We have been providing high-end copywriting services in English for our clients and now we can do the same in other languages. It makes sense no matter how you look at it, offering multi-language options adds a huge amount of value to your business. As one of our clients put it nicely - "how can you be international without being international".
This is particularly true for websites. Many of our clients feel scared to translate their sites because they don't want to get enquiries in a different language and worry about employing multilingual support staff. THAT IS NOT TRUE! On a website an alternative language is there to help customers get the information they need to buy. Once they have made up their purchasing decision then you often don't have to go into any technical detail (other than hopefully just accepting their money). Besides, you will find that those people that are willing to do international transactions generally have at least some level of English. So if you have staff that can accommodate the English part then in 90% of cases you can service the customer without adding additional resources.
Here are the benefits of adding additional languages to your website:
1. For even a native language speaker, it improves credibility and strengthens your brand. When I go to a site and see it offering additional languages options, I immediately think it is an international business which will provide me with the necessary customer service, quality and security I expect (especially if I need to use my credit card online). Therefore having additional language options suggests that you are a big, secure, sophisticated and more importantly GLOBAL. That in itself leads to more sales and enquiries.
2. Even for those visitors with quite good English skills (ie English is a second, third or even fourth language), offering them information in their native language provides piece of mind and increases the likelihood they will purchase. Think about it. People feel more secure making decisions based on clear and complete information. So if a visitor comes to your English only site and can only understand 80% of the information, then they already come to it with 20% doubt in their mind even before they start considering your product or service. Instead, if they see the information in their own native language (especially if there is technical information) they have that added reassurance to go from a visit to an enquiry to a sale without objection or hesitation.
3. For those visitors that have NO English skills at all, they would NOT EVEN CONSIDER purchasing at all if they came to the site and could not get any information they needed. They would not even be able to find the Contact Us button to send an enquiry. So having the Contact Us button in their language will at least increase your chances of winning a sale out of them. Here is our most common objection when we put this forward to our clients:
Question: "What if someone that does not speaks English wants to buy a product and we don't have the means to communicate with them?" (eg if they call the contact number and start speaking in a language that the staff member does not understand).
Our Answer: "Well that is a damn good problem to have!"
4. Last but not least, (actually this is a huge consideration), using additional languages has the added advantage of facilitating Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). How? because for each language you at least double your keyword searches. Also Google favours websites with foreign languages from a ranking point of view (the robots also feel that sites with additional languages are more credible than those that don't) and if you are in a real niche, you may even find yourself attracting organically more qualified buyers because of lack of market exposure in that other language (ie if you are one of only a few offering product information in a unique language, you may find yourself catching bigger fish, using a bigger net in a smaller pond).
Granted, you can attract visitors with very poor English skills. Still the fact that you have offered the information in their language has caught them. How you deal with it is up to you. I recommend to our clients to just say that they can only do business translations and communicate in English. You will be amazed, none of them have ever had a client refuse to communicate from that point. Even if the buyer uses a third party that knows English to do conclude the deal, they will usually find a way to get what they want. The bottom line is that, once a customer has made the decision to buy from you, they will communicate with you in anyway you want.
Anyway you consider it, adding languages to your website is a positive. It gives the idea that you are a large multinational enterprise, portrays high quality customer service levels, increases customer confidence, improves search engine optimisation (SEO) which can increase your overall rankings as google favours multilingual sites and facilitates sales. What more do you want?
ASK YOURSELF THIS: Does your competition have a multilingual site? If the answer is YES, then you should have one too. If the answer is NO, then you have an opportunity to get a competative advantage over them.
Our Commitment & Timeframes for translation services
You will receive a quote within 24 hours of sending us your text or documentation.
For other languages we endevour to find translators that are not only native (we only use native language trainers), but also those that are skilled within the working field to ensure that you receive the best quality translation. Thus quotation period is generally 48 hours.
NB we also know that there are a lot of cheaper or more economical translation services out there. We have seen all kinds of quality including good, bad, ugly and shocking. It can be risky but if you feel you can get a good quality translation somewhere else, you can still use one of our language experts to proof read it.
On larger jobs such as financial reports and other documentation we generally work with clients directly to formulate a strategy or action plan in order to get the best results from both translations, proof reading and copywriting.
How much does a translation cost?
For Spanish, Italian, French, German and Portuguese or other Central European languages, our per-word prices vary from €0.20 - €0.25, depending on size and difficulty of the text.
For Finnish, Swedish, Russian, Estonian and Danish or other Nordic languages, our prices vary from €0.23 - €0.28 depending on size and difficulty of the text.
For Chinese, Japanese or Indian or other Asian languages, our prices vary from €0.30+ depending on size and difficulty of the text and whether they require characters etc.
Proof reading: If you are using an external translation service and would like to have your document or material checked over by a qualified native speaker, we generally charge €65 per hour or €0.10 per word. However this is always subject to looking at your document first. In some cases we have received documents that have been "translated" (ie by google translate) and are impossible to read.
We can offer tailored pricing for larger projects or, as other clients have required, in partnership relationships whereby we act as your own in-house communications service. In this case we can provide per hour, per day or fixed term contract solutions.
Additional Charges
A rush charge of up to 30% may be applied for unusually fast turnaround requests and for weekend work.
Payment Terms
Our payment terms are net 30 days. Our standard payment method is direct bank transfer of funds. Rates quoted in our proposal to you are calculated on this basis.
For international customers, you can pay directly by Wire Transfer, Credit Card or PayPal.
Examples of Translation Price Quotes:
English to French or French to English translation of a 5,000-word marketing document = €0.25 per source word (€1,250) .
English to French large translation project (15,000 words) in common language (marketing, development,…) = €0.22 per source word depending on the deadline (€3,300).
English to German, French, Italian, Spanish translation for a large website, 30,000-words total for all languages = €0.20 (€6,000)
English to Spanish translation of a 2,000-word document = €0.25 per source word (€500).
Click here to contact us for a free quote.