Growing your business across the world is an amazing thing. Technology makes it so your clientele is nearly unlimited – provided you can communicate with them. Because of this, many e-commerce websites are turning to translations to attract more customers to their products and increase their revenue.
But translating from one language into another is a tricky subject. You have to have the right words, yes, but you also have to know the nuances, slang, and accents for many languages so you don’t inadvertently offend someone or say the wrong thing.
Here are 5 common mistakes that people make when they attempt to translate their e-commerce websites.
5 Translation Mistakes in E-Commerce Situations
1. Using an online translation generator
These types of translations get the basic point across, but there is no personalization and they tend to be word-for-word content. This exact translation can cause confusion in the context. Instead of using online translation generators, look into companies who hire people to translate words in their mother tongue, like Architekst.
2. Neglecting to consider localization
It’s common knowledge that words that are well-known in one language may not be used in another. For example, someone in the United States may call the front of a car a “hood,” but in the UK it is generally called a “bonnet.” But in the U.S., a bonnet is a hat. The confusion happens easily.
Neglecting to take this localization and dialect into consideration can cause you to lose customers in that area or cause misunderstandings regarding your product.
3. Focusing on ideas instead of SEO
Yes, you want to get the overall point across in the translation, but SEO is important on a global scale. But when you translate word for word, the connotations of the sentence may not transfer into the new language, losing your search engine optimization.
4. Going a mile wide instead of deep with the languages
Some online businesses think the more, the better when it comes to translations. Instead of trying to translate carefully, paying attention to localization and dialect, they prefer to simply use online translation generators to target as many languages as possible.
This approach may cast your net wider, but it is not likely to catch you many clients if the translation is unclear or may be a waste of resources if your product is not something those in the geographical area you’ve targeted will use. Instead, use your resources to focus on languages in areas that have more potential customers.
5. Slacking on translating the entire website
Everything on your website must be translated, no matter how small or insignificant it appears. This includes the currency rates, blogs, texts, and contact pages. This full translation immerses the customer into your site and increases the likelihood of a purchase.
Be Business-Smart: Translate Correctly
Since the point behind the translations is to increase your revenue, you need to budget your resources wisely. Spending money and time translating your content incorrectly is not a good business move. Instead, consider these costly mistakes that many e-commerce businesses make and learn from their errors.
