Once you´ve decided to translate your company’s web page into the languages of the countries in which it does business, how can you ensure that you stand out from the competition?
A key element to achieve this is by adapting the SEO to the target languages. According to Hubspot, 80% of website traffic starts with a search query, but only the top three organic results get 60% of all the traffic from a web search.
Blogs and web pages need to work specifically on SEO positioning in order to reach the top positions in search engines. Within this discipline, numerous factors come into play, including linguistic ones.
SEO translation consists of translating online content from a web page or blog and taking into account their ranking in the search engines. If you want to replicate the SEO strategy you are using in the original language in other countries, it is necessary to go beyond the conventional translation.
The content must be adapted and localized to the search engines taking into consideration the culture of the country in question whilst maintaining the quality and interest in the texts. This way, you get more traffic and exposure of your product or service and ensure that you reach your target more effectively.
But, what should you keep in mind when translating your content to make it SEO-friendly?
Keywords
The toolset for backlink authority checker Ahrefs identifies the importance of adapting keywords in its guide “Multilingual SEO: Translation and Marketing Guide”. Here it explains that 117.000 people search for “last minute holidays” from the United Kingdom each month. However, this is not a well-known concept in France and, instead, only 8.400 people search for the equivalent “Vacances dernière minute” monthly. So, there are keywords that are highly searched in one market which do not have the equivalent searching level in another.
The literal translation of keywords is quick and easy but, as seen, it is not effective. The idiomatic nuances of each language, its culture, and context are not taken into account and, therefore, a significant number of keywords are missing. Thus, the main objective of showing the website among the first results in search engines is not achieved.
For this reason, the translation team in charge of adapting your company’s content to other languages must be an SEO translation expert, with a strategic vision and knowledge of the unique keywords in the target language.
Metadata
Your web page’s description, the title, or the link’s name with which the page will be published are important elements to translate on your website.
Besides, it is necessary to adapt the internal links that the text contains so that they are directed to the links of the translated version of the web, and also the external links, so that they direct to pages of the same language. So, when clicking on a text link, the user is prevented from ending up on a page that is not in their language.
If the content is accompanied by pictures, tables, graphics, or videos,it is necessary to adapt the corresponding descriptions and titles.
URL and domain name
The URL and domain name of your website are important factors that have to be considered when expanding your business in the future. A small percentage of your company’s acceptance also depends on this decision.
When translating your URL, a search engine such as Google or Yahoo is capable of recognizing if your website has different versions in other languages. By adapting the domain name to the target languages, you are not only telling your search engine that you are reaching out to a particular country but also, you are gaining the trust of the users.
In this way, you can achieve a better positioning in the search results, which translates into a greater number of clicks on your page. For example, French users are fond of seeing “fr.” on websites, beyond a more general domain like “.com.”
At Berba, we have a native team of translators specialized in Marketing, SEO and Advertising translations. Contact us in info@berba.com and adapt your website’s SEO to the target languages.
