Is going international the next logical step for your company? Your website probably only supports one or at most two languages in its original content. How to translate a webpage into another language is addressed in this section. If you are looking for a professional website development company than you can contact Web Development India with talented team of website developers and web designers.
A professional translator might be hired to translate the information on your website. This can be rather costly, though, depending on the target language and the volume of information. A skilled translation, however, can make the necessary linguistic and cultural adjustments to your website to better meet the demands of your new target audience.
While it’s considered bad form to use Google Translate to make a multilingual website, machine translation often ends up being cheaper and faster than human translation.
Software as a service translation solutions provide a wide range of online and mobile localization services, and are used by many multilingual websites. Let’s take a look at some real-world examples of businesses that are using website localization best practises.
Table of Contents
Localize
More than 80 language combinations may be translated with Localize’s suite of translation tools for websites, online applications, backend components (emails, SMS messages, alerts, etc.), and iOS, Android, and hybrid mobile apps. The company also provides tools for converting CSV, YAML, and XML documents, among others, that customers upload.
The localise function consists of:
a central hub for managing and monitoring translation projects, complete with user-friendly reports, markup customization, and storage for all your files and material. There are many Website Development Agency in USA with good web developers and designers who are skilled and professional to develop custom web application.
automation resources such as language and content recognition software, plug-and-play connections, and SEO tools;
a set of instruments for translators, including a lexicon, a style guide, and a contextual editor;
collaborative software that allows for a variety of user roles and permissions;
human translation services provided by the platform’s partners on demand;
client consultation and assistance;
security and privacy features including a log of your activities, protection from unauthorised access, and two-factor authentication
Bablic
The Bablic website translation service is available online. You may try it out for 14 days risk-free to see if its complete translations and straightforward methodology meet your needs.
enter the system;
Enter the address of your website;
choose the languages you want to translate from and into;
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choose your language of preference. There are a few options: labels (English, German), short codes (EN, DE), or flags (which we strongly discourage, but more on that later);
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select the form of translation. Machine translation that can be edited by humans, human-edited professional translation, and human-only translation are all on the table.
Then, you may examine your website as it will appear on desktop computers, tablets, and smartphones in Bablic’s visual editor and make any required changes there.
Crowdin
Crowdin is a web-based SaaS service for localising desktop software, mobile apps, websites, online applications, documents, games, and videos. Crowdin’s major services include project management and organisation, localization for developers, and translation and proofreading.
Organization and administration of translation files and teams includes a collection of functionalities. Additionally, it provides analytical results and budget computations automatically;
The term “localization for developers” refers to a collection of capabilities for incorporating language translation into software creation. Crowdin is a free, open-source platform that has a command line interface, a RESTful API, and a slew of complementary plugins and integrations.
An automated and streamlined translation service with integrated proofreading. Crowdin is a web-based editing platform with several helpful features, including those for teamwork and translation accuracy, machine translation, translation memory, and glossaries.
Transifex
Transifex provides a suite of features and tools that make it easy to produce high-quality translations of both text and software. They provide:
Storage space for digital media and other stuff. Transifex allows you to prioritise information for translation and track changes inside files, and it supports more than 25 different file types.
Cooperation and management in a group. Manage teams with ease by assigning members to certain groups and modifying their rights and roles using this convenient tool.
Instruments for translation. If you need to count translated characters, confirm translations, or search through files, Transifex’s complete translation editor has you covered. Along with a translation memory and the capability to upload and translate visual information like video subtitles, Transifex also provides HTML and variable placeholders, a dictionary, and a style guide.
Administration of the Translation Process. A feature designed to help you configure complicated translation workflows gives you complete command over your translation processes. There’s also the option to use crowdsourcing for translations;
in-depth analysis and reports that shed light on key trends. The Translation Dashboard provides information on how things are going with translations. There is a list of languages that have been translated, languages that need to be translated, and difficulties that need to be fixed.
Smartling
Websites, digital content, mobile applications, documents, customer service material, marketing content, audio, video, and more may all be localised with the help of Smartling, a translation management platform. A translation management system, a worldwide distribution system, and various collectors and translation services all make up their offerings.
Capturing, organising, and disseminating translated information across a whole company is now possible with the Smartling translation management system. Users may get a live preview of the translated text, keep track of ongoing translation projects, and design unique workflow procedures. The usage of translation memory makes it possible to store, retrieve, and reuse previously translated text.
It’s possible to manage all of the freelance translators, translation companies, and other vendors participating in the process with the use of vendor management software. Translation software that can be used via the cloud provides a wealth of resources for effortless, time-saving communication between languages. You may improve the quality and efficiency of your translation processes with the help of a reporting and analytics system;
When translating websites, online apps, or web services, a translation proxy can be used to aid in the automation of the process. Scheduled content crawls make it easy to extract relevant information, and other features, such as context visualisation, rapid translation, centralised management, timely delivery, and secure data storage, are also included.
The translation connectors provided by Smartling make it possible to incorporate the company’s services into a wide range of existing systems, including those used for content management, marketing automation, e-commerce, code management, and customer care.
POEditor
For software localization, POEditor provides a convenient localization management platform. The current number of supported file types is 15, but POEditor is always trying to add more. POEditor provides a number of useful functions, including:
the use of a RESTful API to streamline localization processes
the ability to optimise file management by integrating with version control systems like GitHub, Bitbucket, GitLab, and VSTS
support for real-time collaboration and progress reporting in translation teams via interaction with HipChat and Slack
translate from the crowd for community-based translations
data-heavy records for in-depth translation reports
the usage of a translated text more than once thanks to translation memory
improvements in translation efficiency through real-time updates
Integrated Human Translation Services
translation machines using Google and Bing
Navigational considerations
In a multilingual interface, ease of use in each language is paramount. Even if your site is set up to automatically translate material into the user’s language based on their location, you should also provide them the option to do so manually if they so want.
Context menu or standalone web page?
Since most users are already familiar with these methods, we recommend them as the primary means of language navigation.
The most typical interface element is a list of choices shown in a drop-down menu. There’s a button there that, when pressed, displays a drop-down menu with several language options.
To change the language, go to the Settings > General > Language and currency drop-down menu. When you click on it, two menus appear: one for selecting a language and another for selecting a currency. It’s standard practise for online marketplaces to let customers choose their preferred language and form of payment.
Drop-down menus that don’t require scrolling are also common on international websites like Booking.
Again, adjacent to the currency picker is the language selector, which is denoted by a flag. The most spoken languages in the user’s region are shown first, followed by a complete list of languages.
Another possibility is to begin with a list of areas rather than a list of languages.
This is a viable alternative for companies whose offerings have regional variations, since it allows them to send visitors from different regions to localised versions of their websites.
If desired, a dedicated page for choosing a nation might be used instead.
We next go on to a discussion of how to visually depict languages and countries for use in multilingual website navigation.
Which comes first, the banners or the words?
Using flags as links between languages on a multilingual website is frowned upon. When designing a website for a country with many official languages, it might be confusing to use flags as a means of selecting the desired language because flags symbolise countries, not languages. Choose a version that includes the names of other languages or countries in text.
Watch out for the Left-Right and Right-Left divides
Left-to-right (LTR) reading and writing is the norm for some languages, whereas others use the opposite direction (RTL). A multilingual website catering to RTL-language markets should accommodate such markets’ linguistic quirks.
Typography. When selecting a font for an ornate script, use caution. Since Google suggests using Noto typefaces, we think it’s best to follow suit. Since conventional Latin typefaces do not usually fit RTL adequately, you will need to adjust it to retain legibility if you decide to use a different font. In addition, italicised and strong fonts make RTL scripts harder to understand.
Numerals. The vast majority of Arab nations utilise the Western Arabic numbering system. Eastern Arabic numerals are used in Iran, Afghanistan, sections of Egypt and Sudan, and a few other nations. Make sure viewers of your website can see numbers at a level of readability that is comfortable for them.
Icons. For the best results while selecting icons for Arabic user interfaces, keep in mind that:
compare and contrast direction symbols with icons that imply motion or text direction.
Symbols that are symmetrical, icons that have a clear purpose, and icons that display English characters should not be mirrored, but localization should be performed.
be cognizant of the cultural connotations of images (consider not using piggy banks to represent thriftiness, etc.)
The interface, logos, navigation buttons, form fields, breadcrumbs, media players, dates, calendars, and tables should all be mirrored to accommodate RTL design, not just the icons.
Modify the user interface to provide flexible features
Word size can vary greatly from one language to another. It’s crucial that there be adequate white space for the words in each language on a multilingual website.
Please keep encoding and font sizes in mind.
Make sure non-Latin characters are seen correctly in any language by encoding them using UTF-8. To do this, we’ll put
meta charset=utf-8>
in the page’s header, which will ensure appropriate language presentation and allow for multiple language support on the same page.
You may use Goo gle Fonts to find good free typefaces for your website; some support Latin but not Cyrillic, while others function great with both but don’t work well with RTL or Asian languages.
Pick reputable web addresses
Besides being informative, URLs help search engines improve search results by displaying pages relevant to a particular region first. A website’s URL contains important information about the site’s content. It not only gives users a clue as to what kind of information they might find there, but it can also show which country the website is targeted to.
A country-code top-level domain name (ccTLD) is preferable for multilingual websites because it clearly indicates that the site is targeted toward a specific country; for example, the Japanese version of your website won’t be displayed in the United States. However, ccTLDs are often unavailable and tend to be more expensive than other domain types.
In its place, you can use either a subdomain or a subfolder in combination with a generic top-level domain name (gTLD).
gTLD + subdomain: UK.website-name.netThis will make it apparent to search engines that the website is focused at the UK, but people may be confused by the fact that the URL leads to an English version of the website.
domain name extension + slash “.jp”: website-name.org
In addition to their normal function of organising content, subdirectories can signal to search engines that your site is localised for a particular country (in this case, Japan). This is a particularly useful feature for countries with multiple official languages, as you can specify both the country and the language in which content is presented.
The Canadian English version of a website may be found at website-name dot com/ca-en/.
For the French language version of a Canadian website, use website-name dot com/ca-fr/.
Avoid creating identical posts.
Since English is the most widely spoken language in all three of these countries, a business that does business in all three of them will need to have three different pages for each of these countries, all of which will be in English. However, search engines will view this as content duplication unless you add the following code to each page:
Unless you code each page to indicate that it is intended for a certain nation, search engines will interpret this as duplicate material.
Once search engines recognise the signals provided by the language-specific links (German for Germany, Austrian for Austria, and Swiss for Switzerland), they will no longer penalise your site for having duplicate material.
Provide assistance to clients in a number of different languages.
Website visitors who experience difficulties will most likely contact customer support, and it stands to reason that they will expect support staff to understand them, especially if the website is available in their native tongue.
However, it may be difficult to find and hire people who are fluent in many languages; this may not be a big deal for established businesses but might be a serious problem for new ventures.
Instead, you might implement an intelligent chatbot that can help solve your clients’ problems and is beneficial across sectors. If you’re interested in learning more, check out our post on the merits of chatbot technology.
Finally, keep in mind
When designing a website to support many languages, it’s vital to remember a few finer points.
Attention to detail is required for the following: dates, time zones, and spelling
Although most people understand both forms, it’s best to utilise the country-appropriate time format to offer a more customised experience. The United States and Commonwealth of Nations nations use 12-hour time, while the rest of the world uses 24-hour time.
If a date is written as 2/5/2018, a user in the United States will interpret it as the fifth of April, while a user in Europe would interpret it as the second of May.
During all phases of development and design, keep in mind that your website’s visitors may need to interact with one another across not only borders but also time zones.
The rules for writing numbers with more than two decimal places vary from one language and one nation to the next. For instance, in the United States, we use a dot (28.3) whereas in Europe, we use a comma (28,3).
Captchas
Use numerical captchas as they are understood by everyone regardless of the language the website is written in.
Contact details, namely a phone number
Phone calls are simplified by include country codes.
We have extensive expertise producing multilingual and multiregional goods, including websites and mobile applications, and understand the complexities and restrictions involved in doing so for a large number of languages.
