SEO compliant translations Thread poster: Hans-Gerhard Leppert
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A customer asks me for SEO compliant translations from German to English. Does anybody have any experience in this and can tell me what this actually means for the translation? What do I have to take care for? Thank you very much in advance.
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that SEO-compliant translation is to use key words for the given topic when translating the source text. It means that when you are translating certain words into English, you will have to consult Internet (or different key words selection tools) to choose words that will "attract" search engines.
This article sets out the principle qu... See more that SEO-compliant translation is to use key words for the given topic when translating the source text. It means that when you are translating certain words into English, you will have to consult Internet (or different key words selection tools) to choose words that will "attract" search engines.
This article sets out the principle quite vividly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_stuffing ▲ Collapse
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Search engine optimization is an area well worth delving into in some detail if you translate websites, since knowing how it works will add value to your work for customers and help you increase the number of relevant visitors to your own website. (In a similar vein, usability is another area worth exploring properly, since the new visitors your SEO brings in will be lost again if they don't enjoy browsing the site. Websites need to be optimized in all sorts of ways, not just for search engines.... See more Search engine optimization is an area well worth delving into in some detail if you translate websites, since knowing how it works will add value to your work for customers and help you increase the number of relevant visitors to your own website. (In a similar vein, usability is another area worth exploring properly, since the new visitors your SEO brings in will be lost again if they don't enjoy browsing the site. Websites need to be optimized in all sorts of ways, not just for search engines. Questions like "What does that look like in Internet Explorer 7" can play a role too.)
There are basically two sorts of SEO specialists, the "black hat" and "white hat" ones. The "black hat" approach uses all sorts of dirty tricks to boost a websites popularity in the ranking of the search engines, but the effect doesn't usually last for long - Google isn't stupid - and may make matters worse in the long term. The "white hat" approach has a bit more legitimacy.
So there's way more to learn than I could begin to think about squashing into a forum post, and lots of good blogs to learn it from. (Textbooks date!) For the time being, it may be enough to realize that SEO translation is mainly about two things:
1. Are the words/phrases in my translation not just technically correct, but actually the exact words or phrases that users are most likely to search for or do often search for? Various tools for quantifying keyword searches exist, but you need to use your intuition and your knowledge of the target group to come up with the right keywords in the first place. (As with every other aspect of website design and copywriting for the web, I need to ask myself where my customer is coming from and what the customer is looking for, not what I have to say about MY company, MY products etc. No point describing washing machines in the language of the people who design them if they are to be sold to people who "merely" use them to wash clothes...)
2. Are the most important keywords placed prominently enough on the site for search engines to register THAT these are the important keywords for the site? Typical prominent locations: the description tag in a given page's metatext, headings, image captions or alt-text for images. Are the keywords recognizable as such to the search engines? (Will customers searching for "Übersetzer" also find "Übersetzerin"?)
A few links to get you started:(with lots of repetition, unfortunately - sometimes I have to read the same thing in three different places before it sinks in.)
Happy optimizing!
http://www.seowebsitesdesigners.com/search_engine_optimization/search_engine_optimizer.html
http://www.seowebsitesdesigners.com/search_engine_optimization/search_engine_optimizer.html
http://www.adatrad.com/blog/workshop-suchmaschinenoptimierung/
(Check out the website as well: http://www.nofactory.eu)
http://www.online-solutions-group.de/blog/suchmaschinenoptimierung-seo/seo-grundlagen-multilinguale-keywords
http://www.contentmanager.de/magazin/artikel_1210_textgestaltung_einfluss_auf_suchmaschine.html
http://www.korfftext.de/der_tipp/opti.html
http://imgiseverything.co.uk/articles/nike-trainers-a-keyword-case-study/
http://www.longtail.com/ ▲ Collapse
| | | | | client's list of key words | Jun 23, 2011 |
Hello Hans-Gerhard,
Sarah's answer is better than mine, but if the client is not willing to pay for that or you are unable to provide that, you should ask for the list of key words that the client has placed in his or her description tags and made sure to repeatedly use in the text and titles of the visible website.
As a translator, you would be responsible for finding EFFECTIVE English counterparts or alternatives for these keywords (and suggesting any missing key words), dis... See more Hello Hans-Gerhard,
Sarah's answer is better than mine, but if the client is not willing to pay for that or you are unable to provide that, you should ask for the list of key words that the client has placed in his or her description tags and made sure to repeatedly use in the text and titles of the visible website.
As a translator, you would be responsible for finding EFFECTIVE English counterparts or alternatives for these keywords (and suggesting any missing key words), discussing them with the client (optimization for highest absolute number of hits or optimization for high-quality niche hits, for example), and recording them in a table or spreadsheet so that the client or others responsible for the website can effectively work with them. The repetition of keywords is also to be given top priority during the actual translation process.
This service should be factored into your offer (whether as an independent position or directly into the unit price). If the client is interested in more than this, you might consider outsourcing that part of the project to a specialist.
Sincerely,
Michael ▲ Collapse
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Roberto Bertuol 
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:56
Member (2007)
Italian to English
+ ...
| SEO-compliant translation | Jun 23, 2011 |
Hello,
Sarah's answer is very detailed and provides a good concise description of what SEO is about. However, I agree with Michael, you should charge the client a separate fee for the SEO part of your work. Also you need to find out exatly what the client means by "SEO-compliant". SEO is not rocket-science, but it is also not so straightforward as people might think. What are you actually translating, just the contect of a website or also the words in the metatags (description and keywords... See more Hello,
Sarah's answer is very detailed and provides a good concise description of what SEO is about. However, I agree with Michael, you should charge the client a separate fee for the SEO part of your work. Also you need to find out exatly what the client means by "SEO-compliant". SEO is not rocket-science, but it is also not so straightforward as people might think. What are you actually translating, just the contect of a website or also the words in the metatags (description and keywords) and titles of webpages? In both cases, you do need to have a list of keywords used by the client in the source language, translate them and check how they score on web searches by using either Google Trends or the AdWords Keyword Tool (you need to have a Google account). An appropriate keyword in one language is not necessary an appropriate keyword in another one.
Further, the content will also need to be copywritten in order to make it more sexy for search engines. IMHO, these are all extra services, which should added on top of the translation rate.
Best of luck
Roberto Bertuol
robertobertuol.com ▲ Collapse
| | | | | One approach | Jun 23, 2011 |
Method I was requested to use by an agency:
Before starting any translation work, client provided the list of keywords used in their source text for me to localize and complete with additional keywords. This was not easy work, it takes a lot of research to find the appropriate words that users will actually search for in the target language, plus all the spelling variants. To help with this localization, client provided me with a paid account for a research service, I had to find "1... See more Method I was requested to use by an agency:
Before starting any translation work, client provided the list of keywords used in their source text for me to localize and complete with additional keywords. This was not easy work, it takes a lot of research to find the appropriate words that users will actually search for in the target language, plus all the spelling variants. To help with this localization, client provided me with a paid account for a research service, I had to find "10 similar websites" to client's website (in the target language) and input them on the research service, which resulted in lists of the top 10 keywords that led to those 10 websites, and after merging all the lists I had a master list of the most common keywords used in similar websites. In the end, I had a total of 100 carefully researched target keywords that was submitted to client for approval.
Then, the translation work started, I had to ensure all the keywords were included in the actual target text, which was not necessarily easy because I obviously hadn't been able to review the whole thing beforehand (I think there were around 50K words?). Incorporating the keywords involved some copywriting as the keywords were chosen based on what would attract users to the site, not the actual source text content.
I was paid separately for the SEO work and the translation work. ▲ Collapse
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