3 Types of Web Content Your Company Should Translate
Content marketing is a huge driver of business for many companies.
According to recent research conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, 71% of B2B marketers meet to discuss their content marketing programs at least once per month.
That number is even greater for companies with a B2C business model. Over 77% of B2C marketers use a blog as a content marketing tactic to engage their respective target audience.
The numbers are there to support a case for having a content marketing strategy. And you may already have one.
But I bet your content, just like this article, is only in English. That’s perfectly fine if that’s your target audience, which in NWI Global’s case it is.
Consider this though – you might be missing out on new audiences or under-serving your existing audience who speak a language other than English. One way to serve those audiences is by offering translated content.
Here are the three types of web content your company should translate to attract and retain a bigger audience.
1. How-to Articles & Guides
People are always looking for quick answers when searching the web. How-to articles and guides are some of the best types of content you can produce for both B2B and B2C consumers.
Your approach to how-to articles will generally include identifying a problem and listing detailed steps to a solution. Be as detailed as possible by including diagrams and pictures. Many people are visual learners and will appreciate having those resources. These visual guides are also useful in your translated content, as they are ready-to-go resources that don’t need translation.
How-to articles and guides also have a great long tail search potential, since many people are searching the web using introductions such as: “How to…”, “How do I…?” and “How do you…?” You may have already discovered this since you’re producing how-to content in English.
Now take that how-to content and translate it into Spanish or a few other languages. Out of all the Spanish speakers in U.S., there are over 78% that use the internet. Those users are most certainly looking for the same solutions as English speakers for how to effectively solve their problems.
You can be the company that meets the need of those users by providing multilingual how-to content.
Projected End Result: Better search traffic to your company’s website and more qualified leads. The satisfaction of knowing you answered someone’s question and made their day a bit easier.
2. Lists
People love lists. Especially Top 10 lists. Psychologists refer to this as a “top-10 effect,” where people lump things into round-number groups and view everything else as inferior. If you got this far in this article, you already read the first thing on my list (see 1. How-to Articles & Guides)!
Creating lists is incredibly easy if you follow the formula of introducing a topic, listing your points, and providing a conclusion. If you look on BuzzFeed, lists are some of the most popular content types that go viral.
Why not leverage what people love to your advantage?
If you already have lists you created in English, have them translated into Spanish or other languages. Alternatively, work with a translation service company to create lists exclusive to your target audience in their language.
Projected End Result: A strong possibility of your list going viral on social media. This will create brand awareness for your company in non-English speaking markets.
3. Explainer Videos
Implementing video in your content marketing strategy can only improve the authority of your brand. But, like with all things, it has to be done right.
Explainer videos are similar to how-to articles and guides. They are used to explain something to a viewer. This is especially helpful to visual learners as you can often convey more information in a 2 to 3-minute video than you can in an article or guide.
The easiest way to localize an explainer video is by having the voice-overs transcribed and translated into other languages, and implementing them as subtitles. This is probably the most cost-effective way of doing it too.
However, if you have the budget I recommend you translate and localize everything including voice-overs, motion graphics, bumpers, and captions/subtitles.
Projected End Result: Increase in brand authority among limited-English proficient audience. Beat your competitors to it since they are probably not doing it.
Things to Consider Before You Translate
Before you rush to translate your how-to articles and guides, lists and explainer videos, consider these things. They are equally as important to the entire process to provide the best user and customer experience.
1. Do some strategic planning.
Understand how translating these types of content falls into your overall marketing and localization strategy. Your company may already be translating other content such as user manuals and eLearning courses. They may simply be an extension of those efforts.
2. Use only professional human translation.
A personal blogger can get away using an automated translation plug-in, but as a business you can’t afford to do that. Quality is what you are looking for and to get it you must work with professional translators.
3. Be prepared to communicate and follow up.
Once you translate your content into other languages, you will start getting feedback and inquiries in those languages. For example, your Spanish-speaking audience will start posting comments in Spanish and perhaps even write to you as well. Have a plan in place on how you will communicate with them.
Ready to have your content translated?
If you said yes, slow down just a bit. Here is why.
Doing things spontaneously is exciting and provides an immediate reward. However, since you should be looking at content translation as an investment, I recommend planning first and foremost.
Contact a professional translation service company to help you with the planning process so you are not wasting money to produce content in other languages and not getting your envisioned results.
How much will my web content cost to translate?
Every web content translation project is unique, including yours.
Let’s discuss your project specifics, so we can provide you with a ballpark estimate.
For most projects, we can typically provide a ballpark estimate the same day.
Conclusion
You already know that content marketing is here to stay. One way to effectively market to your target audience is by producing content such as how-to articles and guides, lists and videos.
Having that content in English is a great start, but make sure you are serving your entire audience, including those who don’t speak English. A great way to do that is to translate into other languages.
The end result will include more traffic to your company website, better customer engagement, and brand recognition coming from diverse markets.
Have you included translation and localization in your content marketing strategy?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
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