Website Translation Advice

There’s a lot of truth the to statement that we live in a global village. Technologies like the internet, social media, large-scale shipping, and commercial airliners have dramatically reduced the effective distance between countries and continents—facilitating communication, trade, and travel to an unprecedented degree. For businesses, this offers a world of opportunity to engage with prospective clients and customers all around the globe.

Nonetheless, entrepreneurs and businesses who hope to outfox their rivals need to ensure they’ve got the right tools in place. And one of the most crucial must-haves for enterprises looking to expand overseas is a website that offers comparable content and functionality in various languages.

Hire a professional translator and/or reputable translation firm.

If you’ve ever attempted to translate lengthy passages with Google Translate, you may have noticed that flaws tend to crop up in the English version. There are many reasons for this: certain idioms don’t work well in English, cultural concepts expressed in other languages are difficult to convey in English, the software fails to correctly distinguish one homonym from another or misinterprets the context of the sentence, etc.

Assuming you want the content of your business website to convey a comparable level of meaning and impact in multiple languages—including some that you don’t happen to speak at an advanced level—you should strongly consider hiring reputable, professional translators to assist you.

Before choosing a translation firm, do some research and try to find testimonials from past clients. Seek firms that either specialize in or have native proficiency in your target language. Ideally, the translators you hire will also possess specific cultural expertise, and have the ability to operate on a 24-hour cycle for time-sensitive assignments.

An anecdote: I have a friend who works at an organization that opted to switch from the translation company it had traditionally worked with, to an outfit that offered a lower price for (ostensibly) the same work. As a native speaker of the target language, my friend noticed that the lower-priced enterprise’s content was replete with mistranslations and other errors. Unfortunately, by that time it was too late; my friend’s organization had already ordered thousands of copies of their newly translated brochures. Although the errors were eventually corrected (with my friend’s help), her organization ended up wasting significant amounts of money, time, and paper.

The moral of the story is, be vigilant, and make sure you’re not sacrificing quality at the altar of a seemingly attractive price.

Cultural appropriateness.

There’s more to effective translation than simply altering the words on your web page. Depending on the scale and importance of the target market, you’ll also want to consider ways to make your website’s content culturally relevant and appropriate for your new customers.

If certain imagery doesn’t work, messages in your original content are culturally specific and don’t transfer well to other countries, or for any reason your English-language material doesn’t address the needs and priorities of your target market, then the translation firm should be able to alert you to the problem and offer a viable solution.

As your dealings with international markets become more sophisticated, you may also want to select stock photos and symbols that are likelier to resonate with customers overseas. Furthermore, customers may feel more comfortable with your brand if they see a resemblance to themselves in some of the people whose likenesses appear on your website.

Watch out for possible issues with site architecture and navigation.

As you translate from one language to several others, you will inevitably find that the same content in different languages will occupy different amounts of physical space on the website. This can introduce problems with the layout of the pages, and the ability of visitors to navigate smoothly and efficiently.

This is one of several reasons why it’s important to run reasonably thorough quality assurance tests before you launch new content on a foreign-language version of your website.

Technical glitches are a fact of modern life, and problems will almost certainly arise with any major online translation project. But if you succeed at making inroads into lucrative foreign markets, you’ll be rewarded for your patience and perseverance.

Averting Disaster – Do Your Research (Part 1)

I was recently privy to one of the worst branding disasters I’ve ever encountered. The effect on the team launching the product was near catastrophic and hindsight proved just how avoidable it all was. There are a few simple rules to a product launch and I’m hoping that my recent experience can shed a light on how to avoid this problem in the future.

The following story is true. Certain names and details have been altered to protect the privacy and integrity of those involved.

The Product

I work as a digital media consultant responsible for developing content for various companies that choose to market their business on the internet. A well-intentioned individual who runs a website and blog devoted to tea was looking to expand their audience by hosting an online tea conference bringing experts from all over the world to discuss everything concerning tea, called “The Tea Council”. The online conference would be composed of 30 presentations and interviews on various subjects as they relate to tea marketed for free over a one-week period, and available for sale thereafter through the blog and various affiliates for $29.99.

The Team

A tremendous amount of work is involved to put together one of these online conferences for which there are numerous benefits to the consumer. First, during the week of the conference the information is available for free. Second, there is no need to buy a ticket, purchase a flight, or book a hotel room in another city - the entire conference can be enjoyed from one’s bedroom. And finally, the information is available to the consumer in perpetuity. In order to create this product, a whole content team and marketing team need to be assembled to create the product and to put it out to the world. Web space for the “theteacouncil” was purchased and all content and marketing for the conference would be channeled through that space. A single online conference takes a solid 2 to 3 months to put together employing about a dozen individuals all trained in their specific discipline as well as coordinating with a large group of experts who all have a stake in how great the reach is for this conference.

My Role

As the one responsible for designing the content, it was my job to consult with our client on how to make the best use of digital media to communicate the information of an expert with an audience of lay people. An interview is conducted between the conference host and the expert that is recorded and edited, and then turned into a final podcast-type deliverable for the consumer. Those interviews are then transcribed, from which a power point presentation is created. This power point is then turned into a video and is matched with the audio presentation which itself is delivered to the consumer. All in all, for thirty presentations, on my end alone, it was about 100 hours of work.

How It All Broke Down in the Blink of an Eye

We were less than a week away to launch. All the content was in place, all the affiliates were on board, and initial pre-registrations had already taken place. Heavy traffic was already heading to the website and sales were already being made. The client received a cease and desist letter from the owner of a website called “councilonteas.com”. After an initial review from a lawyer, although being reassured that the Council on Teas didn’t have much of a case, legal fees alone would cut significantly into the budget of the conference. The owner of the Council on Teas was also adamant that a deal could not be struck and that the Tea Council was in breach of a trademarked product and would be legally blocked from launching their product, and would face legal repercussions and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, should they continue with their launch as planned.

 Lesson Learned

A simple Google search would have shown the existence of the Council on Teas company and their website, and the initial decision to launch the conference as “The Tea Council” had to be considered a terrible oversight. Even if the desired web space was available, it would have been preferable to do some initial market research and explore any websites and names that might have even been remotely similar to anything they wanted to launch.

Read on to Part 2 to find out what it took to finally get a completed product completely rebranded and launched.

Business Essentials: Building a Great Website

It wasn’t all that long ago that for a business to have a website seemed a novel thing. The tipping point has long past, and for a start up company to not prioritize their website as a major arm of their business seems sophomoric. The hurdles that confronted the early pioneers of website building (technical complexity, cost, technological limitations) have disappeared and there is now no excuse not to have a website. There is, however, one basic rule that has not changed – nor will it ever – and that is: the better and more effective you want your website to be, the greater the investment it will represent. Below are a few handy tips that will hopefully give you greater insight into what steps are involved in building your website and allay any concerns that it might represent.

The Anatomy of a Website

There are essentially two vital parts to any website that businesses need to consider: the code and the server.

The Code: Everything you see and read on the internet is nothing more than a series of binary codes – a seemingly endless stream of 1’s and 0’s. It’s like the DNA of your website. And as your DNA eventually becomes the you that others can see and interact with, so the code is what will become the part of your website that others see and interact with.

The Server: The code, in order to be seen and read by others, needs a place to be stored and easily accessed. The place where these codes are stored, or hosted, are on servers owned by companies that continuously allow the transfer of information. These hosting companies pay for their servers, and to transfer all those billions of bytes of information, and they make their money by your renting space for your website on their server in the form of a “domain”.

A website thus becomes a website when your code occupies the domain space that you have rented.

What You Pay For

Renting space with a hosting company is a piece of cake and can be done for as little as a few dollars a month. A simple Google search will likely bring up a myriad of companies that offer hosting with different options. Most have a help line that you can call and simply knowing a little bit about what you want your website to do will easily give them a sense of what option is best for you. Most often it comes down to whether or not you plan to have a lot of data-heavy bells and whistles like streaming audio and video. These things take up space, which means you may need to rent more server space.

Once you’ve rented the space, you need your space to have a name. This is how people will remember your website. Ideally, you’ll want your domain name to reflect the essentials of what your business is about and it should be snappy and easy to remember. Acquiring a domain name is somewhat of an art. It’s quite possible that your perfect domain name is something no one has yet thought of, at which point it’s easily acquired through your hosting company at no charge. However, if your perfect website name is owned it can be a challenge to acquire. There are entire companies that purchase domain names with the sole purpose of brokering them to people who want the name for their business. At this point you have to decide what the domain is worth to you. If someone has already beat you to it and has built a whole site around that domain name it might be best to explore other options. If it is available for purchase, then it all comes down to what you’re willing to pay.

The code you can also pay for, but most hosting sites now come with their own website builder which can handle the code for you. Although these website builders are rudimentary, they can easily handle a variety of different website formats and give the user several different style sheets to choose from. If you have time, building your own website can be fun.

WordPress

Stepping it up a notch, WordPress has become the gold standard in website design. WordPress takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master. Ultimately, it is an incredibly powerful and versatile tool for building websites. The program (or code, since technically it’s not a program) is free, but you’ll definitely be investing your time to learn how to use it. It can be as simple as downloading the code for a template, or completely building your own style sheet and code right from scratch. Scouring the web there all kinds of add-ons that are available that are simple enough to add to your website’s code and that can make your website all the more engaging to the visitor.

Website Design

Website design has become a niche all unto itself and there are plenty of companies and freelancers out in the marketplace who are happy to do the legwork of building the code for your website for you. This is essentially the code that you can pay for and although prices can vary substantially, so can the quality of the workmanship. Obviously, a more complicated website brings with it a heftier price tag. It’s standard practice for companies and freelancers to have a portfolio of designs so that you know what your getting into before you buy, but ultimately their job is to make your website as concise, easy to navigate, and engaging as possible.

Google and High Quality Content

Love it or hate it, Google is the dominant force when it comes to ranking your company's website. That ranking is registered when a prospect types in a keyword to find something they're looking for like "dentist in East Lansing" or "T-shirts in Fort Lauderdale." Google wants to reward it's users by presenting the most relevant websites at the top of their ranking page.

There aren't any "Google elves" sitting there answering keyword searches. Instead, an algorithm is activated for every search. Throughout the years, Google has tweaked the algorithm to make it better at finding great websites for the respective search results. They keep the algorithm a secret as many companies try to game it in order to be ranked higher. However, there are general rules that Google has outlined what a relevant website should follow in order to be ranked high.

According to Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s WebSpam team, fresh, relevant content is the foundation for high rankings. So, how does Google tell if a web page has high quality content? Consider these factors:

Duplicate Content

Google performs an instantaneous scan and recognizes just as fast whether or not a web site has overlapping and/or redundant content on your site. They look to see if you’ve copied content from other sites by checking the age of the content and percentage of similar content when comparing sites. Here is where your inclusion of keywords could actually come back to haunt you, especially if they are being overused. Does this mean you should abandon those keywords? Absolutely not. However, you might also want to freshen up your existing content if your keyword phrases all appear to be using the same phrasing.  

Quality Content

Google is looking for quality. When it can deliver that to its users then those users will come back for more. Is your content well written? Are there grammar or spelling errors? Does it read like a robot wrote the piece? There are many quality content writers out there who can deliver engaging content. If you don't have the skills, hire someone who does. One way Google measures quality content is through tracking how long an user stays on the page. If they arrive on the page and leave immediately, Google knows that the page wasn’t relevant to the search query, or that the website content wasn’t good.

Relevant Content

Here is where you need to search out the competition. Pretend you're a customer and Google the same keywords you hope someone would use to look for your site. What businesses come up on the first ranking page? More importantly, why did those sites come up first? Take the time to study those pages to see what they are doing right in terms of content, titles and headers. This is what you should be striving for.

Viral Content

The best type of content is something that will be shared. Whether that is an infographic, top ten list or really cool photo, if you can get viewers to bookmark or share that piece then you're spreading your message further across the web. Information and humor are two solid items that can make a piece of content go viral. If you can add a short, funny video all the better!

When you get right down to it, it's not rocket science. It's all about quality. 

How to Improve a Call to Action on Your Website

Are you getting the traffic to your website you deserve? You might have terrific visuals and engaging content but there is a key element that could be affecting your conversions. That would be the call-to-action.

This is where you encourage your potential customer to do what you want them to do – either to buy something, signup for an email newsletter or ask for more information.  It doesn't matter if you're selling goods or services a potential buyer always needs that extra little push.

You can improve your call to action by following these helpful tips:

Have an action button: Instead of burying your call to action within an article, why not have a separate free-floating button? Click here for more information. Buy now. Add to cart. Order today. Those are all wonderful examples of action buttons. Even something as simple as "Get a Free Quote" can provoke your customer into action. Besides, we all like pushing buttons!

Have the right color: You don't have time to test several shades of a color for an action button so you'll just have to rely on what has worked in the past. Orange, red and green have been shown to boost conversion rates. Don't ask for an explanation; just use them!

Have your CTA appear at the right time: Nobody wants to be hit over the head with a hard sale right out of the box. That's why your call to action needs to be properly placed within the customer’s buying cycle. Let your customer get some information before asking them to act.

Have a clear design: This is obviously more important with selling a product then a service. When you've got a tangible good to sell make sure the graphics lets everyone see exactly what they are getting. For instance, suppose you're selling a program that includes a DVD and a booklet. Show a picture of the box, the DVD and the booklet. The more visuals you can show, the stronger position you'll be into close the sale.

Give a freebie: Provide something for the new prospect free of charge so that they get a taste of what you offer. Remember, reduce the risk for your prospect to purchase.  

Have some whitespace: You don't need to clutter up your website with copy and graphics to get your point across. Perhaps placing your call to action in some open whitespace will actually draw more attention to it.

All of these tips are meant to be experimented with. Mix it up and track your analytics. The more you test, the better off you'll be to find the right call to action that converts well for your business. 

Getting the Most Out Of SEO

There you are, finally ready to launch your online business. You went through weeks of planning with a web designer and got everything worked out and tested.

Then, finally, your website goes live. And you wait. And wait.

Where are the customers? Where's the traffic? That's when you'll hear the word SEO for the first time. It's a word you should make your new best friend!

Search Engine Optimization is what can put your site at the top of search page rankings. But how can you get those high rankings? Fortunately, there are many wonderful resources available online to help you beef up your SEO. The goal is to choose the right SEO services and make sure that you get the value for your marketing money.

Here's what a good SEO company should be providing:

Knowledge and tools to research strong keywords. Everything starts with the keywords. This is what the typical customer will use to type into the search engines. Finding the right combination of keywords is, well, key. Keywords or phrases should be based on your understanding of your customers’ buying cycle. A comprehensive keyword search includes keyword popularity, competitive research and product-related searches. There are some keywords that appear to rank high but might make no sense in terms of being added to content. Your SEO expert needs to decipher the difference.

Ability to create engaging copy. Once you've got the keywords locked down you then have to fold them into your content. This is what will be picked up by the search engines. Working them into headlines is easy but it's the copy that really matters. Search engines are becoming extremely sophisticated - they can sniff out "spam copy" and penalize you for it. Don't depend on an IT guy crunching algorithms or a web designer to be able to entice your customers with the written word.

Up-to-date information. Google is still the reigning champ of search engines but it is getting plenty of competition from rivals Bing, Yahoo and a whole range of other players. Your SEO expert needs to be on top of all of the search engine parameters because they are constantly being upgraded. You want someone who will be staying far ahead of the technology curve. Ask them when the latest update to a search engine was and have them explain to you how it can affect your website. 

As you look for an SEO expert don't hesitate to shop around to find one that best suits your needs. Obviously, you should start with the ones that have the highest rankings themselves. You know they're doing something right.

Less is More - Online User Experience Design

The adage "less is more" can apply to many things. It holds true in cooking, gardening, academics and especially business. It revolves around the idea that you don’t want your customers to think more than they have to.

The fewer decisions to make during the shopping process, the better.

This becomes easier when we consider all of our customer touch points throughout the decision making process. With how connected most people are now, an important part of this is recognizing what platform they’re using and what specific information they’re looking for.

Ask yourself the following questions when approaching your customer’s user experience:

What can you take out of the online shopping experience to make it easier for your users to make purchasing decisions?

 Are you presenting them with too many options too soon in the shopping process

Can you keep your customers engaged while minimizing the decision making experience?

Amazon has perfected the one click approach to online shopping but not without a lot of trial and error. Take a look at these websites to see how they are utilizing the "less is more" principle to web design:

Apple: If there is one company who has mastered the simplified approach to web design it is Apple. Even with the vast array of products that are part of the company's catalog you'll find that their home page consists of just three things: a navigation bar, a single product featured on the page and formational links below the fold.  The focus is on finding what you want, quickly and easily. When you click over to a specific product page you'll find sidebars featuring links to related products and support but that single product still dominates the attention of the user. You're not going to find dense copy, ads or clutter.  

 Shoeguru: Shoeguru is a terrific example of combing user-centric ideas with product-centric solutions. There also exemplify the proverbial "Grandma Rule." If the site is so easy to use that your grandma can shop there then you've achieved the ultimate in minimalistic design.

Etsy: Like Amazon, Etsy is an e-commerce site which has an expansive catalog. However, that doesn't mean you should crowd your page with tons of information to get your point across. Let strong and vibrant product shots do the selling work. In other words, you need only show what you need to make the sale. Specs and reviews matter but they should be part of the clickthrough.

After identifying the platform or device your customers will be on at any given point during their shopping process, remove all unnecessary obstacles, and give them exactly what they need.

The end result will be smaller bounce rates, more sales, customers who feel like you understand their needs.

Video Series - PixelCarve, Inc. Business Incorporation

PixelCarve, Inc. - Business incorporation and document filing services

Last fall, we decided that we wanted to give our clients the opportunity to showcase their business in a video campaign. We asked our clients to tell us about their business and how CorporationCentre.ca helped them start up. The response was amazing! We worked hard all winter to develop a series of videos that show the impact that CorporationCentre.ca has had on entrepreneurs and business owners across Canada.

The first video in our series comes from Pixelcarve, Inc., an interactive digital agency in Toronto.

Founded by Curtis Priest, Pixelcarve offers its clients creative and complex web design that focuses on building unique digital experiences for premium brands. Pixelcarve's services are focused on the web and mobile devices, but also offer services in digital signage, branding, design, photography and video.

Curtis, a self-proclaimed “do-it-yourself kind of guy”, started his company in 1998 in his parent’s basement with the help of CorporationCentre.ca. He incorporated his business with CorporationCentre.ca, and continues to use the document filing services to file his annual reports.

   

Find out more by watching the video below and visit Pixelcarve, Inc. at www.pixelcarve.com.



How to hire a web designer

Is your company about to design a new website or planning to revamp your existing one? Finding a web designer to do it can be a challenging process; with so many to choose from. However, before you start looking around for one, you should already have a detailed understanding of what your website will be like. Take the time to plan your requirements for the site including the business goals. Some other questions that you should ask are:

• Is your website going to be powered by a Content Management System (CMS) such as Wordpress, Drupal and Joomla?

• Do you have a site map ready?

• Do you know the style including branding, logos and colours that your website should look like?

• What is your project deadline?

• And finally, how much are you willing to spend on your website?

Once you have created your brief, you can then start choosing a designer. Here are some of the points that you should consider:

• Portfolio: A designer’s portfolio is the best way to gauge their experience and skills. Don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions about their work that is represented and make sure that it can be verified. Ask for client references and find out:

o what their professional relationship was like;

o was there open communication;

o was the project done on time and to satisfaction?

Also, choose the portfolio that has work similar in scope to your project. For example, if you’re looking for a Wordpress site, make sure that the designer you choose has done multiple Wordpress projects.

• Style: Each designer has their own creative eye. This creativity can be seen in their designs - see if they are flexible in all their work, or does their work show the same, repetitive style?

• Communication skills: For any project to be successful, there has to be clear communication channel both ways. Make sure that your requirements are understood clearly by the designer, and secondly, that the designer can communicate clearly any changes or problems that may occur during the course of the project. It’s better to over-communicate than make assumptions that could be wrong. There should be a process where both of you can easily update each other during the course of the project including having regular meetings. There also should be multiple ways to communicate with your designer, when reaching them is critical.

• Are they knowledgeable: A consultant should always tie their services to the needs of your business. They should spend the time in learning how your business works, what you offer, and what kind of clients you work with. With that knowledge, they can design a site that will reflect your business and not what they think it should be.

• How much does it cost? Get a full breakdown of the costs in creating your site. Features such as a blog, email newsletter system, ecommerce functionality and others should be listed in the quote including time taken, resources used and any sub-contractors hired. Understand their billing process – will they bill you monthly, or are payments based on milestones

Your website is essential to the marketing success of your business. By interviewing potential designers, you’re more likely to pick one that:

• Is skilled to do the type of work you want,

• Communicates and listens well,

• And is budget conscious.

By keeping these tips in mind when searching for a website designer, you should be on your way to starting a successful website.