How to Translate a Website: Preparing for Internationalisation 

notebook with a draft of how to translate a website

If you are wondering how to translate a website, get ready to enter the world of internationalisation. Why? Because before adapting your content for a different language, your website needs to be ready to support this effort. And that means you need to have the proper strategy in place to tackle this complex task. 

But what does internationalisation in business mean, and how does it affect you? We have mentioned before the importance of developing an international content strategy to tap into a new audience. Localising and translating a website means creating a site that looks, feels, and reads local to maximise user engagement. Internationalisation has to do with the work a company does before localising its content to support those efforts. 

What Is Internationalisation?

As we said, internationalisation is the process that allows you to prepare your website for localisation. Through it, you will ensure that your site’s platforms, workflows, and architecture can be easily translated and adapted into local languages and cultures. It is often referred to as i18n.

The point of internationalisation is making sure your content management system (CMS), website, and other back-end technologies are both functionally and technically ready to go global. This means that while translation and localisation will follow the internationalisation process, website internationalisation should happen earlier in the game so it can help you support multilingual web publishing processes.

But is internationalisation necessary to translate a website’s content? Consider, for example, the differences between languages that do not use the same alphabet or even read in the same direction. Depending on your expansion goals, your website should contemplate the possibility of supporting a variety of characters or reading directions that go beyond the Latin alphabet.

Internationalisation Tips: How to Translate a Website

Website Internationalisation: Separate Site Variables and Constants

To properly prepare your website for internationalisation, it is key to separate your website’s variables and constants. These words refer not only to the content available to users on the front-end but also to elements such as source code and text strings. These elements are usually handled by programmers or page admins. 

One of the main benefits of doing this is that, once you have completed this analysis, you will not need to do it again the next time you try to tackle a different language or locale. Also, separating constants and variables will ensure that your time and efforts are focused on the content that needs your attention, instead of creating an entire website from scratch. 

Site constants include: 

  • Brand names
  • Source code
  • Logos
  • Generic user interface elements and navigation
  • Global page templates

Site variables include:

  • International currencies
  • Localisable text strings
  • Conventions for phone numbers and addresses

#OptimationalTip: When tackling internationalisation, separate your website constants from your website variables. This will help avoid unnecessary translation work.

Multilanguage Support: The Importance of Unicode

In the past, computers used encoding systems to assign specific numbers to represent characters in a particular language. But no encoding system had enough characters to cover every language. This meant some systems decided to use several numbers for the same characters or one number for many characters. Chaos ensued, and when data passed between different platforms or encodings, there were issues. And then came Unicode.

Unicode is the industry standard when it comes to encoding systems. It offers a one-of-a-kind number for each of the hundreds of thousands of characters found in languages. Unicode will allow you to create a website that can support multilingual content minimising risks.

#OptimationalTip: Using Unicode will help you create a strong foundation for your multilingual website. It will also help you avoid potential data gaps.

Global Website Templates & Localisation

Instead of creating a new website for each new locale, creating a single website template that can be adapted and modified to suit specific needs is a much more efficient use of your time and resources. 

Developing a global template that can fit the needs of various locales will mean extensive testing and planning. Additionally, it will need deep knowledge of the potential consumers you will be targeting. 

The Internationalization Working Group offers a series of simple adjustments that can help you avoid common blunders that will become a problem down the line. For example, mentioning “lang” attributes in HTML tags to set your site up for accommodating a different language.

Other things, such as avoiding embedding text in an image and typing it out instead, can also help. It will make it much easier to manage the localised versions of your website. Most importantly, that text will mean another opportunity to create SEO-optimized content to help with your site’s ranking.

#OptimationalTip: Creating a global template for your website will ensure your time and efforts are used much more efficiently when adapting your content to different locales. Just remember to conduct thorough market research of your potential target audiences first!

Ensure Your CMS Is Global-Ready

The CMS you choose will be one of the things that make or break your multilanguage efforts. Your CMS will allow your page admins to collaborate when managing, publishing, and creating content. Because of this, its limitations will play a big role in the success of your project. 

When choosing a CMS, choose one that can seamlessly integrate with the applications you use, that offers a workflow engine versatile enough to handle translation in the content lifecycle, and that supports the third-party plugins you need.

Also, finding a CMS that enables you to access things like version control, variation support, and content change across several multilingual websites will make your life easier!

#OptimationalTip: Whichever CMS you choose for your website, make sure that it offers the applications, plugins, and workflows you need to support your translation efforts. 

In Conclusion: Tackling Internationalisation

Whether you expect to expand your business model into different countries or you are jumping in with a seasoned company with a live, complex website: Putting in the time and effort to internationalise your website now could save you thousands in the future. Adhering to website internationalisation best practices may cost you upfront, but will save you time and money down the line!

For more information on how to translate your website, or if you are looking for a translation partner to translate a website for you—contact us today.