STAR TS Translation Services Blog

We’re often asked, how to I know that you can translate my website or application? Sometimes developers need to check – will their application still function correctly after it is translated?

Often due to bad coding practices a program might crash or perhaps not all the text is visible to the translator so can’t be translated. How do you test your product without paying a translation company to translate all your product? So how do you check your product can be translated?

Simple: Pseudo Translation.

Pseudo translation is a technique we use at STAR that can model a translation quickly an easily. Basically its a pretend or mock translation. In simple terms what you do is replace all the vowels with accented characters (foreign language characters). So just like the “Hello” logo above we pseudo translated this to “Hélló”. We can do this for free for most clients we work with and it is really fast.  It serves three key purposes:

1. You can see if your product still works with foreign characters.

2. Your English team can check your product out easily as they can still read the text.

3. You can clearly check that all your text is visible to the translation company and translatable.

Visit our Pseudo Translation page for a more technical description.

If you’re developing a product its useful to talk to your language partner early on in the design of your product, we can give you advice on how best to design your brochures, products and websites to ensure they are easy to translate when the time comes.

Top 10 Global Players.

If you are doing global business you have to make sure your own website is visible and you need to understand the competition. Everyone knows Google is number one in the world – but who are the other big players?

Here’s the Global Top 10 internet sites.

1. Google.Com
Yes as expected Google is the world’s number one search engine.

2. Facebook.Com

The world’s most ‘Liked Site’. The Social platform of choice around the world. Growing at an amazing rate.

3. YouTube.Com

The website replacing our TV’s. More video content is uploaded every day to YouTube than the entire global TV production output. YouTube is the new TV.

4. Yahoo.Com

Despite all you hear about Yahoo it still commands a massive audience.

5. Baidu.Com

The number one Chinese Search Engine. If you’re doing business in China you need to be sure your site is visible on Baidu.

6. Wikipedia.Org

It you need to know anything Wikipedia is the website for choice for answers.

7.Windows Live (Live.Com)

Microsoft’s communication engine.

8. Blogspot.Com

Free blogging site, hosted by yes – you guessed it. Google.

9. QQ.Com

Chinas largest internet portal.

10. Twitter.Com

For all those people in the world that need to communicate in 140 characters or less.

Just outside but still in the Top 20 are Amazon.Com, LinkedIn.Com, Google India, TaoBao.Com, Yahoo Japan, MSN and ebay.

Source: Alexa.Com March 2012

Alex Gibson from The Persuaders and Damian Scattergood

On Friday, 9th we got the chance to discuss translation and marketing with Alex Gibson on The Persuaders on Dublin City FM 103.2.

As more and more companies have to spread their message abroad, translation is an inevitable part of the process to expand trade. Here is a brief summary of our on-air discussion. Damian Scattergood our managing director gives some good advice as to how to make your translation easier and cheaper when engaging a translation company.

When and why should you hire a translation company?

• Contact a translation company at your design stage before translation. It can give you plenty of tips to make the translation easier and cheaper. The vendor should be able to tell you the best document structure, and look at your images for example to ensure they are internationally  acceptable. Thus, you only have to design your product material once.

• First impression counts so your message has to fit each culture. A translation company works with professional translators who have the abilities to translate your documents with accuracy and a local feel. At STAR Group, over 800 people in 44 global offices are working to make sure that the translation of your document looks like a document written in the target country’s language.

• A translation company ensures that the language of your documents is precise and clear. The simpler and clearer your English message, the clearer and more international it is too after translation.

• Why not use Google Translate? Prospective clients will obviously notice that you used a machine translation and that could affect your brand image. This is the reason why collaborating with a translation company will help you to improve the way people perceive your company abroad. Did you know that Google also uses professional translators to translate its documents?

• Remember: a translation company is your international business partner. When we translate a website we focus on the quality and the consistency of your message. When visiting your website people will make an instant decision/opinion about you, what you are doing and how good you are. They will also be more confident about the quality of what you provide if they see that you take the time and care to deliver quality translation in their language. By translating into the language of your target market you are making an effort to reach the customer.

What do I translate?

• If you don’t know what to translate you can start with a single page of your website, a brochure or a letter. First steps are to reach and test your market.

• For your website you can create a microsite (a website with only 3-5 pages – to test the reaction of your customers)

• People want to know who you are and what you are doing so translate the page that people are most likely to visit first.

What should I do to make the translation process easier?

• Watch the structure of your documents. Each language structure is different so the size required for text might slightly change from one language to another. For instance, when translating English to German you might notice that the German translation will be longer by 30%. That’s why when you create a document we recommend you leave lots of white-space in your document so the new text will flow easily. It is better to think about translation during design than have to make changes when translating. Simple design changes might be to modify the size of a picture, the layout of your document to fit with the translation.

• Explain acronyms to the translation company you are working with. If possible create your own mini-dictionary of common terms.

• Choose typefaces carefully. Certain typefaces do not include all characters in different languages.

• Make sure that you have all your source documents and check if they can be translated.

• For manuals and documents remove text from the diagrams and replace with numbers and call-outs.

• For your website check that it is encoded with UTF-8 for translation and avoid putting text on button and graphics. Graphic translation can be expensive and it takes time to translate.

• Generally it is better to avoid flags. They have political connotations which can affect the brand image of your company. People can feel excluded by flags. They can think that you are addressing your message to a specific country. It is better to use the words [English, French] etc to represent language. Only use flags when you are specifically addressing a country.

• Video is fast becoming a must tool in marketing. People don’t consider the impact of having to translate their videos later. Careful planning for video will make translation easier. For example – how many people are in the video? Is it scripted? Are there timing issues?

What if I have more questions?

• STAR helps clients with the first steps to going Global. Drop us an email or contact us and we will send you our whitepaper on going global, packed with advice to make the transition easier for you.
• Whatever the language – call STAR.

We thank Alex Gibson for giving STAR the time to discuss the importance of translation in developing your brand image abroad.

Barack Obama, Ollie Hayes and Damian Scattergood discuss the benefits of Presidents Obama's visit to Moneygall and Ireland.

Holiday World 2012

Organised by Business Exhibitions Ltd., Holiday World Show Dublin 2012 gave me the opportunity to meet a large numbers of exhibitors operating in the tourism sector such as tour operators, vehicles companies and airlines companies. All the companies are doing global business and helping the Irish economy grow. It was a very busy show and it was great to see so many exhibitors attending. We had fun meeting Ollie Hayes of Barack Obama fame and discussing the great benefits the presidents visit brought to the town of Moneygall. You have to visit, its a lovely town and the people are great. I was there last year on my Holidays.

Darina Nakagawa MD Unique Japan Tours and Damian Scattergood discuss the beauty of Japan.

We also met Darina Nakagawa Managing Director of Unique Japan Tours who provide tours of Japan. They can arrange special guided tours for travellers and will make your holiday to Japan really special.  Japan is a beautiful place and well worth exploring.

60 countries were represented and over 1,000 travel and tourism professionals were there to give face-to-face advice and useful information which is not available anywhere else in Ireland. Areas included travelling to the Middle East such as Abu Dhabi on business or pleasure.

Angela Bates discussing business travel to Abu Dhabi with Damian Scattergood

Michael Ring Junior Minister for Tourism visits Holiday World Show

The structure of the show enabled us to explore the globe under one roof – from Africa to Asia and from America to Europe. Many exhibitors offered special “Show only” discount holiday deals. I had numerous opportunities to enjoy some great entertainment along the exhibition and as we were walking through the paths we even had the chance to encounter Michael Ring, Junior Minister for tourism. Business and pleasure combined we had a great time!

STAR  works with many travel companies, government agencies and design companies developing and translating marketing material for the travel, hotel and leisure business.   We translate into over 40 languages covering Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

CES SHOW, Las Vegas

The International CES show took place in Las Vegas from 10 to 13^th January 2012. This event is the largest technology event in the world and gathers each year manufacturers, developers and suppliers of consumer technology hardware, content, and technology delivery systems.

On the Irish front, one exhibitor in particular who caught our eye is WorldDesk Ltd. This Northern-Irish start-up specializes in the cloud computing and virtualisation software space. So impressive is their technology that they have reached an acquisition agreement with DeskStream Inc. a leading Californian and Indian company providing desktop virtualisation software.

They announced on 12^th January the acquisition of WorldDesk. Employees of WorldDesk, including co-founders Jonathan Chesney and Claire Moore, will join DeskStream. The 2-years-old Irish company, will still be located in Belfast. So we wish all the best for them! Job Well Done!

At STAR we love to see Irish success stories, we’d love to hear and share your stories with our visitors. Drop us a line and let us know about your success stories. STAR supports Irish companies helping them grow their global business. STAR translates software and e-commerce websites for clients in over 40 languages. We provide website translation services and e-commerce services.

New Changes in Google Search

Google has started to roll out new personal search query results.

As part of its progress into the social media area it can now index your personal photos, data etc as posted and profile you for individual searchs.

It allows them to

a) know more about you and what you search for

b) allows them to personalise searchs for you as they know what you are interested in.

c) it gives them the ability to include personal (social) information in Google searches as required.

For more information see the full release from the yahoo press.

On Friday we attended Enterprise Ireland’s Social Media club #eismclub in EI’s Headquarters.

Captain Pat O'Connor and Damien Mulley discussing Social media policy.

Two fantastic presentations from Captain Pat O’Connor, Spokesperson & Media Relations, Irish Defence Forces and Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications on how to create, roll out and manage your social media presence. As you can imagine for the defence forces this would be a tricky and sensitive area. How do you allow people to blog/tweet and socialise whilst protection national security interests and peoples public/private interests. Captain O’Connor spoke excellently about how they manage this balance. They defence forces have a very well thought out policy and process for publication of information. His presentation was open and he shared a great many valuable lessons with everyone in the room.

Damien spoke about how to manage your presence and policy -and the key elements you need to have in place for a successful social presence.

1. Very important to remember is that in today’s world a Tweet carries the same weight as a Press Release. Captain O’Connor spoke about how some of the defence forces tweets had reached the news before the officical press releases – so you need to be careful how and about what you tweet.

2. So you need to have a Social Media Policy in place. A great site for lots of examples/templates for free social media policies is http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php

3. You should assign people as social media commentators and train them accordingly.

4. You should register your social media profile on all the various systems even if you don’t plan to use them. It can be an expensive and long process to get them back if someone cybersquats them.

5. Have an emergency response policy for social media. This is important to ensure you respond accordingly to manage situation. One company who had their database of clients “hacked” immediately sent out press releases about their “data breach”. This was picked up quickly by the search engines so discussions where about the “data breach” and not the “Hack”. This was a much softer message and a great PR win for them.

6. Finally ensure you tie your business strategy in with your social media strategy. Know your audience/customers, where they are (on what platforms), how they communicate and publish appropriate messages for them. Just like any offline marketing strategy you need to know the who, what, where and when of your messages.

Enterprise Ireland – eMarketing Workshop

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dublin 20 / October 2011

Today we attended an excellent event on international web design, marketing and communication run by Enterprise Ireland in the Crown Plaza in Blanchardstown.

The opening address was by Jennifer Condon, Divisional Manager of EI who spoke about the importance of the web in driving Irelands future success.

Aileen O’Toole director of Amas spoke about the growth of the internet and ecommerce sales for Irish companies. Some facts included:

• 72% of households access the internet at home, a very high penetration.
• Your online presence will directly impact your offline sales.
• 90% of people surveyed in Europe prefer to browse websites in thier local language – so translation is important.
• Bad translation will lose you business and advised against using free tools like Google Translate.

Next up was Gareth Dunlop who gave an amazing presentation on how Content Is King!

Gareth Dunlop and Damian Scattergood discuss the advantages on good online content.

Gareth’s presentation style is very relaxed and direct to the point. Creating good content is important. He showed us an example of a stock photograph of a group of people used on 10 different websites. “Surely these people don’t work for all these companies” he said! Creating your own photo’s and content shows an honesty that comes across to your customers.

In the old days websites just had the basic’s – visitors to your site now demand content they can use – however as Gareth says…

Internet Simplicity if Very Difficult to achieve.

Ed Field CEO of Digino Marketing speaking to Damian Scattergood at Enterprise Irelands eMarketing Workshop.

Ed Field from Digino Marketing followed with the next step – communicating your message to your target audience. I found this very thought provoking. Ed had a slightly different spin on the classic USP. We all talk about Unique Selling Points and Elevator pitches, but at the end of the day Ed asks…

What are you brilliant at?

Its amazing how a simple question can show up answers. We all struggle to define what our USP’s are, but I can tell you instantly what we can brilliant at. “We are probably the best technical translators in the world.”  We are excellent at technical documents and technical marketing. Now how do I get that message across on our website and marketing material. Certainly its a lot easier than defining a USP statement.

When clients visit your website you have to get their attention in 6 seconds – and convince them in under 3 minutes. So there is no space on your website for fluffy text. People just want answers. When was the last time you visited an airline website to see what planes they have – never? You just want to buy a seat. Does this apply to your business?

Now – once you have all this sorted out on your website – can you now do it in 12 languages? That was John Coburns topic International Search Engine Marketing

Wow – it was an excellent morning, plenty of thought provoking ideas and work for us to do on our own export sales.

This month we have a very interesting article from a company we work with Tenego Partnering. Tenego Partnering drive sales for high growth technology companies in international markets through partnering.

In this guest blog Donagh Kiernan the CEO discusses how partners can accelerate your business.

Can Partners Accelerate Your Business?

When you’re ready to accelerate your business growth, then accelerate through partnering.

A simple concept: If there are businesses operating in your target market, and these businesses have relationships with your target customers, who possess the right capabilities to assist you selling your products.

Then the fastest way to bring your product to the market is to identify those companies who have the right relationships and the right capabilities, to work with them and share the gain. In working with them, you need to understand how the partner sells.

You don’t just want access to their current customers but also you want to know that they are seeking to grow the customer base of your type of customer.

Also you don’t have to depend on one type of partner, you can have different partners bringing different capabilities, market sectors regions, or even directly competing partners in an ‘you eat what you kill’ arrangement.

Direct Sales delivers the full margin of the sale, but with the enormous cost of learning the market, building credibility and relationships to make sales happen, makes perfect sales sense.

Partnering is more cost effective and once you’ve learned what works for your business, you can scale much faster that direct sales. Get plugged into a ready-made sales force that already exists in the market and work with them to sell your products.

Do pick the right partners and work closely with them for early wins. sharing your knowledge of how to sell your product, and their knowledge and access to the market.

To see how partners can help accelerate your business, call us today on +353212307117 or email us at newsletter@tenegopartnering.com

For more information on partnering, check out  www.tenegopartnering.com

Article Published courtesy of Tenego Partnering Ltd     www.tenegopartnering.com

This month we have a guest article about eCommerce sales from our guest blogger Bob Curran of Buy4Now.ie.

Doing business internationally is always a challenge for companies, with language, technology and different buying behaviors globally. Bob is an expert in this field as over to Bob…

ECOMMERCE,  IS IT THE RIGHT MOVE FOR SMALL BUSINESS?

One of the biggest questions facing retailers today is whether or not to begin trading online with a transactional website.

Sure there are the usual arguments that your website is your most important calling card to prospective customers and a professional website inspires confidence in the consumer to do business with you, your website builds your brand, showcases your products, and is a more cost effective method of communicating with your customer base than traditional marketing.

Much talk has revolved around “ROBOS” (shoppers who Research Online but Buy Offline). All of these things are true but if you are still on the fence about the importance of Online shoppers and selling, these following hard facts are impossible to ignore:

According to the latest ComReg data newly published figures for the final quarter of 2009 show the total number of broadband subscribers at 1.44 million, a 20% increase year-on-year.  Mobile subscribers are the fastest-growing category, accounting for 467,000 subscribers, an increase of 51% on 2008 levels.

In 2009, the average internet user was online for 13.2 hours a week, compared with 10 hours a week the previous year.

So as internet connections increase, the home becomes the social and shopping hub as more and more people are time poor and internet rich.
Some other benefits to consider before you enter the eCommerce realm are:

E-Commerce Lowers Business Costs

Business on the Internet does not require bricks and mortar or staff around the world, just a Web site and perhaps one central warehouse or location to pick orders from.
E-Commerce Is Accessible Anywhere, Anytime.

The audience on the Internet is 24×7.  A business on-line is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Customers can shop at their convenience. The cash register is open all day and night, even while the business owner is sleeping.
E-Commerce Strengthens Customer Service and increases Customer loyalty.

A Web site allows a business to address its customers on a personal level.  How often do you learn all about a business upon entering a store? How often do you walk away with a free sample? A Web site allows businesses the opportunity to give customers information about their company while offering something of value.

For example, a company selling cooking utensils could offer the visitor recipes, a software company could provide interesting articles about the industry, a music store could offer sound bites of new music. By reading about the history and background of a company, the customer feels they have chatted with the owner. Personalizing a company creates customer loyalty. A Web site is soft sell. It gives the business an opportunity to market itself while gently leading the audience to purchase its products.

Case in point

Sheilas Flowers is a family run business whose headquarters are based in Bray, Co. Wicklow.    Nigel Banks is the MD of Sheilas and according to Nigel he realised early on the flower business was better suited to online sales his answer was to close the company’s high street shops and join the Buy4Now online family in 2002.

Some of the main challenges we faced were related to processing the orders, managing stock and getting orders ready for delivery, we quickly realised that another level of infrastructure was required to manage the online store and its orders  & proceeded rapidly to implement new IT systems .

“We were able to re-allocate existing staff to deal with the additional business and maintain the site to keep it fresh”.

“The current website which is hosted by Buy4Now Technology group,  is now fully integrated with our own in-house order processing software.”

Sheilas Flowers was a true trendsetter when in 1988 they became one of the 1st flower shops to have a website. For other retailers the question is still whether or not to trade online remains but the answer should in most cases be yes.

Footnote:
Sheilas are Ireland’s only florist to be awarded Interflora’s “Ireland’s “Florist of the Year” 7 times.  Sheilas  Flowers offer same day flower delivery personally through-out Dublin, Bray and North Wicklow and can send flowers  through Interflora to  practically anywhere in  the World .

For more information on how Buy4Now can help you grow your online business visit www.Buy4Now.com or contact Bob Curran.

STAR translation helps its clients grow deliver website translation services in over 44 languages.