Archive for Localization

Anthony | January 27, 2012
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Don’t be evil? Is Google flexing its muscle, or just manipulating the marketplace?

Google search engines are the new high street marketplace

Back in June when the online community was talking about Google+ and what it would mean to the world of search engine management, my take on the situation was, that Google couldn’t afford another failure, especially after the flop that was Google Buzz, (and you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking, Google what?)- They had to make it work.

I have previously predicted that despite Google’s supposed “fair” methods of working out which order pages appear in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), Google would have to start prioritising signals from Google+, forcing people within the marketing and online communities to embrace the social network whether they liked it or not.

Low and behold, in early January 2012, Google announced the “Search Your World” update, which prioritises search results based on content that you and your network of Google Plus connections have “+1’d”. This is yet another step to empowering the already super popular (please read – well funded, large marketing budget) brands while pushing down the smaller brands and one-man-band type websites, placing yet another hurdle to overcome when looking to achieve success in the online world. I liken this move by the search giant to the death of the local village high street, caused by the rise of giant supermarkets such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.

When Google Plus was launched, they did a very good job of creating an air of exclusivity about it, only allowing a certain number of people to join at a time. This left people clambering for an invite and see what all the fuss was about. Within weeks of the release of Plus+, Google was boasting join-ups in excess of 64 million.

What Google haven’t been so forthcoming with is numbers of returning visitors and active users after sign up. I know that after the initial excitement (followed by extreme disappointment) many of the people who signed up, myself included, have never returned to their profile, choosing to continue with their Facebook and Twitter profiles which are already heavily populated with their friends, photos and other key information. So it comes so no surprise to me that Google launched their “Search Plus Update”.

However this still leaves me wondering how successful Google Plus+ will actually be? Like me, SEO and marketing professionals will suddenly start taking an unnatural interest in Plus+ again, fearing the impact on their careers. But will this bear any weight on the average, search algorithm oblivious Google user who frankly doesn’t know or care what their friends think and simply wants to surf the net. If people want to share content with their friends, surely they will continue to publish links on the Facebook walls and Twitter feeds?

It is only natural that the other major social network players are nervous – no doubt their backsides are going like a rabbit’s nose attempting to guess at Google’s next strategic move. So when I read in The Guardian that developers from Myspace, Twitter and Facebook have joined forces to create a browser add-on called ‘Don’t be evil’ not only were my suspicions confirmed, but I also found myself in agreement with their cause.  It would be interesting to see the number of people who install this browser add-on, but again this will most likely depend in the number of people who actually understand anything about the whole search situation, or even care. For people who are none the wiser they probably won’t even notice their SERPs are being weighed up by this, in the same way they don’t understand the hundreds of other intricacies that feed into why search engines present you with the results they do. Therefore I suspect that Google are banking on getting away with making such changes with minimal protest.

So where does that leave people within the translation services sector?  So many freelance linguists rely heavily on Google search results and online profile for the generation of revenue and work, in a highly competitive market. When the online marketplace rules are being changed so frequently, in order to manipulate the results, I have to stress that it is so important that individuals begin to pay more attention to announcements from Google and ask – what does this mean for my business? To finish with the analogy of the high street I used earlier, website owners need to treat their websites like their own shop floor, and constantly adapt it depending on customer feedback, new technology, and to negotiate the state of flux search engines operate in. This is not a passing trend, and many millions of people are already three or four steps behind.

Category: Localization, Technology, Translation, Translation Blog | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Emma | September 12, 2011
2 comments

Angry Birds shows the strategic benefits of Software Localization

Angry birds

How did angry birds become so popular?

Software localization is becoming an increasingly useful way to help an existing software product reach new markets. The fast moving smart phone application market is a key case in point. The ability to localize smart phone software to other languages can help to increase sales with minimal investment.

There are two aspects supporting this claim. First of all, most of us prefer using software in our own language, or if that is not available, then in English. Secondly, smart phone applications are usually very small and thus cheap and fast to translate, especially with a modern localization tool.

Unfortunately the ease of the translation and the temptation to get a share in the multi billion markets make the competition in the major language areas tough. In a situation like this, the strategy matters. Only a few have so far realized how successful sales campaigns in small language areas can be used to increase sales in bigger language markets.

The Finnish software company Rovio did this during the marketing process of its super famous Angry Birds game. The popular game was on the market for a long period of time, and did not achieve overnight success. It was only once the game was featured as Apple’s game of the week that the floodgates opened. But it was the campaign undertaken to help convince Apple to promote the application that was the key to its success.

Angry Birds’ first successes were in small, local markets such as Finland, Czech Republic, Sweden and Denmark. It was relatively easy to achieve top positions in these markets because there were fewer applications to compete with. The experience in those markets showed that Angry Birds was very profitable and had a great potential. Without this experience it would not have been possible to make a deal with Apple which got them from the 600th place to the first in the UK App Store.

Thus by localizing software for minor-language markets you can build a strategic advantage that will help you in winning the major-language markets. And at the same time you can increase your sales with minimal investment!

This article is written by localization specialists at Multilizer. Since 1996, Multilizer has been developing innovative software localization tools for all kind of localization needs. The extensive experience in the industry and the passion for localization and translation make Multilizer one of the leading localization and translation technology experts. Today its clientèle includes companies like IBM, GE, Nokia, ABB, and Intel.

Category: Localization, Translation | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Anna | March 8, 2011
5 comments

Acceptable accents in the business world

Be proud of your language roots

I was surprised this morning to stumble across a press release posted on the San Francisco Chronicle’s site promoting accent reduction programmes in the US.  The slant of the press release was to basically to highlight the fact that more than a quarter of people in the skilled workforce of the US who have either a doctoral degree, a degree or a master’s are “foreign-born” and how those individuals are missing out on opportunities in business because of their accents.

It is safe to say that international speakers must be valuable economically if they make up more than a quarter of the US workforce. The shocking part is that the press release claims many of these individuals are unable to convey the true level of their academic competence because of their roots. Roughly translated (pardon the pun) this suggests that people with foreign accents who are speaking English in the workplace are considered to be less academic and therefore less able to climb the career ladder.  So US employees are held back in their roles  because of accents, despite the massive push for more multilingual content across companies globally?

With offices and colleagues in the US, I am not convinced that this is the case but who am I to argue with facts?  Ok, I’ll give it a go.

I feel passionate about accents and their perceived impact in the business environment because I am one of those people with a very strong accent.  Born and raised in Glasgow, I left Scotland as soon as I had completed my degree at University and moved to London, the top financial centre of the world. I was offered the first job that I interviewed for, which  thankfully has been a common theme in most jobs I have applied for.  Is this because I was the best candidate? I hope so. Is it because I was memorable because of my accent in a sea of English people?  I tend to think that it has played a pretty big role.

An accent alone will not get you the job.  It has to be backed up with confidence, experience and an ability to speak articulately so that your interviewer will understand you – accent or no accent. I am extremely proud of my Scottish accent.  Yes, I have had to slow down my delivery (even people in parts of Scotland can’t always keep up with a Glaswegian conversation) and certain words have definitely softened over my 11 years in England but this has been due to time spent with my peers and not a deliberate decision.  I would never want to, nor would I ever expect a colleague to “reduce” their accent in order to progress professionally.

Perhaps I am missing something.  Maybe some companies do consider people with different accents to be less able to progress, more risky to put in front of clients and less competent in delivering tasks.  I hope not and I am pleased to say that my current employer would never discriminate in this way and encourages employees from different parts of the country and the world into their English-speaking offices.

Languages, dialects and accents are so precious.  We should be doing everything we can to preserve them, not reduce them.

Category: Accents, Business Management, Cultures, Dialects, Languages, Localization |
Anna | January 31, 2011
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Getting over the export barriers – again!

The world is your oyster

It’s time for us to get back on our favourite hobbyhorse here at Applied Language Solutions after reading an interesting piece on the BBC’s website this morning .

Small firms are missing out on exports…well, what do you know?

Rather than go down the “how many times do we have to say it” route, it’s far better for us to welcome this coverage on the export issue, which raises awareness of the opportunity that overseas sales presents; not only to UK companies but to the country and the economy as a whole.

The article focuses on a campaign driven by UKTI to highlight the benefits of exporting and overcome the perceived barriers such as resources, financing and understanding the culture. The subject of language as a barrier is briefly touched upon in the pamphlet promoted within the article, which refers readers to free online translation tools such as Google Translate.  However it isn’t always enough to use a tool like this as there is more than just local documentation translation to consider when targeting overseas markets. Pure machine translation can also ruffle a few cultural feathers along the way if the translations are too literal. Nothing worse than accidentally causing offence when trying to establish yourself in a new market so best to use it for certain types of content.

Translating a website is the ideal starting point to sell to other countries. With customers four times more likely to buy from a site in their own language it makes perfect sense and you don’t necessarily need a sales force on the ground if you can sell online. Before assuming this will be a huge, labour intensive and costly task bear in mind that you don’t actually have to translate the whole site.  Some targeted landing pages and a translated FAQ section might be all you need to get started.  Multilingual SEO can also help in terms of ensuring the right people, in the right markets get to the right pages on your site.  So getting the keywords, the meta data and any Pay Per Click adverts localized properly is critical.

To tackle the existing trade deficit we need to get more companies exporting and, despite our efforts through our Export Box initiative to date and regular rants on this blog, there are still too many companies out there believing that it simply isn’t an option for them.

We need more articles like this, more support and guidance from Government and a greater understanding of how easy it is to get started.

Ok, so we have been saying it since 2009.  Who knows, maybe more voices singing from the same hymn sheet is what we need to really get that mindset shift to happen once and for all.

Fingers crossed.

Category: Business Management, Cultures, Free Translation, Localization, Machine Translation, Translation |
LeeB | November 1, 2010
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ALS at ICT2010

ICT2010 Brussels

ICT2010 Brussels

Applied Language Solutions visited ICT 2010 this year and was proud to see so much innovation coming from the EU.

The show was opened up by, amongst others, the President of Belgium and the Prince of Belgium, highlighting the prestige associated with this important industry event. The main auditorium allowed multilingual presentations to be shown removing the language barrier by having a panel of interpreters and linguists behind the scenes, while the translated versions of what was being said were beamed into our ears using InfraRed headsets. The languages covered were English, French, Italian and Spanish and you simply turned a dial to your language and the headset would repeat what was being said.  All clever stuff.

In addition to networking sessions and discussions there was also the ICT Exhibition Forum which included everything from Robots such as the iCub and EEG devices such as the GammACap to home automation and green IT initiatives. A full rundown of what was being exhibited can be found here.

EuroMatrixPlus had a stand in the exhibition room which was manned when I was there by Andreas Eisele and Christian Federmann. I discussed various Machine Translation subjects with Christian on the day and got to talk about our own SmartMATE Machine Translation Solution. Hans Uszkoreit was also there and gave an interesting presentation on Understanding of contents through understanding of languages.

Lots of innovation was on show and we were happy to see a keen interest in green technologies such as renewable energies and carbon credit schemes, which are becoming more and more important in the procurement of services, across multiple industries.  Applied Language Solutions has always had green initiatives at our core with paperless offices and cloud computing so it’s great to see so many companies investing in the research and development of additional green technologies that can be adopted by corporates.

With all of the advancements being made in so many different areas, it’s clear that there are a lot of exciting years ahead for Europe.

Category: Localization | Tags: , ,
Emma | October 14, 2010
4 comments

Another new language discovered

Kolo is said to off-shoot from the Tibeto-Burman language

Koro is said to off-shoot from the Tibeto-Burman language

As another spoken language is discovered in a remote part of India, I often wonder ‘will we ever know how many languages are spoken throughout the world?’

Just last August we wrote a blog regarding the discovery of unidentified hieroglyphic language in Scotland. Now researchers for National Geographic claim to have discovered a community of between 800 to 1200 people speaking Koro in North India.

Discoveries of such languages have often sparked debates as to whether or not the effort should be made to preserve them. It is estimated that around 25 languages a year become extinct; a prospect to some that is worth fighting against.

But surely, throughout the centuries, hundreds of languages have emerged and died without any documentation, which raises a similar conundrum to ‘if a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a noise?’

In the same way that improved global transport and more international mobility changed languages and dialects, today’s use of technology has, and will continue to impact upon, the ways that languages are used and developed, and at a speed that has never been seen (or heard) before. This in itself presents language conservationists with a battle to preserve even the most commonly spoken discourse. Take English for example, which has been studied for centuries and which people have fought to preserve for just as long, yet it has not failed to evolve over time. At what point do we draw the line; should we still be conversing in the same way we did when Shakespeare was alive, or do we accept that no language can ever be preserved?

I feel there are no right or wrong answers to the questions I am asking, however I suspect that the topic will be up for debate repeatedly throughout time.

Category: Languages, Localization |
GavinWheeldon | July 22, 2010
3 comments

UK Government in shock push for UK trade abroad. Very close to missing the point, sadly…

David Cameron, on part of his recent US tour, while not fully crediting our role in WWII, spared no time in ‘bigging up’ UK industry overseas, pledging to “reorientate” British foreign policy towards promoting UK trade.

Following the recent emergency budget by our new Chancellor and his pledge to make Britain “Open for business”, there has been scant detail, so far, as to how this will be achieved.

But this is a positive step, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’m a firm believer in giving people adequate time to do the things we hired (voted) them to do. “Why ‘hire’ them, otherwise?” …is my view.

Snap forward a month and cue newly installed Prime Minster, David Cameron on his first official trip to the USA, where hot dogs, American beers and tidy bedrooms were the lighthearted topics du jour.

In his new role as defender of the realm, well kind of, Mr Cameron met with a number of financial and business leaders in the US, and was keen to highlight the changes to the Foreign Office setup.  The main change being that Simon Fraser, formerly at the Department of Business, will be installed at the Foreign Office as permanent secretary to head up this new ‘pro-UK’ mandate.

Following a light lunch with New York City’s Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, Mr Cameron pledged: “I want to make sure that whenever any British minister, however junior, is meeting any counterpart, however junior or senior and for however short a time, they always have a very clear list of the commercial priorities we are trying to achieve, whether that is pushing forward British orders, attracting inward investment or promoting bilateral or unilateral trade talks.”

US-BRITAIN-CAMERON-BLOOMBERG

Cutting the mustard? David Cameron is treated to a hot dog by NYC Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

Sounds very good on the face of things, and after all this is only one of his first official foreign engagements where the subject of foreign trade would, naturally, crop up.

However, it is also my wholehearted belief that the real emphasis on expanding UK trade should lie a lot closer to home – by giving incentives to UK PLC to reinvest and expand their operations to overseas markets, which will enable them to bridge our widening trade deficit and quicken our economic recovery.

In short, there are many things UK businesses could be doing themselves if our domestic environment allowed, or encouraged them to do.

My main hope with this news, is that it isn’t just talk for the sake of it. That these aren’t just cleverly engineered soundbytes in order to distance Cameron from any poodle-like comparisons to one of his predecessor’s – being “tough on trade”. That would be quite understandable, as the minutiae of the two-day visit – as well as its likely outcome – is being scrutinised by the world’s press, after all.

Not long ago, and without going into too much detail, I delivered this “I told you so” to WordPress and anyone who bothered to read my rant. This was after suffering a nasty bout of “about time, too”, which was  brought on by a round-about admission from, well, everyone, that exporting can help the economy.

Even though my criticisms may have been directed largely towards the previous Government, the common-sense approach we’re asking for isn’t a left vs right issue. I just hope the new coalition doesn’t show the same level of help for UK trade, but instead promotes UK export in a systematic way. Walking the talk, you might call it.

Here’s hoping, anyway. Over to you, Mr Cameron…

Do you think David Cameron’s shift in foreign policy will be positive for UK trade?

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Category: Business Management, Localization | Tags: , , , ,
GregRosner | July 10, 2010
2 comments

SEO Localization: Optimizing the multilingual side of search

How the right translation can yield the wrong keyword AND how the wrong keyword can adversely affect your Google score on all your websites.

SEO Localization is more than translating keywords

SEO Localization is more than translating keywords

SEO Localization is about optimizing the multilingual side of search. So when your Spanish, French, or German prospect, for example, is searching for what you have worked so hard to produce and communicate on your website – they can find you at the top of the heap of other related options.

Employing the right keywords in each language is essential and will make a huge difference to your natural rankings and PPC results in local markets. Using straight translations of your English keywords will not readily produce the correct set of keywords for your local market.

Taken to an extreme, when mistranslated, your “keywords” can help reduce Google’s relevancy score for your entire site. Much international business growth today happens because of the power of search, so you need to be sure your website  is optimized for the markets you are selling to.

Why shouldn’t you just translate your keywords?

Here’s why: Words have multiple meaning, as can product names and service descriptions.  If you ponder the word for word translation in any given language I’m sure you can imagine .

If you were to consider using “Windshield repair” as a keyword from your English language website, the correct straight translation into French would be “réparation pare-brise”.  However, it may not be the best keyword to use on your French site.  By using the Google Keyword Suggestion tool, you will see that this translation has a lower local search volume than some of the alternative suggestions such as, “auto pare brise” or “moto pare brise”.  If you were trying to attract more traffic to your French web site, we would advise you to use one of these alternative French keywords since they produce a higher local search volume as well as having a similar meaning.

You would also want to make sure the name of the web page, URL, meta data and any other related text contains the right keywords for optimum Google indexing and ranking.

For your UK English version, you would also have to adapt your keyword to “Windscreen Repair” instead of “Windshield Repair”, since this term, and many other terms for car parts, have different English names in the UK and US markets.  Since Google gives your site an overall relevancy score for each keyword, if you are using keywords on your French sites and UK site which aren’t optimized it will bring down your overall score.

Google France Adwords Windshield Repair

To see how Applied Language can help you optimize your multilingual websites, we offer a Multilingual SEO Audit for $1,000 per market, where we take 25 of your most lucrative keywords and give you back actionable recommendations which will help you eliminate wasteful ad spending and improve SEO on your local language web sites.  Contact me directly for details.

Category: Localization, Translation Mistakes | Tags: , , , ,
admin | July 9, 2010
One comment

Getting your message heard: Speaking the language of SEO

There are approximately 1.67 billion internet users worldwide (Miniwatts Marketing Group).  Given the apparent dominance of English on the web, I was surprised therefore to learn that of these 1.67 billion users, only 30% actually have English as their first language.

Research shows that buyers are 10 times more likely to buy from a site which is in their own language and companies are becoming increasingly aware of the necessity of having a multilingual website in order to compete in the global marketplace.  However, many find that once they’ve invested in getting their website translated, their product doesn’t prove to be as popular overseas as they had hoped.

Sound familiar?  You may have experienced this yourself and it might be down to the fact that there’s no real market for your product or services outside of the UK but it’s more likely to be because potential customers aren’t finding your website easily, and this is usually because you haven’t thought about your multilingual SEO strategy.

In Google, more than 60% of web searchers will click on one of the top three listings.

It is therefore crucial for a website to rank as highly as possible on the first page of search engine results and by choosing the right keywords, you’ll see a great improvement in your rankings which will in turn result in more traffic to your website.  When it comes to multilingual web pages however, things get a bit trickier.

Through experience, I’ve come to realise that a successful global multilingual SEO campaign is not about simply translating your English keywords into the relevant languages and hoping for the best.  When it comes to internet search, each language and culture has very different search patterns.  Online shoppers in the UK and France may be searching for the same product or service but what may prove to be a popular and lucrative keyword in English may not have desired effect when translated directly into French.

In order for your global campaign to be a hit, you need to take the time to research local competition and user behaviour in each of the markets you are trying to crack, creating localised keyword lists based on your findings.  You also need to be aware that whilst Google remains king of the search engines, many country-specific search engines are growing in popularity since they offer better country-based search options and results.  In some countries, such as China (Baidu) and Russia (Yandex), these local search engines have actually surpassed Google in terms of popularity.

I mention this because in order to obtain those vital top rankings in local search engines, your site must conform to their algorithms and these algorithms vary from search engine to search engine.  The easiest way to produce search engine friendly content is to start right from the start and build your site from the ground up, bearing in mind your global SEO campaign and ensuring that your site’s web architecture and coding strategy conform to the algorithms of the local search engine in question but for many companies with existing multilingual websites, it’s too late for that.

Whether you’re starting from scratch or dealing with an existing site, the most effective way to develop your SEO strategy and understand just how a particular local search engine ticks is by employing native speakers in your target countries who have a good knowledge of online marketing and SEO best practises in their cultures.  Finding qualified in-country specialists can often prove to be a challenge, particularly when you are dealing with numerous languages but it really will pay off in the long term.  Enlisting the help of a specialist multilingual SEO company can often prove beneficial as they will have the necessary resources and experience to help, saving you a lot of time and effort.

When it comes to multilingual SEO, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are plenty of other factors to consider for a successful international SEO strategy, including the possibility of buying a local domain (as some search engines express regional favouritism) and multilingual link building campaigns but we’ll save all that for another time…

Category: Languages, Localization, Translation | Tags: , ,
Matthew Connaughton | July 1, 2010
One comment

‘For your ears only’. Roger Moore worried for “the Queen’s English”

James Bond and Saintly legend, Sir Roger Moore, has recently had a pop at TV for the apparent demise among the acting profession of the RP Accent (received pronunciation) or “Queen’s English”, as it’s often called.

For Queen('s ENglish) and country: The arether spiffing Roger Moore

For Queen('s English) and country: Jolly old not-so-jolly Roger Moore

Sir Bond is ever so miffed at this and claims that more actors are being denied work because their spiffing accents are, well, too posh for those cantankerous casting directors.

He goes on to say that his daughter, Deborah, has been turned down for acting work in as she “is not regional in her speech”, and goes on to cite TV as the  main culprit. Shows like Holby City and Casualty that peddle the proletariat “Estuary English” are apparently the offenders in chief.

Hang on. Estuary?  That phrase sounds like it implies “dirty English” to me, but it was actually coined by Liverpool born Phonetician, John C. Wells.

Anyway, I find this moan frightfully spurious indeed. Actors are required (supposed) to switch their accents whenever the role requires, after all.

Now, I don’t want to witness the demise of the traditional English accent, nor do I want to unduly have a dig at Sir Roger, but I’d never have sat through Snatch if everybody in it sounded like Leslie Phillips. You see, regional accents should be celebrated, regardless of how common or confusing they may seem to some people.

Conversely, I would have actually made it through Pirates of the Caribbean if Johnny Depp could do a real “Landan” accent …me old mayte.

I wonder what Sir Ian McKellen (or Magneto and Gandalf in Hollywood parlance) would make of Sir Roger’s recent rant. After all, he speaks awfully good Queen’s, yet when he appeared on Corrie (Coronation Street, the longest running soap opera in the world), he did so with a thick northen (Yorkshire) accent, liiike.

You could argue that television (and the entire acting profession) has simply caught up with real life and as such, has all but ditched Sir Roger’s beloved “west end” accents in favour those who can do more suitable, cooler and (say it quietly) more credible accents.

Do you think the Queen’s English is “real English”, as Sir Roger Does, or do you think such snobbery is poppycock (nonsense)? Leave a comment.

Category: Accents, Cultures, Languages, Localization | Tags:
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