In our digital era, multilingual SEO has become a critical element to any business, as it allows your website to pop up on the first page of search engines.
Ranking on the top pages brings more traffic to your website—potential customers who are interested in your …
How To Boost Your Website: Localization and SEO Translation
Estimated reading time: 2 mins
Although they are not the same thing, localization and SEO translation work together to empower your website and help people find your offers and services within the chaos of the net.
Localization is part of the translation process, as it …
Website Translation vs Website Localization
Is there any difference between website translation and website localization?
When approaching a new foreign market, you must know not only the language of the country you are targeting, but also its culture. The latter is fundamental in order to avoid offending your …
Translating and Localizing Keywords
Keywords translation is not just about translating. It is about researching and localizing for a local target because choosing the right keywords is critical for organic SEO and for attracting the right target audience in the right language.
Why Translation Is …
Technology, Translation, and Possible Futures
Technology has often been seen as something completely unrelated to the translation world. We often think about translators as figures writing down on paper what they read, pen in hand. Needless to say, reality is a bit different.
Technology should exist to improve …
January: Time for New Year’s Resolutions for Businesses
Reaching a better work-life balance, conquering new markets, attracting more customers within your existing market, and so on—in January, everybody is facing their new year's resolutions. Listing them is one thing, but putting them into practice is another.
Some goals are …
Learning Business from Christmas Classics
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Running a business means always being keen to learn new lessons and techniques that also come from fields seemingly unrelated to your business. Classics are one of those fields.
"How does reading the classics make you better at business?" …
The Importance of Knowing Foreign Cultures During the Process of Internationalization
Knowing the culture of the country you are approaching can be critical when you want to start the process of internationalization at your business.
In fact, when you go global, you must have a multilingual marketing strategy that is made of different small steps that make …
Going Global: What’s Your Multilingual Marketing Strategy?
Estimated reading time: 6 mins
Going global means having a clear business plan in mind and clear objectives. But going global also implies going local in many countries.
To do so, you have to know the specific markets and the characteristics of every country you want …
GILT: Globalization, Internationalization, Localization, Translation
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
GILT is the acronym for globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation. These are the four steps your products or services have to go through when you want to sell them to a global audience beyond the borders of your home …
Four reasons why you should build a business plan
Estimated reading time: 2 mins
Are you thinking of improving your business or going international? Take some time to meditate about it and reflect upon yourself and plan ahead. More than half a year has gone by now, so you might feel the need to go back to your business …
7 Marketing Lessons We Learned from The Rolling Stones
Estimated reading time: 5 mins
Is it weird for a rock band to give us some marketing tips? We don't think so.
Nowadays, we're overwhelmed by marketing and advertisements of all sorts, which makes it difficult for a company to stand out. In a world of possibilities, …
Fashion in Translation
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Fashion weeks always take place in big cities such as Milan, London, Paris, and New York, but fashion mostly happens through different distribution channels, the retailers net, and even through languages and translation.
Weird? Not …
Five questions you should ask yourself before going international
Going international is definitely an opportunity to improve your business and increase income. But it also implies a certain degree of risk.
So before you start dreaming big—we're all dreamers, and there's nothing wrong with that—you have to face reality. Expanding …
What can entrepreneurs learn from literature?
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Literature has always been a vivid source of inspiration in many different fields, from visual art to music, design, and even entrepreneurship. In fact, being an entrepreneur is a tough job that requires a touch of creativity when coming up …
Netiquette Rules: Speed, Variety, and Politeness in Social Media
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Social networks are critical to the expansion of a business, and netiquette rules are fundamental in order to make careful use of them.
In fact, social media is certainly a slippery slope where many people and businesses fall—the fact that …
Treat and Greet: How to Increase Customer Satisfaction
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Customer satisfaction is vital for your business, and maximizing it means maximizing profitability. According to DestinationCRM.com, a website dedicated to discussion of customer relationships, businesses lose on average 10% of their …
Going International? Don’t Panic!
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
The time has come for your business to go international—you have reached such success in your home country that you seek new markets in which to demonstrate your ideas.
Great!
In fact, going global can have positive effects on your business, …
Foreign Languages: Why and How to Choose a Translation Agency
Estimated reading time: 5 mins
Speaking a foreign language is beneficial not only from a personal perspective, but also—and especially—for businesses. Why? Because knowing at least a second language facilitates communication between businesses, between a company and its …
Your Website as a Business Card: Do It Better!
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Your website is your business card. Before contacting you, your customers might have taken a look to it, and only after that they decided whether or not to contact you. But the simple fact of having a website is not the trump card that makes …
How Translations Help Your Business Grow
Estimated reading time: 2 mins
Your business’ success depends a lot on your online presence, as it allows you to reach your target audience by communicating with the right people and increasing your sales.
If you are an international company, it's likely that you have …
A Translator’s Most Important Skills
Estimated reading time: 2 mins
Do you know all the skills professional translators are required to have? People often think that a degree in foreign languages is enough to start a career either as a freelance or in-house translator. But, as with any other job, it requires …
Business: multiculturalism and language skills matter
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
You're a small company and you intend to expand your business abroad? Have you ever thought of investing in a language course to improve your employees' language skills?
Every year, many European companies appear to lose business because …
Customer Service, or About the Power of Kindness
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Customer service is the detail than can make the difference between your company and your competitors, and this is where many small businesses fail; ignoring the customers' needs means cutting short the potential life of a business. …
Translators and Interpreters: Improvising is Banned
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
"Why don't you apply for a job as an interpreter or translator? You've studied foreign languages, after all!" I don't even remember the number of people who told me this after my graduation back in… well, that's not important! What matters …
Positive Attitude: The Right Weapon to Face a Translation
Estimated reading time: 4 mins
Positive attitude is everything when you have to face a workload that seems bigger than you. It might be difficult. For instance, how many times did you think, “Oops! It’s already 5 o’clock on Friday and I have to finish this job by tonight, …
Localization: What’s Behind Your Video Games?
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Have you ever wondered why some video games have different titles depending on the country they are released in? Sometimes even characters look different and their names are spelled differently. This is because of localization, the process of …
Translating, or About an Art Lying Between Science and Creativity
Translations: art or science? Creativity or algorithm? When talking about translation, people usually think about literary translations—that is, novels, poetry, comics, and many other literary genres.
However, there are various kinds of translation: patent and technical …
Google Translate: Will Communication Rely Solely on Algorithms?
Estimated reading time: 5 mins
In about three years, Google Translate will be able to translate almost anything, even novels. Thus, professional translators won't be necessary anymore. This is the alarming message that Giodano Vintaloro, translator and English professor at …
Promoting “Made in Italy”: don’t forget marketing translations!
Promoting "Made in Italy" abroad: don't forget marketing translations!
When you sell your products, either abroad or in your home country, you have to show your target audience why they should buy from your company and the special characteristics they can find only in your …
Summer is coming
Summertime at Athena Parthenos doesn’t really mean vacation time; to tell you the honest truth, it’s more like “prep time.” In the period between May and September, we work side by side with our customers to prepare all the marketing material for the expos they …
Borders, memories and food
"The memory of time is full of swords and guns,
I want to remember you for that kiss you gave me in Iceland. " J.L. Borges
My memories, on the other hand, are all related to food. I know, it's embarrassing, but that’s how it is. I'll give you one example: you certainly …
Money makes the world go ‘round
…Money makes the world go ‘round, the world go ‘round….
I’ll explain how in “a few words”...
I am Friulian, but on occasion, in addition to foreign languages and Italian, I speak the Venetian dialect. Having reached the age of remembrance, when memories related to my …
When our cellars will have to learn to speak …Chinese
Following market trends is part of our job and we become an integral part of them thanks to our customers, whose needs, processes, and goals change over time.
Some examples?
- Very often the demand for "a new language" by a client is the last step in a deep change in …
Uniqueness Starts from Small Details
At Athena Parthenos, just like at all other companies, we have an email footer with all our contact information. At the very beginning—to do something cute—we decided to have a picture of our employees next to the website address and phone number. We thought it was a great …
The Travel of a Big Fish from the Pond to the Ocean: How a Small Company Can Become a Billion-Dollar Multinational Corporation
Some years ago, a friend of mine told me about the story of Africa and shoes—a business owner of a shoe company sent two of his sales representatives to Africa to check out the market and see whether they could start selling shoes there. One came back with bad news and said …
I Will Make a Stellar Employee Out of You
Transitioning from study to employment can be extremely difficult for many young workers, especially during times dominated by financial crises. A large percentage of companies try to transition out of these difficult times by increasing production and sales without adding …
Have You Heard the News?
Are you a gossiper? Even if you are not a person that normally likes to gossip, we’re all familiar with those so-called “word of mouth” conversations. These conversations can’t be defined as gossip, but they do resemble them:
1. Someone tells you something about a third …
Words: Small Elements for the Biggest Effect
Few weeks ago, I read an interesting blog post called A little thing about release notes by Anna Pickard, Editorial Director at Slack. She pointed out how at Slack, words are part of the user experience too. I sincerely liked that post- and for that matter also Slack’s …
1, 2, 3 Localize!
I believe deeply in the saying “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and I also like to think that it’s best if the step you take is in the right direction. For this reason, it is important to keep in mind that although the journey is what will take you …
Why Apps should be localized from the very beginning
Five minutes reading
The application world is a real business—one that is quickly becoming one of the biggest. Most likely, this is because apps were designed from the very beginning as products to be sold globally. Thus, if you invest in the creation of apps you should …
Behind the scenes of digital marketing: costumer courtesy and start-ups
Digital marketing is a big deal right now—many companies allocate a percentage of their budget for it, and that percentage is increasing every year. If you work in a big company, the digital marketing budget is probably relatively easy to find and invest, but it’s not as …
What Your Companies Need to Learn from Sci-Fi
They say that if you are a geek, you are not very interested in sports. You could always say that cultural differences are something that really interests you. Even without reaching Sheldon Cooper’s level of expertise on the Klingon culture, if you have seen and enjoyed Star …
Standing between coins and words: where is the value of translation?
Last week, I attended a conference in Vienna, and during a coffee break with another attendee, I discussed one of the most common situations that translation agencies encounter when selling their goods to companies—translated words are considered too expensive. I …
101. When you live with a freelance translator
If you are about to share your home with a freelance translator these are some good points to keep in mind before it's too late:
They don't necessarily follow the traditional 8 working hours
A cup of coffee has the power to transform their typical growl into …
Young, smart and beautiful: that’s the reason why you should choose Athena Parthenos.
The translation agency you’ve been looking for
Athena Parthenos is a company with a young mentality. Most people think negatively of the term “young,” because they often associate it with the idea of being inexperienced or simply unstable. I personally like …
Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes
One of the comments that I often hear when my friends travel around the world is that they weren’t able to find decent Italian food outside of Italy. They complain about ketchup on pizza or carbonara pasta full of mushrooms. Although I know they are sincerely distressed by …
When baking becomes “fashion”
I'm not a professional in the food sector—I'm someone who enjoys food, sure, but that doesn't make me an expert.
But here at Athena, we help companies in the food industry reach their customers around the world. Our "house specialty" is the technical translation of …
Eviction Notice to Modernity
I am sure that at least once in your life, you have either asked or answered the question of whether you would prefer living in the countryside or in a big city. But were you ever asked if you would be willing to go and live off the grid? If not, prepare yourself for a new …
New Website of Athena Parthenos: WHY All These Awards?
Last June, Athena Parthenos launched its new website created by the team of Lucia and Andrea of direWeb.
Over the following months we received many awards and much praise for our site.
Here are just a few examples:
A French mention by Frenchdesignindex
A source …
Google teaches you how to tango
What can I say? I am a nerd and to me each year the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) is more like a Magic Kingdom than anything else. Considering that the conference takes place in January, there is no better way to welcome the new year than with a fresh breath …
Humor: did we lose it in translation?
A common saying states that laughter needs no translation, but how about what triggers the laughter itself? That spark, that special harmony poses one of the greatest challenges for a translator: the translation of humor.
As much universal as individual, and at the same …
I’m sorry doctor, I don’t speak medicalese
Have you ever found yourself at a doctor's office with the awkward feeling of having some communication problems? Have you ever heard them asking you a totally incomprehensible question even if it was formulated in your own language? Or worse, have you ever been implicitly …
Wanted: techniques to overcome language barriers
Having spent a lot of time abroad for both studying and working reasons, I have always been fascinated by how communication in a foreign language works. I have often noticed the difficulty caused not only by a poor command of the language, but also by a lack of awareness of …
In the name of my reputation
I am watching tv while eating dinner, the news on and the Italian president of the government is talking in English in a very important ceremony or event, or European congress, or very big political event. I’m dining and he’s talking in English. Something really bad is …
Eggs or not eggs, that is the question!
When I came to Italy in 2007 I worked as a lifesaver in Bibione. My purpose was to
Just to get in touch with Italians, live, work and be with them in real and sometimes dangerous situations. My intention was to experience real and daily life to find out if it would work to …
Writing and translating for children: a “balancing” practice
Translating is like exploring the world - each text can be indeed compared to a town with its own peculiarities even though it does make part of a region (a sub-field, e.g. mechanics) and a country (a field, e.g. engineering). The opportunity of continuous discovery it …
Court interpreting in Italy: are we keeping the pace with other model countries?
Some years ago, during my first experiences in the interpretation field I had the opportunity to see a professional court interpreter at work, experience that inspired my BA dissertation. Later, thanks to the support of this interpreter, who was my professor at that time, I …