Maltese language rarely used on the internet

A lot of websites on the internet are available in more than one language, and some in a number of different languages.  This is a topic that features every now and then on this blog, as we comment on which languages are most popular, how the languages in which a website are available affect the traffic to a website, and so on.

One language that doesn’t get much press or attention is Maltese.  Maltese is a very interesting language; about half of its vocabulary is borrowed from Italian and Sicilian, and English words make up as much as 20% of its vocabulary.  (more…)

How important is it to translate a website?

In a recent poll, 90% of internet users in Europe would visit a site in their own language when given the choice. Meanwhile, 53% would still use a site if it was in English rather than their native language. However, despite this relatively high figure, these users would not necessarily be happy about the lack of information available in their own language, with 44% of respondents stating that they felt they did not necessarily receive all the facts when the website was only available in another language. (more…)

International websites need at least 16 languages to be competitive online

A recent report by the Common Sense Advisory states that global companies need to have multilingual websites in order to compete on an international scale.

According to the report, an English-only site can be read by 23.2% of the global online population. Making it readable in simplified Chinese adds 22.3% and Spanish 9.0%. (more…)

Look to overseas markets for growth, says CEO of eCommerce success ASOS

It’s always good when a prominent figure echoes what we’ve been saying for years – expanding into foreign markets using your website is a great way to grow your business, and is a low-risk option in these difficult financial times. (more…)

How International Blast works

This post is an explanation of how our International Blast service works, as it’s something we are often asked about.

International Blast was developed as a first step localisation for companies who wanted to begin trading internationally online, but preferred a cautious approach rather than investing a larger amount of money, time and resources in localising their whole website.

Even localising just one or two key pages of a website yields results, and often generates sales in a new target market. By pricing the service at £295, it is also an affordable option if a company wish to test several new markets at once. (more…)

New Callback feature added to website

We’ve added a new feature to our website, so that you can ask us to call you back, just by completing a short form.

When you’re browsing our services and portfolio pages, you’ll see a “Please Call me” link at the bottom of the introductory paragraph:

The link will take you to the following form – simply complete a few details about who you are, and give us a number to call you back on, along with your email address.

One of our Sales team will call you back as soon as they are free.

Quiet PC gains European web visitors for only 2p

“The results of localizing the key pages into 11 languages have been excellent; the traffic to the French, German and Dutch has been especially good and equates to a cost of 2p per visitor
– that’s fantastic value compared to pay-per-click advertising in a competitive industry like ours!
Web-Translations definitely go the extra mile – we’ll be working with them again to expand the multilingual sites.”

Glenn Garrett, Partner – Quiet PC

"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

Madison Black pleased with translations provided by Web-Translations

“We had great feedback on the German and Dutch translations provided by Web-Translations. Thanks for all your efforts on this project.”

Debbie Hunt – Madison Black

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.

Email-Translation.com helps Totesport converse with overseas customers

Alongside their excellent project and account management I would be happy to recommend WT as a one stop shop for all aspects of localisation.”

Keith McDonnell, eCommerce Manager – Totesport

Web-Translations partners with Chapter Eight

Web-Translations are pleased to announce the establishment of a new partnership with Leeds based development company Chapter Eight. Chapter Eight specialise in web development, Search Engine optimization, web design and online promotion for clients working in a wide range of business areas.

With Chapter Eight’s latest Content Management technology development and Web-Translations’ language expertise the companies are working together to offer customers greater control of their language asset with the multilingual content management system which is now in place. The partnership enables both companies to offer extra services to clients who are targeting non-English speaking customers and who wish to embrace the global marketplace a multilingual website can access.

The combination of the technical expertise of Chapter Eight with the translation and international e business strategy provided by Web-Translations ensures business and communication can take place swiftly and efficiently with customers no matter what their native language is. For further information please contact Cassandra Oliver at co@web-translations.co.uk or 0113 8150460