SEO translator or how to become an expert translator in organic positioning

Searches for SEO translator have skyrocketed in recent years. It’s hardly surprising, as simply translating web content or Amazon listings without considering SEO isn’t that helpful for companies. That’s why, as experts in the field, we are using this post to explain the essential tools for professional SEO content translation.

Who can become an SEO translator?

If we’re interested in becoming a digital marketing translator, SEO will be an essential part of our daily life. So, can anyone be an SEO translator?

To provide SEO translation services, it is important to understand these three key points:

• Have a broad understanding of the source and target cultures.This will be the only way to know what future users of the content we are translating are like, what they’re interested in and how they are searching.
• Know how to translate content to persuade your audience to act, what we call transcreation. The aim of SEO content translation is simply to attract more traffic and convert our customers.
• It is also essential to know how search engines rank content compared to others.This is the only way we can adapt our text to the search engine’s criteria so it appears among its results.

If you’ve got this far, you will have realised that not all that glitters is gold.

Many of the SEO translation courses that you find online only cover international SEO and little more. However, ignoring the other two key aspects is a textbook error that will only give us a partial view of this speciality.

 

What must an expert translator in organic positioning know?

Knowledge of how search engines work is essential for SEO translation. But which other areas are essential for providing quality SEO translated content?

Let’s take a closer look at what makes our SEO translations work.

Learn digital marketing

If we want to translate content that ranks highly, we must know about digital marketing. We must also know what inbound marketing is and how it works, what a sales funnel is, and if the texts we have to translate are in the TOFU, MOFU or BOFU, or in its most current form, what a flywheel is and how a user navigates through it.

 

Each piece of content that we come across has a purpose, so there are a series of specific rules we must follow if we want to have an impact on our potential customers. Translating an Amazon product sheet is totally different to translating a CTA or an ecommerce landing page.

Study intercultural communication

As experts in language services, we have almost certainly been trained in content localisation. Ultimately, knowing about both the source and target cultures is essential for any expert translator in digital marketing.

In fact, we must focus on intercultural communication. Understanding the cultural differences between source and target language is a key part of SEO friendly translation.

A great way to do this is to study the works of G. Hofstede, the father of it all. Not forgetting Erin Meyer and her culture map, or indeed, Nathalie Nahai. In her book Webs of Influence, she explains how we should adapt our websites to have an impact on, and to persuade users depending on their culture.

 

Transcreation and SEO translation

The content generated through digital marketing mustn’t be translated literally, as it is likely that a lot of its intent will be lost. So, it is practically impossible to talk about SEO friendly translation without transcreation.

Therefore, in the majority of cases we’ll be transcreating, not translating. In other words, adapting the original text to the target culture, with specific references for the audience to understand within its own context, but without losing sight of the intent that the client has given us in the briefing.

No briefing, no paradise.

International SEO and multilingual SEO

If we want to translate optimised content, it is important to have some knowledge of multilingual SEO. In particular, we should focus on learning on-page SEO, in other words, everything related to content, as, fortunately or not, as SEO translators we have nothing to do with off-page.

This includes learning about hreflang, SERPs, keyword research per market, even detecting which keywords users are using to adapt our translation.

 

SEO translation beyond Google

As an SEO translator, we don’t just work to position web content on Google. Nowadays, web positioning goes beyond Google. If we are working to position content in Russia, we can specialise in SEO translation for Yandex, or SEO content translation for Baidu if we are doing the same in China.

But not only that. In fact, today, many of our customers are interested in positioning their products for marketplaces. But, if we had to name an undisputed king, it would be Amazon. This platform has become many companies’ favourite for internationalisation. For that reason, Amazon listing and A+ content translation continues to grow.

To sum up, as an SEO translator, you have a great career ahead of you. As an expert translator in positioning, you’ll be able to specialise in many niches, so let’s get to work. At Ontranslation we are ready for this marathon. Are you?

Don’t miss out our case study with an example on SEO Translation project we did for a client.