Localisation is not translation, involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target market. The fact that some SEOs settle for direct translations when they have to target local markets never ceases to amaze me.  These are the same experts that advocate to use the language of the customer for the English copy, and strongly encourage to make keyword research the cornerstone of the optimisation campaign, and are very sophisticated about it. I even heard from some SEO gurus that using the Google Translate feature will help you target local markets. What the h***? It is a very Anglo-Saxon, narrow minded way of thinking.

It is understandable why these SEO experts try to downplay the complexity of applying SEO across different markets without losing sight of the corporative message. They don’t have the knowledge, and proper localisation can be quite expensive. However, if done right, you can get much quicker results than for US/UK sites and much better conversion, since the competition is less fierce. In addition, sometimes there is no need to go for a site wide localisation if you are not sure about how a specific market will welcome your product. Multilingual Paid Search is the answer. PPC can be a great way to identify opportunities in different markets and you can test the effectiveness of localised keywords before rushing into a complete website localisation.

Your options could be:

• Localise and adapt existing PPC campaigns. The English terms would be seeds to use as a reference to find out the specific local keywords utilised in the specific market you want to target
• Localise one of a few key pages and use them as landing pages. You will be able to determine conversion rates and assess wether or not the copy and the keywords selected are actually appealing to the target culture.
• Localise conversion driven landing pages and bid for more transactional terms. This is a cost effectiveness tactic although takes out of the equation important assets such as brand awareness or informative driven queries. Targeting only keywords and landing pages with high purchasing intent will get quick ROI and let you prioritise spend.

The main challenges to encounter while localising for Paid Search is character limitation and proper landing page localisation. Some marketers try to drive traffic with high volume, localised keywords but pointing them to English pages. They get discouraged when the bounce rate goes to the roof and the Cost Per Click is even more expensive than in the US. Well, no surprise here; they are going against the basic rules of Google Quality Score with no correlation among the keywords that trigger the ad and the landing page content. Not to mention that people who search in a specific language will almost only convert in the same language.

Some factorss to take into account:

• Google characters restrictions for single bytes languages: western countries
  • Headline 25 characters
  • Body 1st line 35 characters
  • Body 2nd line 35 characters
  • Display url 35 characters
• Double byte languages: Eastern languages ( f.e Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
  • Headline 12 characters
  • Body 1st line 17 characters
  • Body 2nd line 17 characters
  • Display url 35 characters

The main PPC localisation challenges have to do with the different idiosyncrasy of specific languages. English copy doesn’t flow the same than Latin based languages nor Germanic. English tends to be 30-40% shorter than roman languages, the specific character restrictions dictated by search networks make impossible to use machine translation tools, some languages lose characters in punctuation and currencies need to adapt to the local market.

In order to carry out an effective localisation you will need linguist and internet marketers to abide by Google restriction rules  and that can take into account search engine optimised landing page copy and place industry specific keywords prominently in the key  page areas: title, headings and copy . No machine translation can help, it can actually make the process more long winded, so the need for the use of professional linguists experienced in localisation is paramount.

And remember, give them time to be creative. If you find difficult to create copy for your ads in English, make it compliant and compelling enough for your users, the process of adapting that copy into other languages is ten times more complex. On the bright side, making your product reachable worldwide makes these efforts highly profitable.

To avoid this issue, the translator needs to have a thorough knowledge of SEO and use a number of techniques in order to make the copy SEO worthy. Here are some tips and examples anybody can use to make the process much easier.

In order to carry out a smooth process of website localisation we need to have the following elements in place:

• Local Keyword research. Unlike with English, there are not very good commercial keywords tools that give reasonable reliable figures. For languages other than English is much better to use Google Keyword Tool where you can narrow down terms by Language/Country.
• Target Phrase Selection. Spreadsheet where you will include the list of the keyphrases to target for a specific page in the respective language. This document will be used as a point of reference while localising the content. The average number of keywords is 2 / 3.
• Original English content
• Fluency in reading and writing in both English and the language targeted

Website localisation best practise

1. English content.

Read the English content attentively.

2. First translation

The translation will have to use natural/conversational language trying to intersperse the main keywords selected in the Target Phrase Selection at least twice a two word keywords and once 3 word + keywords. Optimising for more than 3 keyphrases is complex unless the content of the page is very extensive. That doesn’t mean we can’t use secondary relevant terms. We should have along with the keyword list to target semantically related terms to the ones targeted. Use the Keyword research to find related terms to the main ones that actually have search volume ( real people search for them). The title of the page will be the point of reference to assess the main keywords we want to optimise for.

EXAMPLE:

English version

“How to… “ guides

I need to connect several computers to the Internet

View guide

My wireless network does not cover my whole house

View guide

View all

Spanish version

Guías de cómo:

Conectar varios ordenadores a internet

Ver guía

Mi red inalambrica no cubre toda mi casa

Ver guía

3. Use headers

A keyword in Headers gives more weight in terms of relevancy than a keyword in content. It is therefore recommended to try harder to include keywords in the headings.

English version

Extended range with no dead spots:

Embrace Wireless N, the Wi-Fi technology that keeps its promises

Visit our microsite >

Spanish version

Rango inalámbrico extendido sin puntos muertos:

Adaptate con Wireless N, la tecnología inalámbrica que cumple sus promesas.

4. Keywords review

Concepts such as keyword density have been controversial in the past. My take on this is that by targeting only one to three keywords per 250-word page and making sure the terms or phrases appear in the beginning, middle and end of the body copy, your specific density is not much of an issue anymore.
Once the first translated version is done review once again the target phrase selected. Using ctrl F in word for example is a good way to find them easily and count the keywords in the translated document.If one or several of the keywords do not appear at all review the content and try to include the missing keywords. If you feel that it would damage the user friendliness of the page we should have a number of related phrases ready in the keyword research to be able to cover a wide range of translation needs.

EXAMPLE:

Targeted Keyphrases

compartir banda ancha configuracion inalambrica

router inalambrico n

rango inalambrico extendido

Spanish version with targeted keywords

Compartir banda ancha: Conectar varios ordenadores a internet

Ver guía

Extender rango inalambrico en toda mi casa

Ver guía

A Spanish native speaker will get the same message from this translation but additionally we have added two of the keyphrases within the first two sentences. We have added the terms Compartir banda ancha in the first sentence what is directly related, and rephrased the second sentence by using a grammatical variant of the third keyphrase (rango inalambrico extendido – extender rango inalámbrico)

Tips & Warnings

• The final version should feel natural and engaging for the end user.
• Remember to keep your target audience in mind when editing. In other words do not use language that will not be readily understood by your potential prospects.
• Don’t be afraid of thinking out of the box. Creativity is essential for localising.
• Follow SEO friendly content guidelines but don’t get obsessed about them. Search engines understand linguistic semantics so if a targeted keyword does not fit naturally a variation may be used.

If you have any question contact me on twitter on http://twitter.com/oscarcarreras