SEO Translation: What will happen to my existing SEO Strategy?
SEO Translation is a (not yet well defined) service that companies will eventually start to seek more actively. In short, it involves localizing a website taking into account the Search Engine Optimization aspects of the task. An SEO Translator’s goal is to provide a well translated website that contains relevant local content and ranks high with the search engines. The advantages of this service are pretty much self evident and include the following:
(1) A local website that is not just local, but also relevant to the search patterns of the target population, (2) Increases traffic and local presence, opens new markets and new sales channels, (3) Consolidated budget for two equally important tasks: SEO and Localization, (4) Timely delivery of final product (not too many professionals, departments, companies involved).
An issue that may intimidate financial or marketing departments is that of previous SEO work done on the ‘mother’ website and If this investment will be lost during the localization process. Will they just throw it away? Will they have to spend significant amounts on SEO services for every country? This concern is certainly legitimate, especially given the economic crisis. To set things straight, a ‘translation’ or even a simple adaptation of the already existing SEO strategy into another language will probably be of little use for the local website. Hence, If a company is big and economically healthy enough, devising a new SEO strategy for every language is the safest road to follow.
However, not many companies can afford that – localization, SEO, marketing costs will set their budgets on fire! And there is a good alternative for them: SEO Translation. As I see it, SEO Translation stands somewhere between a new SEO strategy on a localized website and a ‘translation’ / adaptation of an already existing one. SEO translation involves, among other things, the determination of appropriate ‘high-return’ keywords, keyword density, synonyms, length and appearance of text, and several other text features. It also calls for targeting a few ‘long tail’(*) keywords by incorporating them into the translation. With a bit of skill, an SEO localized website can have all the elements necessary to rank high both for head keywords and long-tail(*) ones.
SEO Translation leverages all the positive aspects of an existing SEO strategy that are also relevant to the target market, but also uses original local oriented research and copy-writing techniques in order to achieve the desired results. No company wants to lose an SEO investment overnight just because it wasn’t taken into account during the localization process. Also, not many companies can afford an all-new strategy for every country they target. Therefore, a careful and thorough SEO Translation will preserve the SEO advantages of the existing strategy and also add ‘local value’ to the localized version.
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