if the content is poorly translated. Hiring a professional to properly translate your website's content will prevent possibly offending your customers with poorly translated content.

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