Which web content should be localised?
Once you make the important decision to localise your website for a foreign market, and select a provider to deliver the project, your work is not quite yet done. It’s equally important to identify which sections of the website should be included in the localisation project, not least from a budgetary perspective.
We usually advise clients who are embarking on their first localisation to omit the following sections:
– News
– Meet the team, or equivalent
– All blog posts
The reason being that this type of contact can quickly become out of date, unless a strategy is in place to manage multilingual updates.
How to beat your competitors to the global market – our top tips
In today’s competitive business environment, it pays to be the first company to market with a new product or service. Here are our tips on how to beat your competitors and take full advantage of global opportunities in your sector.
1. Be the early bird – get there first!
Localise your homepage for multiple markets – then you have the pick of where to focus your attention & resource rather than being forced out of the markets your competitors already operate in.
2. Forge your own path
China, Russia, and other fast-growing economies will compete with you in markets you hadn’t even begun to consider. Don’t follow the herd, but blaze your own trail. This takes confidence and a strong business plan but it is the only way to keep competitive advantage.
Web-Translations translate website content for Online Gaming giant Betsson
“We know we can relax when it comes to translations because Web-Translations has got it covered.
The projects team is quick to respond to our requests, and we know we can rely on them for prompt delivery of time-sensitive translations for our website updates and various campaigns. They’re really easy to use and operate seamlessly in the background, so definitely make our job easier.
The service is excellent, and I’d recommend it to other international companies.”
Jonas Eriksson, Website Content Editor – Betsson Group
Live Translation integrates with qtranslate
Live Translation is now integrated with popular WordPress plugin qtranslate. qtranslate is a multilingual content management plugin for WordPress that allows you to manage multilingual versions of your blog and facilitates the translation process.
With the combination of Live Translation and qtranslate you can now choose to have your blog posts undergo professional translation in a matter of hours.
qtranslate comes with several key languages already configured, and is really user-friendly, making it the plugin of choice for many international bloggers.
For more information, contact sales[at]web-translations.co.uk.
"Top-notch" translations for Efficient Frontier
“Our French reviewer was very pleased with the work Web-Translations did on a White Paper for us recently – he said it was a top-notch job!”
Merinda Peppard, Global Marketing Manager – Efficient Frontier
Multilingual content management now free and easy…
It’s an all too common problem: How do you maintain the multilingual pages of your website as changes are made to the English? To what extent do you allow local input, while retaining central control?
Joomla has been the web’s favourite open source CMS since its separation from Mambo September, 2005, boasting some 4 million downloads in 2008, making it the most popular CMS of last year.
The Nooku story germinated from a conversation between Joomla!’s Johan Janssens and government and NGO stakeholders who wanted multi-lingual management, better than Joomfish.
Thanks to Johan, Pete and Mathias, webmasters the world over will have access to the plugin that is expected to go down a storm. As Phillipe Chabot, ICT Coordinator of the United Nations Regional Information Centre put it:“If you are thinking multi-language; Nooku is a must have! Our website needs to drive 13 different languages, so for us this made a giant step forward to improve our web presence. It’s just brilliant!”
Nooku is not yet publicly available
As a partner Web-Translations has the source code and can assist with implementation. By integrating Nooku with Web-Translations’ Pay-As-You-Go Translation service, users have the perfect solution for maintaining multilingual websites. Web-Translations is the UK’s only full service Nooku integrator.
Cassandra Oliver, Marketing Manager at Web-Translations had the chance to test-drive Nooku last week: “What struck me first of all is that the interface is so simple. Nooku is easy to use and seamlessly integrates with Joomla. It’s miles better than Joomfish and an ideal tool for many of our clients.”
Web professionals and laymen alike are singing Nooku’s praises across Europe:
“If you need to build multi-lingual sites that are easy to manage…you’ll simply love Nooku. Customizable, elegant and so well-designed it fits Joomla! like a glove, this is a professional solution for multi-lingual content that will rock the community!”
Paul Delbar – delius, Belgium
The name Nooku is a phonetic spelling for the Swahili word “Nuku” meaning “to translate”. It follows the spirit of the name Joomla! derived from the Swahili “Jumla” meaning “all together”. Nooku website
Having deployed several multilingual ecommerce websites using OS Commerce and Magento, Web-Translations are now helping businesses to save thousands by switching from proprietary CMS solutions such as Tridian, to mature Open Source alternatives such as Joomla, Drupal and WordPress.
Why pay a license fee?
In April 2007, SDL Trados acquired Tridion (a CMS company) for €69 million, that investment is recovered in the form of license fees, development and translation services. An implementation can cost anything from US$ 80,000 to … sky is the limit.
At a time when businesses are looking to cut costs, we’re advising clients to review expensive license fees and the cost of running their CMS. Open Source has come of age and matured in the area of ecommerce and CMS. Enterprises looking to save can do so quickly by embracing Joomla! + Nooku with Web-Translations, where there are no license fees and a vibrant community means support and development is plentiful and inexpensive.
Web Translations sees Open Source technologies as a key growth area of its business strategy, with plans to release multilingual professional translation plugins for WordPress, Drupal, Magento, and Open Office in 2009.