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 consists of adapting the source text not only to the language, but also to the culture of the market you want to reach. This includes changing the style and the design or the graphics of your website in order to make it appealing to your potential customers abroad.
So, slogans, advertisements, and/or marketing texts have to be translated, taking into account the target culture. A bad marketing translation, in fact, can be disastrous for the brand, even economically.
Read here about some examples of bad and good marketing translations and localization.
SEO translation is something different – here you are targeting search engines, not people. SEO translation is made in a way where the translated pages in the target language reach a higher ranking in search engines. This allows your website to be found by a larger amount of people, driven to your pages by the queries they perform on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.
In order to achieve this result, keywords, expressions, titles, tags, anchor texts, etc., must be translated into the target language so that your website will pop up on the first page when people look for the services you offer. Needless to say, this can lead to new markets and, consequently, to new sales.
However, behind any SEO translation, there is extensive research into keywords and queries. It is not the simple translation of SEO texts from source to target language because, due to various reasons, people in other countries may be searching for different things for different purposes.
So, SEO translation has to take into consideration local keywords that people use during their research. This might include slang, idioms, English hybrids, and dialectical differences.
For instance, if you offer low-cost flights and you want to reach the Italian market, you cannot simply translate "low-cost flights" into "voli a basso costo" since Italians use "voli low-cost" when looking for cheap flights.
It is obvious that this is a process of research into the culture and habits of the target country.
However, SEO translation and localization work together. If you have perfect SEO but poor localization, you will not attract any traffic to your website. In the same way, if your website is perfectly localized, but does not have any SEO work, it will not pop up in search engines.
Due to the key role it plays in helping you expand your business, there are translators specialized in SEO translation who are aware of the target culture and language.
If you’re looking for professional translators to help you increase your business, please check out Athena Parthenos' services here.