Who needs Spanish translation (or translation of any language for that matter)? The short answer is no one. No one needs translation services for the sake of them. Translators and translation companies might do well to keep this in mind. There is always a more fundamental motivation that underlies every translation project. Paying attention to these things might actually improve the quality of translations and make the deliverables more responsive to the real needs of clients.

Thinking back on recent translation projects performed by our company, the following underlying needs come to mind:

1. Need to expand market potential

2. Need to be seen as relevant in changing times

3. Need to connect with Hispanic business owners

4. Need to make changes and try something new

5. Need to strengthen search engine ranking

6. Need to recover from mistakes

7. Need to educate and retain employees

8. Need to appear politically correct

9. Need to protect intellectual property

10. Need to recruit people

These are just a few from recent first-hand experience. There are no doubt many others. Feel free to contribute to the list.

In my last post I began a line of thought concerning website content translation and how it affects search engine marketing (SEM). As it’s becoming more generally recognized, information content is a fundamental requirement that must be addressed to provide search engines with fuel. Search engines see website content the way Winnie the Pooh looks at honey. The attraction is deliciously overwhelming. As search engine technologies improve, it’s likely that content will become even more important to gaining and keeping their attention.

Bilingual SEM is a phrase/category not yet much referred to, though it may catch on. In fact I may just get on this bandwagon. With 1 in 7 Americans considered Hispanic (predicted to grow soon to 1 in 6) many organizations really should take a look at online marketing programs targeting both Spanish and English speaking audiences. Take the business of automobile sales for example. In speaking with dealership managers, their sense is that upwards of 90% of automobile sales are in some way impacted by the internet. At some stage in the buying process, whether early, mid-stream, or late, car buyers go online. Intuitively this rings true, explains why the traditional Sunday newspaper automobile section is becoming smaller, and highlights an area of promotion that automobile dealers can no longer afford to neglect. There are huge disparities in the online marketing presence and effectiveness of automobile dealers. Here even a little attention to online marketing basics can go a long way and result in distinct competitive advantage for dealers.

Lest I stray too far from my original topic, back to blogs. Active blogs represent a fresh stream of content that search engines see and index. My personal observation is that blog entries are often indexed almost immediately (e.g., within an hour of posting). Just a little extra effort in translating blogs into Spanish, can provide a rich stream of Spanish language content to attract the Spanish dominant portion of the US Hispanic market plus if an organization’s reach is international the majority of Latin America. The workflows for managing this translation process can be relatively straightforwward. Whether performed in-house or outsourced, once processes are in place, they can go like clockwork. The obvious benefit is that valued content in the original language is then leveraged to connect with an expanded audience. If you write a blog, consider going bilingual if your customers speak Spanish as well as English. Your search engine prospects are almost guaranteed to improve dramatically.

A search engine’s reason for being is to return search results that point to relevant content. To the extent a search engine lives up to this promise, it’s valuable. The ability to return relevant search results also directly and indirectly supports advertising based business models that generate revenue for search engine companies.

It stands to reason therefore that companies interested in reaching the online Hispanic market, whether in the US or abroad, must serve up relevant content to attract members of this audience. The Hispanic market is by no means homogeneous, though for many in the US Hispanic community, and the majority in Latin America, the Spanish language is a big factor in determining relevancy. More than half of US Hispanics prefer sites in Spanish. Spanish langauge content meets at least the first condition for relevancy, and worth, for many Hispanics.

In the world of search engine marketing (SEM) there are perhaps two camps: 1) the gamers, those who approach the pursuit of search engine ranking much like skillfully navigating a competitive video game, and 2) those who seek to add valued content, and in essence provide search engines with the content they seek to guide searchers to. Marketers in the latter group are much more philosophically aligned with the goals of search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others. Their objective is to support clients in an effort to make valued content available to members of a target audience, and of course do it in a way that search engines can digest.

Developing quality Spansh language content can take time though there are several approaches to this that don’t require complete reinvention of business processes to get started:

The first, make your existing online content available in Spanish. It’s obvious I suppose. If you’re like many organizations, you have the equivalent of multiple ‘developer-years’ invested in creating your existing site. The marginal cost of making existing content available in Spanish is relatively low. You already have a website, it’s hosted, the original text has been developed. Making the text available in Spanish is basically all that’s required to make your message available to another audience (about 500 million worldwide). A professional translation company or independent translator can do the translation work quite nicely. Translation companies will likely have access to translators specializing in your organization’s business or primary activity.

Occasionally I research online search term usage to better understand the market for professional Spanish translation services. It seems that users of the major search engines regularly look for online tools that support free Spanish translation to English. Such online and other computer aided tools do exist, though from general observation, they don’t come close to matching the output of skilled human translators. It’s hard to imagine any competent business executive entrusting the current state of translation technology with the intricacies of a sensitive business deal for example (or for that matter even a routine email). Don’t get me wrong, I love technology, though the state of translation technology is not especially encouraging. Even defense budgets, often seemingly immune to real world financial accountability, to my knowledge haven’t made much of a dent in producing practical, viable translation technologies.

Though not exactly translation, voice recognition has some similar challenges. Check out the video linked here for an amusing few minutes of language and technology, courtesy of the guys in Redmond.