Technical requirements are essential components that must be taken into consideration ahead of time. After deciding the preferences that suit your business best, amazing results are sure to come out of your newly localized multilingual website.
Think about the technical decisions:
Site structure, platform and navigation are key elements to consider before planning the localization of the site.
How are you going to host the translated version of the site: new domain, subdomain or subfolder? They all work differently according to your objectives and platform where you host your site (be aware of the limitation and implications of each option).
How are you going to navigate from one language to the other?
Are you going to use written text link for the choice of languages, or do you want to use images of national flags?
Will your user be directed to the main page upon selecting a different language, or will they be directed to the respective page where the language selection occurred?
How about the URL structure? There are different URL naming options in the target language that use specific extension to help users and crawlers identify the language in multilingual websites.
Examples: “en”=English and “es”= Spanish (Español)
https://www.jrlanguage.com/en/ translation-content.html
https://www.jrlanguage.com/es/ translation-content.html
https://www.en.www.jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://www.es.www.jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://www.jrlanguage.com/ translation-content.html
https://www.jrlanguage.com/contenido-de- traduccion.html
7. Selecting the format of the working files and how to exchange content with the translation agency.
8. How will you supply the material to be translated: MS Word, html, xml, php, or others
9. Which of the above formats will be more convenient for your IT staff to receive the translated files
10. Revise your existing Content Management System (CMS). Look for answers to the question of structure and best practices to incorporate the translated content.
11. Website localization assurance is perhaps the most important step, as it is vital to proofread and test your website before it is open to the public. Always double-check connections, navigation and correct sequence within each language. By carefully reviewing the new site, you avoid the embarrassment of faulty navigation within your site that can render all of your efforts towards a multilingual page useless.
In order to market globally you must stop and ask yourself multiple questions to be successful in the planning and execution of a website localization project. Fortunately there are translation agencies, like Eging, with the experience and know how to guide you in partnership to facilitate this complex process for you. Eging has worked in multiple website translation projects. All of our work is edited and proofread independently after translation to ensure that your localized content appears original and attractive towards all your target markets.
