Translation and Multilingual Marketing for the Vacation Rental Industry

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Translation & Multilingual ContentA practical guide for Vacation Rental Professionals

15 years of digital biz10 years in online travelMultilingual / Technical projectsB2C / B2B / Front-end / Back-end

Mathieu AstierMEDIATEOFounder

Hello!

Translations & Multilingual Content Marketing

Stating the obvious

Where do I pick up the keys? Cancellation policy?

Cost for an extra bed?

Deposit?Refundable?

Can I speak to someone?

Late check-in?

Booking fee?

Cleaning fee?

Why translate?

PART ONE

Translation means Not Losing Potential Customers*

> 72% spend most of their time online on websites in their own languages

> 72% more likely to buy a product or a service if the information is available in their own language

> 90% of Europeans ALWAYS visit a website in their own language when given a choice

> 42% of Europeans NEVER buy products or services if the information is not available in their mother tongue

*Surveys by Common Sense Advisory & the European Commission (2015)

Translation means Branding

> Customer centric

> International outlook

> Culturally sensitive > “Cultural Comfort Zone”

>>> Multilingual content makes you look good

> Better User Experience

> Credibility / Trust

Translation means Cost-Effective Marketing

> Instant SEO presence

> Best R.O.I. practice : international image, capture new users, build relationships with new clients, increase loyalty – returning visitors

> 1 language = many new markets

> Home-grown search engines : Google country extensions but also Russia’s Yandex, South Korea’s Naver, Japan’s Yahoo Japan or China’s Baidu

Translation means New Opportunities

> New affiliates

> New Content Marketing partnerships

> Local classifieds, directories

> Multilingual PPC advertising campaigns

> New Distribution deals: meta-search platforms / booking platforms

Translation means Beating the Competition

Be as competitive: they have multilingual sites, so should you!

Be better than the competition – develop new niche languages

Beat the competition: give an extra push to strategic languages with in-house staff

Translation means Better KPIs

> Higher website traffic

> Higher Look to Book ratio

> Higher R.O.I. / Profit

> Higher booking volumes

> Higher user experience

> Larger social media fan/follower base

PART TWO

Translation vs Localization

Cultural Content

> Tone, style, humor

> Colors, graphics, images

> Seasonal events, religious celebrations…

Definitions

> Translation: substitute one language for another – in context > Localization: adapting content to appeal to local audiences

Functional Content

> Date / time formats, telephone numbers, distances, address fields

> Currency, word order, place names etc…

Process ?

> Briefing: context, in-house lingo, industry terminology, technical terms, business models & processes> Text analysis> Identify placeholders e.g. {currency} / {country} / {info_1}> Text size> Establish Glossary > Authorized synonyms> Q&A sessions> Proofreading / Production site / Live Proofreading> Modifications

Localization for SEO

> Research keywords / phrases: search volumes, competitiveness, etc…

> URL formats

SuperDuperVacationRentals.com/fr/apartments-in-barcelona/

SuperDuperVacationRentals.com/appartements-a-barcelone/fr.SuperDuperVacationRentals.com

> Meta content (Title tags, ALT tags, Language tags, etc…)

Who is going to translate your business?

Should you give as much importance to the quality of your translations as to the original content ?

Would you ask anyone who speaks your language to write your website content just because they speak your language?

Would you ask anyone who speaks another language to translate your website content just because they speak another language?

Google Translate?

… just don’t

Who is going to take care of your multi-lingual project?

Native

“Friends” | Offshore | Employees | In-house team | Agency

Legally established

1 project manager

Qualified translator

Sector knowledge

Available

Cost-effective

✔ ✔

✔✖ ✖ ✖ ✔?

How much?

Well, it depends on how much you want to translate…

Vacation Rental Website content> Website structure (architecture, database fields, calls to action, automatic emails, etc…)

> T&Cs / Privacy Policy/ About us / FAQs

> Property descriptions

> SEO pages : Destination pages, P.O.I. pages, Local tourist information…

On-site marketing> Newsletters

> Blog

Off-site marketing

> Social networks

> Advertising campaigns, landing pages, visuals, etc…

> Price per word

> 0,08€ to 0,15€ per word according to technicality, language, volume

> Overall price according to technicality, languages, number of languages, volume, format, level of urgeny, data entry, recurring business etc…

> Pace: 2500 words per day

You can start small…

> Website structure (architecture, database fields, calls to action, automatic emails, etc…)

> One-off property template translation

> 3000 words

> 300 € per language

Software localization platform

e.g. Poeditor.com> Pulls content from your site / re-injects to your site> Collaborative> Builds translation memory> Statistics

Software localization platform

Now what?

PART THREE

From localization to (Multilingual) Content Marketing

> Multilingual SEO strategy

Multilingual SEO content- SEO pages: translating or producing multilingual SEO content- Blogging: translating or producing multilingual blog posts

Quality backlinks: - Online PR: translating or producing press releases in new languages- Content marketing partnerships e.g. “5 eccentric ways to visit Barcelona” on a local travel blog or magazine- Local holiday classifieds, directories

From localization to (Multilingual) Content Marketing

> Newsletter marketing- Translating or producing language specific newsletters

> Social Media- Language/Country-specific accounts?e.g. myVRbrand France/ myVRbrand Spain etc- Publish on the same page ? - Show it off to your whole audience ?- or target a specific public?

THANK YOU!

Translation fails