If you are an English-Arabic Translator this post is for you. Ever been asked by a client if your translation services include SEO or your translated website content is SEO friendly? If the answer is no, you should continue reading.
If you have never cared for SEO while translating website content, you should reconsider.
Here are 3 reasons why translated content doesn’t work if it is not SEO friendly:
- When translating content, you might use keywords that are too difficult to rank.
- When translating content, you might use keywords that have a very low search volume.
- When translating content, you might use keywords that are too broad to match users’ search intent.
Let’s talk about each one:
Keyword Difficulty (KD)
Usually, the higher the KD, the more you struggle to rank your content on Page 1 of google. Search Volume: The higher the search volume, the more competition you face to rank your content.
Broad Keywords
If your keywords are too broad, the content will not match the search intent, therefore reducing your chances to rank.
A Real Life Example
Let’s say you are working on translating a document from English to any other language. A global company based in Saudi Arabia, is working on a bilingual website for its visitors: English and Arabic.
Ever wondered what an English language translated website looks like to a person searching for a specific product or service in Arabic?
Here’s an example where you have a list of keywords for fashion products in English, and you need to translate those using the GOOGLETRANSLATE formula in Google Sheets:
Not only the translation is weak from English to Arabic, but also some words like Pumps are translated wrong to Arabic. Moreover, there are different Arabic dialects in the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf regions. Words are differently spoken and Google Translate can’t translate dialects.
As a Translator, you are an expert enough not to use Google Translate. Of course you won’t rely on Google Translate. But what would you do if the word you translated is not searched enough in a specific market? You’ll need to test these keywords in a keyword research tool to find out if it has a high number of search volume and the keyword itself is easy to rank.
If you plug in the above Arabic translated keywords into a keyword research tool, you’ll get decent numbers (search volume) and the keywords are fairly easy:
But here’s an alternative SEO-friendly keyword list that is adapted and localised to the Saudi market:
If you plug in the above Arabic localised keywords into a keyword research tool, you’ll get a much higher search volume and the keywords are very easy:
Why is it important for a Translator to talk SEO with a client?
If the client doesn’t bring up SEO, you should point it out in your proposal or quotation and discuss the value and impact of SEO friendly translated content. I understand that you do not have the time for keyword research as you may be too busy or limited with tight deadlines to do your own translation research, but if you want to stand out from the competition, adding SEO in your proposal wins you the project.
Do you have to learn Arabic SEO?
No need, you just need to use a keyword research tool to help you choose the right keywords that have a high potential of ranking your content.
If you have no time for this, you can always collaborate with an SEO expert.
How can SEO experts help you?
There are two ways to do it:
- Plan the content together and write SEO friendly content, or
- Send the finished work for SEO review and amend accordingly
If you have tight deadlines, option 2 is faster as you will only change the keywords to more SEO friendly ones.
If you have ample time, we can plan together the keywords before translation happens.
Need more details?