3 Pitfalls to Avoid When Translating a Site to Spanish

Having a Spanish translation of a website (*) site offers a variety of benefits to business owners and entrepreneurs. For one, individuals who decide to go this route will be able to target an even larger pool of potential clients because there is an ever growing Spanish population in the United States, (for the purpose of this article, we will not count Latin America and Spain). Second, as products and services become available to a whole new niche market, this can result in an incremental source of revenues to those innovative businesses that learn how to connect and engage with this audience. Our experience in managing online Hispanic marketing campaigns for clients has taught us that when creating Spanish translations of a site, it is critical that three pitfalls be avoided in order to ensure that this effort is successful.

(*) we will refer to English into Spanish, but it can be applied also to French into Spanish, and so on.

I. Not Giving Enough Consideration to the Domain Chosen

Many business owners and Webmasters give insufficient consideration to the domain chosen when they are in the process of developing a Spanish-language website. Or even if they do give some thought and consideration, they end up making rush decisions without having a clear understanding of all the options available to them.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY:

When translating a site into Spanish, it is essential that business owners and Webmasters discuss options from both technical and non-technical perspectives. Should one use a domain per language, a sub-domain or a language folder? Typically, as shown in the table below that summarizes the technical aspects, there are pros and cons with each approach.

Refer to this featured blog post for a more detailed analysis on this subject: http://www.hispanicmarketadvisors.com/blog/spanish-seo-domain-per-language-subdomains-or-language-folders

II. Giving Inadequate Attention to Keyword Research and Analysis

More often than not, business owners and Webmasters rush into publishing translated content without localizing it first, and without knowing what the best Spanish-language keywords are. The problem with neglecting or bypassing this step is that your content will not include relevant keywords that users search for. As a consequence, your entire Spanish search engine marketing efforts will most likely fall flat, or attract insufficient or unqualified traffic.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY:

According to Mark Hugo Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanic Internet usage has grown 34 percent during the last five years [Source: Closing the Digital Divide: Latinos and Technology Adoption]. Having said that, attention must be given to the types of keywords Spanish speakers are using in a given market. Once these terms have been discovered, thoroughly analyzed, and selected, they must then be incorporated into the translated content in a user-friendly way.

Furthermore, metatags must be properly designed, and the appropriate keywords must be chosen for them. The good news is that Spanish SEO uses many of the same rules and techniques as SEO in any language. Using Google’s Keyword Suggestion tool can be a lifesaver, because it can show you the most popular terms.

It is also wise to try and incorporate keywords and phrases into website URLs and file names, although some studies like the one conducted by Searchmetrics [Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013] are reporting that the once positive effect of keywords in the URL and, in particular, in the domain name has decreased considerably in the last year or so. However, I tend to agree with the Moz team’s assertion on this blog that correlation does not necessarily prove causation. At the end of the day, one should ask him or herself two questions: 1). What is it that the User would prefer? 2). Am I looking to create a brandable domain like “Twitter.com” or a keyword-rich URL such as Buscatufranquicia.com (URL including Spanish-language terms) or CreateAnArticle.com (URL including English-language terms)?

III. Running Site Content through Online Translation Programs

Some people feel that it is enough to run a site’s contents through a free translator, such as Google translate, and then all will be well. However, this is far from the truth. Although technology plays an important role in the lives of professional translators, it is not a professionally sound decision when free online translation technology substitutes human translators. Many translation programs only provide an overall interpretation of what the content is conveying. Some thoughts and words are not rendered properly, thus will send an incorrect message to the business owners’ audience.

Check out this Spanish into English translation [http://twitpic.com/d6vhbo]:

How does a bad translation make you feel?

Furthermore, the translation program is not going to consider the dialect of the readers. For instance, Google Translate only has a generic option for Spanish. It does not differentiate between the Spanish that is spoken in various countries.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY:

First, it is essential that an individual who is familiar with the language does the translation manually. This way, he or she can check to make sure all content is accurately interpreted and the correct message is delivered to site viewers. If you are working with a translation agency, please remember to provide clear instructions to the translators and specify whether the text should be translated into Latin American Spanish (normally chosen for reaching US Hispanics or Latin America as a whole) or Castilian (for Spain).

Second, make sure the translation has an adequate quality control process in place that must include translation, editing and proofreading.

Third, if the scope of the project or the frequency of the work requires the use of translation technology, Hispanic Market Advisors® suggests the use of tools such as Swordfish or TRADOS, which are two of the many advanced Translation Memory™ tools used. Tools like these allow and ensure Translation Project Managers that the same phrases are translated identically and the terminology is used consistently, even if different translators work on different portions of the document. Like Charlotte Brasler says on this article published on the ATA Chronicle, “Humans are slow and expensive but creative; machines are fast and cheap but stupid. In between stands the quality factor.”

In Conclusion

If these three pitfalls are avoided, then translating a site from English to Spanish will have desirable results. Business owners and Webmasters who are not native Spanish speakers or don’t understand the nuances of the Hispanic market (which is not a monolithic bloc) will do better to leave content translation tasks up to professionals (whether in-house or outside multicultural agencies) who specialize in marketing to Latinos. This way, the Web content is translated to Spanish accurately, includes the right keywords and key phrases, and is accessible to the Spanish community who can connect with the brand or business and share it within its community.