Multilingual landing page or minisite translation

If you’re planning on deploying a landing page or minisite in another language, this post will offer some interesting options to get you up and running in no time.

You’re most likely looking to either:

• Test a single or range of foreign markets
• Market a product in a foreign market

Where to start

This can be done by creating new pages in a CMS such as Drupal or Wordpress, or even by hand in HTML/CSS. Some routes are faster than others, but the slower methods offer more control over layout. A good compromise could be the use of a simple static site (such as this one!), where pages can be written in plain text and automatically themed each time the site is compiled.

We use Hugo for this and it gives great multilingual features, as well as the ability to just add a sub or minisite on to your existing website. If you want this doing for you, please ask and we’ll be happy to set you up with something that ranks and converts well in any language.

SEO considerations

You’ll want to make sure your site keywords, in titles and content, are well researched. This involves looking at keyword analysis tools (Ahrefs, SEMRush, etc.) to determine which keywords are already attracting the most traffic to which popular posts and pages. Typically you would focus on keywords including buyer-intent, such as ‘Best widget 2017’ or ‘Widget reviews’. Then it is also useful to focus on those keywords that are less competitive, but still highly searched for, perhaps ‘Widget A vs Widget B’ or ‘Competing widget name’.

Design considerations

The concept of a landing page having no ‘exit’ links back to your main page is a design feature to keep readers’ attention focused on the product or service in question, ultimately leading to a conversion or a click away.

Simplicity is the name of the game, as is making sure your call to action is prominently displayed at various points of interest along the page.

Copywriting and translation considerations

Your copy strategy, whether it be long form, short, personal or corporate, should be focused on your target reader’s preference and written and translated entirely with them in mind.

Translations must use local and common terms for industry-specific items.

As we know, and has been established by numerous studies, buyers are much more likely to make a purchase when products or services are presented to them in their own language. This is all the more true when you include the terms your readers use themselves to describe your service or product. You can often find these terms online using keyword research and forum searching.

We can also carry out this term research and analysis when building out a multilingual landing page or minisite, to maximise your profit potential.

Workflow considerations

Finally, it is worth mentioning that a simpler workflow generally leads to more work being done. Whether that be site updates, changes or new site launches, the simpler the plan, the more likely it will get done. And done on time.

With our static site workflow, we can generate and deploy a new site page in seconds or minutes (depending on the page!), with no log-ins, slow page editing admin pages or dropped connections to worry about.

Aim for simplicity and see what a difference it makes to your output.