Localization
First impressions are important, and since your website or marketing material
may be the first point of contact between you and a potential client,
it is imperative that you adapt your site or documentation to fit the
local conventions of your target audience. Localization does not mean
simply translating the text on your site or documentation into another
language; it also means that you need to ensure the translated language
is appropriate, the spelling is adapted to the locale and the cultural
references meaningful. For example, whilst America and the UK share
the same basic language, some spellings, colloquial phrases, weights
and measures are quite different.
It is likely that your documentation or website will be comprised of a
mixture of content: international and local. Our localization service
takes this distinction into account. International content includes
information that is applicable no matter where your clients are based
(product information, corporate profile, world-wide branding messages
etc.). Local content will be material pertaining to a particular country
or market-place and may include local promotions, locally available
products, sales campaigns etc.
Our localization services include…
- Initial audit of material
- Brand checking
- Testing the market
- International search engine optimization
- Source site/documentation versus translated version
- Translation memory
Case Study
London-based Atlas Translations undertook the localization of the website
for an international engineering firm. Their website had already
been translated from the original English into French, German, Spanish,
Italian, Polish and Chinese, but the translations had not been completed
by professional, qualified translators and localization issues had
not been considered. Atlas’s localization
team were able to adapt cultural references to the locale, adjust the
local and international content as necessary and amend the specialist
engineering terminology to fit the target country.
