Useful infographic: SEO for an international website

Smoke & Croak, a multilingual digital marketing agency, have just released an interactive infographic with a step-by-step guide to SEO for websites targeted at an international audience.

Each step includes links to resources and guides about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), from SEO basics for beginners and to elements which are more specific to international SEO.

While the infographic is not exclusively aimed at translators, it could be useful for translators looking to improve their visibility on search engines in different countries.

750 Words - A simple but surprisingly good idea to get you in the habit of writing

There is plenty of advice given to writers - but most of it boils down to "get in the habit of writing - and the best way to do so, is by writing every single day". For some, this may be easy, for others not so much: there are too many distractions, and sometimes (make it often) we may not feel like writing. In fact, I believe most of us are always ready with some excuse not to.

Enter 750words.com, a simple site that encourages you to write every day: not for publication (what you write remains private - this is not a blogging platform), but to get you in the habit of writing something (at least 750 words, in fact) every single day. The site encourages you in a number of ways, most of which may appear cheesy: the badge of an egg when you start out becomes a turkey after three days in which you have achieved your 750 words goal, and on to a penguin (five days), a flamingo (ten), and so on. There are badges for continuous days of writing without distraction (doing the 750 words without an interruption), badges for continuous days of writing fast (750 words within 20 minutes) - badges for night owls (sorry, for "night bats" according to the site), and for morning roosters for those who complete their writing either late at night or very early in the morning.

If all this seems silly, it most certainly is... but it also works, at least for some of us: it provides that little extra encouragement to write every day, and make a habit of it.

Since you know your writing is private, you don't get stressed out by the pressure of producing well-finished prose, and since each day's writing is no longer editable after the end of the day, you are encouraged to go on and write something new, instead of fiddling with your previous output. (Even if your writing is no longer editable on the site, however, it does not disappear, and you can always download it for later use elsewhere).

You can use the site for different purposes: to write morning pages and to freewrite are two obvious examples, but I find it also works to help you write the first draft of something you may then post in your blog or publish elsewhere (this post, in fact, was started as a draft in 750words.com).

The site is free (although if you find it useful donations are welcome), and very simple to use. Try it: you may like it and find it helps you develop the habit of writing every day.

Watercooler is going to change its home

You may have noticed the link to Watercooler is no longer displayed on the right. Andrew Bell is planning to move it from its present location as Ning network to some other service (this because of the changes that are happening at Ning).

In the meantime, the link to Watercooler.com would no longer work. For the time being Watercooler can be accessed at the following address: http://translationandlanguage.ning.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

A kindly reminder to blog spammers and link beggars

Dear blog spammer:

I will promptly delete your self-promoting comments, so please, don't do it.

This, of course does not refer to all those who post legitimate comments - you are more than welcome to comment here, if you have something to say even tangentially related with a post of mine.

Also, to all those who offer to add a link to this blog on their web page or those who offer to write a poorly informed article in exchange for a link here to their mass-produced language-learning web sites: I realize you have been had by someone who sold you on this e-tupperware kind of marketing scam, but I have no interest in linking to sites that have nothing to do with translation, nor do I accept articles by people who clearly don't know anything about translation.

Any link I add here is because I find the linked site interesting or worthwhile. If you have a site that you think would really interest translators, write me, and if I find the site interesting, I might add a link.

It is very unlikely, however, that I'll add a link to a site that has as its sole purpose marketing a service or a product. If you write something interesting, I might link to it, if not, please don't bother.

Thank you.

New widget for this blog

In the right-hand bar I've added three Technorati charts, to track the relative frequency in blogs of the strings "translation", "translation quality" and "Trados" over a period of thirty days.

By clicking on the charts, you go to a Technorati page with links to the actual posts.

Top 100 Language Blogs

LexioPhiles has published a list of the "Top 100 Language Blogs". The top of the list is dominated by blogs about learning languages (especially English), but there is a fair number of translation blogs.

About Translation chips in at number 42.

Other translation blogs of note on the list: Über Setzer Logbuch (23), yndigo (34), fidus interpres (43), Translation Blog (52), Blogging Translator (53), Musings from an overworked translator (69), Brave New Words (78), “la parole exportée” (87), Freelance Chinese Translator (90), and Thoughts On Translation (100).

Check out the other blogs as well: they cover a broad range of subject from linguistics to grammar and from ancient languages to "exploring the effects of Web 2.0 on the English language".

Maxthon: a browser for translators?

Most Internet users probably only use one browser: Internet Explorer or Firefox on Windows or Safari and the Mac.

There are other browsers, however: Opera has been around for years and has a faithful following, and although Netscape bit the dust earlier this year, Safari is now available for Windows, too.

A less-known browser that might interest translators is Maxthon. It is offered in two Windows version (1.6, which is more stable, and 2.1, which is niftier), and has a functionality I have not found in any other browser: the possibility to display two different pages side by side.

I am often asked to test localized web pages. Using other browsers I have to switch from one tab to another (or in older browsers such as IE 6, from one instance of the browser to another).

With Maxthon, however, I can display two pages side by side in the same application Window (see for example, this screenshot of Beppe Grillo's blog in English and Italian).


Other uses could be displaying side by side two different online dictionaries or reference sites.

Maxthon is free to download and use (although paying customers get preferential technical assistance), and so far I've found it fast and reliable.

Update

Several commenters have pointed out that there are ways to split the screen in Firefox and other browsers as well. So far I've not been able to find a way to do it in Opera, but in Firefox it is as simple as adding the SplitBrowser add-on (thanks to Torsten).

Another browser that offers split screen capability is Avant, which also claims to be "the fastest browser on Earth". I have not, however, tested it, as yet.

Microsoft's Language Excellence: new life for the MS Glossaries

Microsoft Language Excellence's team (formerly MILS) launched today the Language Portal, a new terminology Web site.

The new site makes available more of Microsoft's linguistic resources than ever before.

Using the Language Portal interface, one can search Microsoft terminology and UI strings from most released products: Language Excellence has thus made available the MS Glossaries, once hidden under MSDN.

The portal offers a page for sending terminology feedback back to Microsoft, a link for downloading Microsoft's Style Guides, a "Language Portal Blog", articles, links to events and to other linguistic resources.

In the search interface one can look up a word or string and search its translation in any of the dozens of languages in which Microsoft products are translated (of course, the coverage for some of the languages will be more extensive than for others).
The search may be run on all the products available, or restricted to a specific piece of software.

The results page is divided between a Terminology pane, which provides Source, Target, Definition and Product, and a "Software strings" pane, with Source, Target and Product.

Searching through this interface will probably not be as quick as searching on the Microsoft's glossaries stored locally on your computer hard disk; on the other hand, the results obtained should be more up to date, and searching for translations in several different languages will no longer require downloading several gigabytes of zipped files on the off-chance that they may come handy one day.

How to drive away readers and prospects

I found an interesting post on another translation blog and wanted to comment on it. Unfortunately, in order to leave my comment I would have needed to allow Word Press to install cookies on my machine - which is something I normally don't do for security reasons.

So I went to the blog author's personal web site, to find a way to send him a message to politely request that he use a less restrictive commenting policy.

On this translator web site there was a nice "Contact Us" link. Almost done, I thought, and I clicked on it.

I was redirected to a "page not found" page.

No big deal in my case: I was just trying to leave a comment on the blog. But there are few surer ways to lose a prospect than preventing him or her from communicating with us.

Things to pay attention to when localizing a web site

(From BtoBOnline.com)

According to this article, "localizing your Web site for international users requires more than hurdling a few language barriers".

The article describes many things to be considered and difficulties to be overcome for those who plan to have an international version of their web site.

While it concentrates on issues other than translation, I think this could be very useful to translators who are asked to quote for the localization of a web site: it gives us other factors to mention to our prospect, from planning for non-broadband connections to getting a local URL for the international site.

Website Localization

ISEdb.com published a couple of days ago a very interesting and detailed article ("Translating Web Sites Considerations for Multilingual Online Businesses") on what to consider when deciding whether and how to translate a business web site.

There are a few things I disagree with, for instance

"If at all possible, if your company employs local salespeople or marketing staff in that country then you might consider having them write or translate the copy on the web site—they know the product and any important selling points and local “slang” that is important to include."

Local salespeople or marketing staff should certainly be more knowledgeable about the products they are selling, and possibly may be more up to date with their industry's jargon than us mere translators... but they are not translators, and I have seen time and again that translations done by non-professionals very quickly run into serious problems.

Much better is when translations are entrusted to qualified professional translators, and the in country technical and marketing staff freely support the translation team(s), answering their questions and checking the draft translations.

But other than that, the article is very informative, and could be a valuable resource when advising a customer what to do when localizing a web site.
(Hat tip: iSpeak blog)

Tags: localization

New Website of ATeLP - Association of Translation in the Portuguese Language

From newswire:

"The ATeLP is a cultural and scientific association which has the aim of cultivating, developing, promoting and disseminating information about the practice, study, teaching-learning, research and application of general translation and, more particularly, of specialized translation from and into the Portuguese language".

You can find the new website here.