Website translation and SEO optimization are crucial for your online business, Stripe research shows.

If you have an online shop and want to expand your market, you will certainly start by selling your products or services abroad. Take advantage of the benefits offered to companies by e-commerce platforms and pay special attention to the translation of your content, since a bad translation can cause you to lose up to half of your sales in foreign markets. 

Seems obvious, you say? Sure, but recent research by online payment portal Stripe shows that ‘74% of checkouts did not have local language translations when customers located elsewhere in Europe tried to make a purchase, and failed to offer the most relevant payment options for international customers’.

Translation is one of the crucial advantages for increasing sales alongside availability and  accessibility.

Your website, whether or not it is an e-commerce site, must include perfectly written and translated content, since any error or mistranslation can cause mistrust among users who might leave the website without making a purchase. To avoid this, as well as the loss of potential customers, the best option is to use a professional web translation service from a translation agency.

We happen to know the one you need - wink-wink. It’s PoliLingua, a highly qualified team of professional translators who are aces of website localization and artists of SEO optimization. 

If you are still in doubt and think some random word generator could do the trick of representing your business to foreign customers, let’s see what happens when you go without website localization and CEO optimization. 

Not translating your site at all

Even if, in the age of globalization, many people have a notion, even only rudimentary, of a second language, this does not necessarily mean that they will appreciate having to use it on your website. Remember: your website is not the only one of its kind on the Internet, and customer experience is the key to everything. And if a customer has trouble understanding or navigating your site, your sales will suffer.

Machine translation

Google Translate is good for private use. But for a multilingual site, avoid it like a plague. Why? Because machine translation makes mistakes that will make your website look like an amateur one, and you don’t want that, trust us.

Not fully convinced? Machine translations are also considered being duplicate content by Google (yes, even it’s made by Google Translate) and are penalized accordingly. Your referencing in the search engine will be affected, and for an online store, this is not a good thing, tbh.

Forgetting or ignoring SEO (keywords, alt tags, metadata)

You must make sure that the content of your website and its metadata are SEO-friendly. Also, you should understand what terms are relevant to search engines in each language and know that a term may not be translated word for word in another language. If you know another language (or two, or three) well enough to do the job by yourself, kudos to you! If not, our SEO warriors will get it done for you in no time.

Translating only parts of your website

You only translate your product sheets and your contact page, but leave your FAQ, your delivery conditions, your privacy policy and the general conditions of use untouched and untranslated? 

Your customers would be more eager to buy from you, if you show them you care and do everything to make them feel at home on your website. 

It’s an issue of respect and, therefore, trust. Think about it.

Offering your customer service in only one language

Let’s not forget that going global - or at least international - means dealing with the quality translation of the information you are offering to your clients. Imagine Apple not translating their website, customer service emails or promotional newsletters and product updates into French, Spanish, Russian, Arab, Portuguese, Chinese, etc? Would iPhones be so popular without proper localization? You got the idea. 

Never updating your translations

It comes out of the blue. One day, you hastily make a ‘special offer’ on one of your products. Then you update only a few lines of your privacy policy, but don't have time to translate it all. Before you even know it, your site contains conflicting information in different languages. Does it look good to your visitors? Not at all.

Your online business needs constant attention, updates and optimization. PoliLingua has the experience and specialists who can expertly guide your brand’s messaging wherever your apparel can be found. Our dedicated team is available 24/7/365 to meet your needs.

Get a free quote of your translation within a few hours (less than 12 hours). Please call or e-mail us to ask any questions about your project or to find out more about what we can do for you today.