How to Vertalen a Website: A Comprehensive Guide

As businesses and individuals seek to connect with a diverse and international audience, the need to make information accessible in multiple languages has become paramount. Website translation comes with a set of unique challenges, including linguistic nuances, cultural considerations, and technical intricacies.

However, the benefits far outweigh these challenges:

• Expanded Global Reach: Website translation opens the door to a broader global audience. Statistics indicate that over 75% of internet users prefer content in their native language, making translation a key driver of engagement and reach.
• Cultural Relevance: Adapting content to different languages and cultures demonstrates respect and understanding, fostering a sense of trust among users. This can lead to increased user satisfaction and loyalty.
• Competitive Advantage: Businesses that invest in website translation gain a competitive edge by reaching untapped markets. Research shows that multilingual websites often outperform their monolingual counterparts in terms of traffic and conversions.
• SEO and Visibility: Translated content improves search engine optimization (SEO) and boosts visibility in local search results. Localizing your web content can increase search traffic by nearly 50%.
• Global Brand Image: For businesses, website translation contributes to a global brand image and reputation. It signifies a commitment to a diverse and inclusive customer base.

Understanding the Maturity Curve of Website Translation

The maturity curve in website translation represents the journey that a translation project undergoes as it evolves and grows over time. It plays a pivotal role in optimizing the website localization process. Research from Common Sense Advisory states that a staggering 75% of global consumers prefer to make their online purchases in their native language.

Understanding the maturity curve is paramount to effectively tap into this extensive market of multilingual consumers. Moreover, data from CSA Research emphasizes the importance of language in the online shopping experience, with 54% of consumers rating it as more crucial than price when making purchase decisions. This data underscores the significance of website translation and its maturity in enhancing user experiences and expanding global reach.

The Stages of the Maturity Curve

The maturity curve comprises five distinct stages, each with its characteristics and implications.

Stage 1: Manual

In the initial stage, website translation often occurs in an ad-hoc manner, lacking a systematic approach. Most translations are done manually for specific use cases. There is no centralized approach to translation, which can make businesses susceptible to losing market share to better-organized competitors.

It's important to note that companies remaining in this stage may potentially miss out on a significant customer base. A survey conducted by Statista indicates that 60% of online shoppers rarely or never make purchases from English-only websites, highlighting the limitations of not progressing beyond the initial stage.

Stage 2: Automated

The Automated phase occurs when international maturity and requirements are still relatively low. Some companies begin leveraging translation automation tools for their projects. This may involve using machine translation solutions like Google Translate.

While businesses may still manually translate some content, such as ads and blog posts gaining traction in the market, this phase marks the transition towards scalable translation to enhance visibility among the target audience.

Stage 3: Agile

As international maturity grows, so do international requirements. Companies may need to translate content into multiple languages and consider localization, going beyond mere translation.

This stage involves working in sprints. Each translation and localization project is treated as a "sprint" and involves more than just using machine translation. It encompasses full localization of a company's brand and website in different languages, requiring an effective and repetitive process.

According to CSA Research, businesses operating in multiple languages in the agile stage experience 2.4 times more revenue growth than those focusing on a single language market.

This phase is when the need for vendor support is greatest. It is advisable to engage a translation and localization company like MotionPoint to efficiently handle these projects.

Stage 4: Centralized

In the centralized phase, translated languages are well-established, and the majority of translation and localization adjustments are managed by a reliable, centralized entity like MotionPoint. With most or all of a company's translation and localization content in place, translation memory software takes care of updating existing words and phrases automatically.

Continuous translation ensures that website content is consistently and accurately updated as the company expands. Automation tools and workflows are implemented to manage translation at scale, leading to cost reductions and faster time-to-market. Nimdzi Insights reports that companies using translation management systems reduce translation costs by up to 30% and accelerate time-to-market by 50%.

Stage 5: Expert

In the expert phase, businesses have reached peak international maturity and face extensive international requirements and dependencies. Depending on the size and nature of a company's website, it may make financial sense to establish an in-house translation and localization team.

However, this approach has drawbacks, including hidden costs associated with staffing and resource allocation, potentially overwhelming existing staff with translation responsibilities, and the risk of project delays and increased time-to-market.

The Importance of Your Project’s Maturity Level

Assessing the maturity level of your website translation project is of paramount importance. It allows for informed decision-making regarding resource allocation and strategy.

After evaluating its translation maturity, one software company witnessed a remarkable 25% increase in its international customer base within a year. This underscores the transformative impact of assessing and improving translation maturity on the global expansion and success of a business.

Incorporating these insights into your website translation strategy can prove instrumental in reaching a wider audience, enhancing user experiences, and ultimately, achieving international growth and success.

Exploring Approaches to Website Translation

Connectors and Integrations

When you are first beginning a website translation project, you may decide to take on the task internally. Without website translation technology experts or professional linguists, your best option is probably to invest in connectors or web integrations.

Connectors are software components or plugins that enable the seamless integration of your website content with translation management systems (TMS) or translation tools. They act as bridges between your website’s content management system (CMS) and the translation system.

Connectors allow for the automatic extraction of content that needs translation, sending it to the translation tool, and then bringing the translated content back to the website. This automation streamlines the translation process and reduces manual effort.

Integrations, in the context of website translation, are broader and encompass various aspects beyond just content translation. Integrations can include the incorporation of localized content into the website’s structure, adapting the user interface to accommodate different languages, and even handling aspects like currency conversion, date formats, and regional-specific functionalities.

These integrations ensure that the website provides a seamless experience to users from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

• Streamlining the Translation Process: Connectors and integrations play a pivotal role in streamlining website translation. According to a study by Nimdzi Insights, companies that utilize integration solutions experience a 30% reduction in translation costs and a 50% acceleration in time-to-market.
• Popular Content Management Systems (CMS) Plugins: Popular CMSs like WordPress and Drupal are often translated using dedicated plugins, like WPML. Research by W3Techs indicates that WordPress powers over 40% of websites, making it a prominent choice for translation.

Menselijke vertaling

Using human linguists to translate a website is a great way to ensure accuracy and quality. If you have access to a linguist internally, that could be a good resource for your project. However, hiring an outside translator can be costly and it doesn't cover the technical aspect of creating the translated webpages.

This method is best used at the beginning of a project or if the project is small. Here's an overview of using human translators for website translation:

• Advantages of Human Translation: Human translation ensures linguistic accuracy and cultural relevance. A survey by CSA Research found that 76% of global consumers are more likely to buy products if information is available in their language, emphasizing the importance of accurate translation.
• Importance of Professional Translators: Professional translators are essential for maintaining quality. The American Translators Association reports that certified translators adhere to rigorous standards, guaranteeing precise translations.

JavaScript Proxy and Web Based Proxy

Proxy translation is an alternative method for adapting content to serve diverse language markets. This method functions separately from your Content Management System or any tech stack, in contrast to the use of APIs and connectors. Premier proxy translation services alleviate the technological and staffing hurdles associated with the localization of digital content.

A proxy server dedicated to translation takes your website’s existing code and content and translates it in real-time for various international audiences.

Such proxy services maintain the original performance of the website while ensuring the translated content is regularly updated and distributed seamlessly to users across the globe.

JavaScript proxy is employed for translating dynamic website content in real-time. According to HTTP Archive data, JavaScript is present on 98.9% of websites, indicating its widespread use in web development.

Web based proxy solutions offer faster load times and improved SEO. A case study by Akamai Technologies reveals that faster-loading websites lead to increased user engagement and higher conversion rates. When it comes to website translation, translation proxy allows for on-the-fly content translation. It allows for adaptability, flexibility, speed, scalability, and great cost savings.

AI and Google Translate

AI has aided advancements in the website translation process. A report by MarketsandMarkets predicts that the AI in the translation industry will grow at a CAGR of 21.0% from 2021 to 2026. With more people using AI for website translation, its abilities and benefits are also evolving, leading to greater acceptance of its use.

AI translation usually takes the form of neural machine translation (NMT), a state-of-the-art machine translation approach that leverages deep neural networks to translate text into a new language.

Neural Machine Translation (NMT) systems undergo training through exposure to substantial bilingual text corpora, employing backpropagation to fine-tune their parameters. These systems aim to refine their performance by optimizing a target objective function, typically to enhance the probability of producing an accurate translation from the given source text.

Generic NMTs 

Generic NMTs represent elementary artificial intelligence translation solutions, akin to ChatGPT, that deliver rudimentary translations in the form of sentence and word pairings. These translations, while generally correct, fall short of high-quality standards due to their direct, word-for-word translation approach without any personalized adaptation. Nonetheless, they are often more budget-friendly alternatives.

Brand Adapted NMTs 

Brand Adapted NMT systems are sophisticated models tailored to align with the unique linguistic style and preferences of each client's brand. Leveraging pre-existing translation memories, industry-specific data collections, and specialized data treatment workflows, these models are designed to yield translations that are more congruent with your brand's terminological nuances across various languages.

Using brand adapted NMTs to translate websites boasts invaluable benefits, such as speed, cost savings, and scalability. According to CSO Insights, AI can improve translation quality by 40%, making it a valuable asset in website translation.

Professional Translation Companies

According to the Common Sense Advisory, professional translation services contribute to 62% of the global translation market. With a professional website translation partner, you are able to bring your own CMS and choose which translation method works best for you.

This hands-off approach saves you time and money and can ensure the exact level of translation quality that you need. Translation agencies can handle complex website translation projects with expertise and efficiency.

In a real-world example, Master Lock engaged MotionPoint to translate, launch, and operate its websites for Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Deze websites werden in minder dan 90 dagen geïmplementeerd, waarmee aan Master Lock's snelheidseisen werd voldaan.

De websites van Master Lock veranderen regelmatig, met maandelijkse updates en grote wijzigingen als er een nieuw product of segment wordt toegevoegd. Luckily, this wasn't an issue thanks to our industry-leading technology, and Master Lock was satisfied with the quality of work and the outcome of our efforts.

Costs Associated with Website Translation

According to Common Sense Advisory, the average cost of hiring a human translator can range from $0.12 to $0.30 per word. However, the complexity of the content and language pairs can influence costs and make them higher. Furthermore, any edits or corrections will only add to that number.

Using a professional service that has access to industry-leading technology can reduce costs and limit the need for human intervention. Without a professional partnership, you could incur the following costs:

• Software Costs: There will be costs associated with using translation management systems (TMS) or website translation plugins.
• Integration Expenses: Integrating translation solutions with your website may require additional development work or licensing fees.

• Maintenance and Update Costs: Ongoing maintenance for translated content is vital, including updates, revisions, and quality assurance.

Translate Your Website the Right Way

With the many options for website translation, and the developments in the world of AI and machine translation, you have the opportunity to minimize costs and optimize quality to your liking. The best way to do this is to work with a professional translation service like MotionPoint.

You don't have to stress about the changing needs as your company progresses along the maturity curve. You may be able to begin the website translation process on your own, but as the workload grows, you will benefit from professional help.

For a limited time, you can begin your website translation project for FREE with MotionPoint! Get no set up fees and no initial conversion costs, adding up to $10,000 in savings. Get started today!