PR Tips for Freelance Translators
04/14/2014How to create a marketing plan for your freelance translation business in one hour
04/28/2014Episode 10: Tips for optimizing your website for marketing translation services
To mark this first double-digit episode, I am doing a solo-show, where I am talking about websites for translators. I have previously given several presentations and full day courses on websites for translators and this is the gist of what I have presented and learned during these years. In this episode you will learn about how to easily create a website, for a very low-cost, if you do not have one, but also what you should include on a website where you market your translation services, and how to optimize it so that it will be easier for your potential clients to find it and purchase your translation services.
In this episode we cover the following:
- Why it is important that we have a website
- How to create one easily and affordably
- What content to include
- What not to do with the website
- SEO and website optimization
- How to integrate the website with the rest of your marketing
Links to items mentioned in this episode:
- Webs
- WordPress
- Blogger
- Google Sites
- Godaddy – domain names
- Web page test – page speed test
- Broken Link Check
- Google Keyword Planner
I hope you enjoyed this episode and please feel free to share if you have any other tips for websites or if you have any questions regarding your website. Don’t forget to sign up for the monthly newsletter for nifty checklists for different marketing aspects, such as CV’s, LinkedIn, marketing tools and more. Take care!
Tess Whitty is an English-Swedish translator and owner of Swedish Translation Services, which provides English-Swedish-English translation, proofreading and editing services. Aside from her regular translation work, she serves as language chair and grader for the English-Swedish certification program, and chair for the Chapter/affiliate group committee for the American Translators Association. She holds training seminars and presentations on translation and marketing skills for translators and has launched the Marketing Tips for Translators podcast and blog. For more information, and to connect, go to www.swedishtranslationservices.com or www.marketingtipsfortranslators.com.
This podcast is a labor of love and brought to you free of charge. If you enjoy this series and would like to show your support, please consider making a small donation to ensure I can keep offering you great content in the future.
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9 Comments
[…] tips for a great LocJAM competition How Should I Learn Foreign Grammar? 20 Experts Show You How Tips for optimizing your website for marketing translation services Continuing professional development: webinars for translators Translation Cost Analysis: What you […]
Thank you very much for the podcast, Tess! Before I found out about WordPress I wouldn’t even want to hear about me attempting to make a site on my own, and having it done seemed way too expensive for a beginning freelancer. WordPress indeed makes things a lot easier, however I do refer to professional support from time to time. Having a professional blog has so many advantages aside from SEO: it’s great to keep my own experienced “registered” and sharing tricks, I’ve learned with others, or sometimes just thoughts and ideas. I did several posts about dealing with certain issues in Wordfast, and when in time the issues repeated, I just returned to my own post to remind myself how to fix them 🙂
Thank you Olga! Any Wordfast tips you would like to share here?
Sure, with pleasure! I insist that beginner translators start using CAT with Wordfast Anywhere, as it gives a good feel of how CATs work absolutely for free without any installations required. So I have developed a little beginner guideline for translators who work with me and who are new to working in CAT interface, it helps them start-up with Wordfast quickly and easily. I have no commercial connections with the Wordfast developers by the way, just really appreciate the product 🙂
[…] Episode 10: Tips for optimizing your website for marketing translation services […]
Hi Tess,
I discovered your podcast about a month ago and I’ve been avidly listening my way through the archives. Thank you so much for all the amazing, practical information you share. Although I’ve found something useful in nearly all of them, the solo episodes are especially clear, powerful and actionable. I’m mulling over the different website episodes and there’s one thing I wonder if you have any thoughts on: as you say, as translators, we need bi- or multilingual websites, preferably with each language subsite separate so as not to confuse the SEO bots. And at the same time, we want a powerful landing page which harnesses SEO, highlights our USP, and includes a call-to-action, but it’s pretty inevitable that the choice on the landing page would have to be one that takes you to the different language-specific sites. Do you think that having your USP in two (or more) different languages above the language choice button would cancel out the positive effect of a good choice of words and tags? Or is it just a necessary evil of the multilingual site?
Thanks again for all your amazing work!
Thank you Victoria! It is so nice to hear from you and I am happy that you enjoy the podcasts. Now for your question. As far as I know (I am no expert in this either) the easiest way to separate the different language pages is to have two mirrored sites, one in one language and one in another and then just link between them. Then you do not risk any mixed up SEO messages or keywords. I first used two completely different accounts on Webs to create the same site in two languages. Nowadays I use WordPress and the function of creating the site in multiple languages. I have also outsourced the design and management so I am not completely sure how the technology and steps work, but perhaps someone else in the audience knows?
Thank you for this good podcast about what’s most important when creating a website. Perfect timing for me, since I’m about to create one in wp. I was quite overwhelmed by all possibilities, so I started by reading all wpbeginner’s guides to get a general understanding for website building. And with your podcast focusing about translation services this is a great combination. Take care.
Martin, from Sweden
Great! Thanks Martin! There should be several more recent episodes about websites, and my ebook can help you too.