I see more and more articles, workshops and webinars on how to translate websites. What strikes me is that most of these only focus on the technical part of translating a website: how to edit HTML files, how to make sure the website will be found by search engines, etcetera. Although these are obviously very important aspects of translating a website, I miss one other essential aspect: creative writing. It is all very well to get your website ranked number one in Google, but if the website itself puts off visitors because it is badly written, the whole website becomes pointless. It is important to keep in mind that, in the end, websites are written/translated for human visitors, not just for search engines.

A business website serves as an online business card. It is all about first impressions. And first impressions on the web last only a couple of seconds: if you don’t manage to engage the visitor within these few seconds, he or she will move on. Text is an important part of this first impression: website content shouldn’t be just grammatically correct without any spelling mistakes, it should also be well-written and engaging. It should draw visitors in, encourage them to continue reading. Here are a couple of tips to achieve this.

Headings should be catchy
Don’t make texts too long
Choose the right style and use it consistently
Create different websites for different language variations
Be aware of cultural references
Write for human beings, not for search engines
Write appealing texts

Read the full article in Translating is an Art here: http://pbtranslations.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/translating-websites-for-humans-not-for-search-engines/

Subscribe to the translation news daily digest here. See more translation news.