Do you want to automatically translate all of the pages of your web site into the most popular languages and facilitate foreign visitors get an insight into your content without hiring a pro translator? Here is MasterNewMedia guide to the best tools and services to automatically translate your web site in multiple languages.
Photo credit: Guy Erwood
More than 65% of people around the world don't speak English, so having a web site that can be read in multiple languages is crucial if you don't want to lose any possible extra traffic. Also, offering your visitors to read your web content is a great way to stand out from your typical competitors.
With the tools and services I have selected for you in this guide, you just need to pick your preferred web site translations solution, integrate their code into your web pages and the work is done. In most cases, your web pages will be translated on the fly when a reader will click on the language of his choice.
It is also very important to keep in mind that such translations are made automatically, so don't expect them to be perfect. They should be intended to provide just a "guide" into your original content, and not certainly a formally correct translated version.
So, since there is a plethora of different services to translate your web site, you have to decide first which kind of features you need. Many languages? Advanced customization possibilities? Embeddable widget? Or maybe just using a free solution against a more professional alternative?
To help you make the best choice, I have identified some basic criteria you can use to evaluate and select the best automatic web site translation tool for your web site:
- Number of languages: How many languages your web site can be translated into.
- Languages supported: Which languages your web site can be translated into.
- Translated items: Which elements of your web pages are translated (just text, text and image captions, hidden texts...)
- Price: Price of the service, and premium accounts with extended features (if available).
- Widget implementation: Easiness of implementation of the widget inside the source code of your site / blog.