You’re looking for a vital document, and you have less than eight minutes to find it

You know it’s on your desk; you saw it there only a few days ago. Except your desk is covered with piles of papers, unopened envelopes and bills, discarded printouts, not to mention yesterday’s coffee cups. You keep rifling through all the clutter, but it’s hopeless. With all that junk on your desk, you know you’ll never find what you are looking for.

Is your website’s code a little like your desk?

Just a second. What do I mean by your website’s code? You didn’t use code to create your site, you used a web editing program, or a site builder that came with your hosting, right?

Every website is built using code

It doesn’t matter what you built your site with, or who built it. If you used a site builder program or a website editor, all that program did was create the code for you based on what you told the program you wanted your site to look like. This code runs in the background, and tells your website visitor’s internet browser how to display the page.

So where is this code, and what does it look like?

To have a peek behind the scenes, just open your internet browser, go to the top menu, click View, then View Source. A window will open. That’s your website’s code.

Does it really matter if things are messy behind the scenes?

Surely it’s what the front-end looks like that’s important? When many website editors (often called WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get) or online site builders create the code for you according to the way you lay the page out in the editor (which works a little like a word processing program), they usually generate messy and inefficient code, full of errors and repetitions.

The result is a page that takes much longer to load

A bloated page full of unnecessary code can double or triple the page size, or more. Google now takes into account page loading speed when ranking websites. This is only one factor of many that Google uses to evaluate your site, but with all other things being equal, a faster-loading page with fewer errors will rank higher in the search engines than a slower one with bloated code.

But, perhaps more importantly, bloated, junky code makes it difficult for the search engines to find and understand your content

Search engines regularly send out “spiders” – robots – out onto the internet to “crawl” through everything they find, then report back to the engine so all the information and content can be indexed and ranked. When the friendly neighbourhood spider comes knocking on your door, he will find a jumble of clutter instead of nicely organised content all laid out for him to inspect. He’ll have to clamber over a load of junk to try to find the content hidden under all the mess and, just like your untidy desk, important things will be hidden and lost.
He may even give up looking and move on to the next site. Having a nice, clean, organised code running behind your page makes the Google spiders happy, because they can easily find and understand the content they are looking for.

So how can you tell if your code is a mess?

Messy code isn’t hard to spot. Take a look at these two examples:

Example 1

When you look at your website’s source code, does it look ordered, with the content clearly visible and easy to pick out (example 2)? Or is it just a big jumble, with the same code repeated over and and over again (example 1)?

The secret to sparkling clean code

Forget WYSIWYG editors, online site builders and the rest. For the cleanest code, try running your site on Wordpress. It’s easy to update and edit, you don’t need to know how to write a single line of code, and the code it generates is so spare and clean you could eat your dinner off it (as long as you make sure to use a well-crafted theme like Thesis, you don’t copy/paste text from Word into the Wordpress editor, which will introduce lots of junk code, and don’t overload the site with too many widgets). Take the images above: Example 2 was built with Wordpress. Example 1 is a site built with an online “site builder” that came free with some hosting.

What if you don’t want rebuild your site from scratch?

Try cleaning up your existing code using a free online code validator. This tool will check your site for errors, and clean up the code for you.
If you want to learn more about what exactly causes bloated code, here is an excellent article on how to clean up after WYSIWYG editors.

Remember: the search engine spiders can’t see the monitor like you can

They can’t see how pretty your site looks or how cool your graphics are. They can only read the code behind the page, so remember to keep the back rooms spick and span so Google can find what it’s looking for when it comes to visit. Your desk can wait until tomorrow.

Summary

• Your website is built on code that lies behind the page and tells the browser what to display to visitors
• Search engines need the code to be clean and tidy so they can find the content they are searching for and index your pages correctly
• Bloated, messy code also makes your pages load more slowly, which also affects search engine rankings
• WYSIWYG editors and site builders create reaaally messy, bloated code
• Wordpress websites have spick and span code and are easy to update.

photo credit: henry…

On February 23, a petition was launched by a small group of freelance translators, mainly based in Italy with the title “A Translators’ Petition Against Proz.com’s Job Policies“.

844 translators signed in support, with the exception of a few, who signed to say they thought the petition was a bad idea.

The main point of the petition was to ask Proz to stop allowing outsourcers to set rates in the job posting section of the website, in the belief that this facility (for outsourcers to state the rate offered along with the job) is a fundamental distortion of the client – buyer relationship, a distortion that has contributed, the instigators of the petition claimed, to the continuing downward drive in market rates for professional translation services, and the ensuing race to the bottom.

844 (give or take) translators agreed enough to sign the petition.

The petition was closed early, for reasons I won’t go into here, before hundreds of translators on the German (and other language) mailing lists had a chance to sign. But 844 was enough for Henry Dotterer, Proz.com’s founder and CEO, to sit up and take notice, because at 19.27 CET on 1 March 2010, ProZ.com requested that the following message be posted on the petition’s page:

“We are taking this matter seriously; I will be reviewing the issues raised with other members of ProZ.com’s staff. […] you may expect that we will respond some time before the end of March.”

After the petition was presented to Proz.com, a small working group formed to draft what have come to be known as the “PropoZals”, which can be read in full here. This document made clear suggestions as to the steps Proz.com could take towards restoring the balance and damage that had been done.

This working group was only a subset of the original 800+ petitioners, but the “PropoZals” were co-sponsored by an additional 51 people.

Sure enough, towards the end of March, Proz.com’s management opened a private forum on Proz.com, and invited the 51 co-sponsors of the PropoZals, as well as the working group that put them together, to discuss the ten main suggestions made.

However, the additional nine suggestions were incidental and only supportive of the main point, which was that Proz.com stop allowing outsourcers to “set” rates in the jobs posted.

Proz.com’s management, in the private forum, agreed to the nine incidental suggestions, but remained very resistant to the main point, that of preventing outsourcers from setting job rates.

Despite the 800+ signatures on the petition, and despite the confirmation from the working group that the first, most important issue of stopping outsourcers from setting rates was passed quickly and unanimously, Proz.com’s management still remains unconvinced that this would be in translators’ best interests.

Wouldn’t stopping outsourcers from setting rates mean a lot of wasted time for translators?

One of the main arguments against preventing clients from dictating rates for professional translation services is that translators would otherwise waste time responding to clients who have no intention of paying their rates.

My first response to that is that “clients who have no intention of paying” the normal rates that provide a living income for professional translators have no place on a site like Proz.com, which claims to cater for translation professionals and work in their interests. Why Proz.com is worried about losing this segment of the market, the very dregs of the barrel-scrapers, I have not yet managed to understand fully.

My second response is that it actually takes seconds to respond to a job posting. Well, okay then, minutes. An experienced translator can tell from just a short sample text, number of words and proposed deadline how much they need to charge (with the facility to modify the final quote once the full document has been examined, obviously), or at the very least, can give a ball-park figure from which to start serious negotiations.

But yes, it would mean more translators bidding on more jobs. A few extra minutes each day, if the translator is available and actively seeking work.

But the advantages, both short and long-term, would would be immeasurable. For translators, anyway.

How translators would benefit from a new Proz.com policy to stop outsourcers setting rates

At present, Proz.com’s model makes the outsourcer the active party, and the professional the passive party. The outsourcer says

“1000 words due in half an hour, rate offered €15″

There is no negotiation from that point, no matter what Proz.com’s management has managed to convince itself. The harsh, living, breathing reality is that, through Proz.com and other portals which have followed Proz.com lead, the outsourcer enjoys a position of power from which to dictate the rate they will pay for the job. The translator is left in a passive position from which to either accept or decline the job. Translators in a weaker position, such as those just starting out as freelancers, are led to believe that the rates the outsourcers set are the “going market rates”. They see the number of bids go up, and up, and start to feel edgy. “I should put my bid in, too”, they think. Even if they’ve been “educated”, the desire to gain some real experience, the bills landing on the doormat, the social proof provided by the real evidence of other translators bidding on these cut-rate jobs starts to mount and create a sense of pressure. The translator gives in, and joins the bidding, even though she knows she really needs to charge at least 3 cents more per word if she is to make a living. Social proof is a powerful thing.

So what? you think. I’m not a weak translator; I know how to set my rates and the barrel-scrapers on Proz.com don’t bother me.

Translators have, for too long, been their own worst enemy. As Wendell Ricketts wrote in this hilarious, cutting article, “if there’s anything worse than translators who complain all the time, it’s translators who complain about translators who complain all the time”. It’s time to band together and show some solidarity, even if you’re all right, Jack.

The goal of the PropoZals is to reverse the balance of power, which was distorted by the Proz model causing lasting damage in the industry, by ensuring that the service provider is the active party and the client is the passive party, just like every other profession in the world. The client needs a service, the professional tells the client how much it will cost. The client looks at the quotes he or she has received, assesses the value they anticipate receiving from each professional and weighs this value against the cost of the service. Then they make their choice. That’s the free market.

The only way for this free market to be allowed to take place is for the outsourcer to be permitted ONLY to describe the job in detail and proposed deadline, and invite bids.

This way, the average rate bid for a job by the TRANSLATOR becomes the market rate on Proz instead of the client-enforced one

It shouldn’t be underestimated just how important this point is and the huge role that Proz has played in it. And the ripple effect from it affects YOU and your business, regardless of whether or not you use the Proz.com site or are a member there.

Even if the rate set by the outsourcer is hidden from view, by allowing the outsourcers to still “state the rate they are willing to pay”, the dangerous assumption remains that “information on market rates” stems from the outsourcer. But it doesn’t. Or rather, it shouldn’t.

Market rates should form from the average rate set by translators, not from the rate clients state they are willing to pay. Because that rate, the rate the outsourcers are willing to pay, will only go downward. And, hence, the market rate will continue to go downward, and from there the race to the bottom.

And I don’t know about you, but that’s a race I don’t want to be a part of, let alone win.

So what would happen to the market if translation buyers were not allowed to set the price on portals like Proz.com?

A translation buyer would post a job. For example:

5182 words, translation from Italian to English, financial statements plus explanatory notes for a banking group. Delivery within 3 days, if possible. Please quote for delivery within 3 days and an alternative quote for a rush 24 hour job, if it were to become necessary.

The translation buyer would probably receive a lot of bids. They would have their work cut out for them; instead of quickly receiving bids all within the price they want to pay (which makes it very easy for bargain basement translation “agencies” to turn a quick buck), they would have to sift through all the bids received, which would range from low (unqualified and/or inexperienced translators) to high (the top-rate, experienced and highly specialised translators). The poster would see the true range of the market, every time they post a job.

Not only that, but every time they post a job offer, they are being educated about what professional translators charge for their services.
They might, just once or twice, look at the test translations, sample translations, brochures, websites and other materials provided by the higher paid translators, just out of curiosity. And they might start to realise that the value provided by a truly professional translator who is paid even just a decent rate for their expertise, is more than worth the extra cost. They might not, but they might.

The barge can’t turn on a dime, it’s true. But the steering will have been adjusted and, with time, the barge will be pointing in the right direction once more.

And with that, we come to the crux of the matter.

Proz.com’s management is still convinced that the majority of translators want outsourcers to be able to set their maximum rates in the job postings, despite the petition. Maybe the majority do, I honestly don’t know. Proz.com is running a survey as we speak, but platinum membership of the site is condition of participation. So whichever way your opinion lies, make it be known, by filling in this anonymous survey. It’s open to everyone, it will take you less than a minute to fill in, but it could make all the difference. There’s still time, and there’s still hope.

Over to you.

P.S. The anonymous survey open to all can be found here, and if you’re a Proz.com member, you can fill in their survey on the matter here.

No, not YOU.

Them.

Your clients. The people reading your website, email signature, cover letter, brochure. In other words, your marketing materials.

What exactly is this “benefits” based writing we keep hearing about? Benefits, not features, benefits, not features: it’s like a mantra spouted by marketing experts the world over.

But what does that actually mean and what, exactly, is so terrible about features and so wonderful about benefits?

Well, features focus on the seller. Benefits focus on the buyer – the person you are writing to. The YOU. Features shout “look at ME”!

There is nothing terrible about features, but features by themselves don’t get your client’s attention. They don’t speak directly to that part of their brain that is hardwired to jump to attention when they think something is being said that directly affects them. Spending all your time talking (or writing) about yourself is a surefire way of sending your clients to sleep.

But the fact is, that buyers – of products or services – don’t care about features. All buyers think about is “What’s In It For Me” (often referred to in marketing circles as WIIFM).

Translating features into benefits

On an assignment one day a few years ago, I was interpreting and consulting for a British buyer of real estate in Italy. We had had a long day looking at apartments for sale, and one visit stuck out in my mind.

The builder of the complex had insisted on accompanying the estate agent to the viewing, and spent the best part of an hour pointing out all the jazzy widgets he had installed in the building.

“Each pane of glass in the double glazing is separated by a hermetically sealed 20mm argon gas filled space”, the builder announced proudly, then waited for me to translate. He watched my lips carefully, and when I seemed to utter fewer words than expected, he pounced on me.

“Did you mention that the cavity incorporates dessicants? Tell him!”, he urged me.

So I dutifully interpreted, word for word, only to met with a blank stare from my client.

So I quickly tried another tack. “The hermetically sealed double glazing means you’ll save money on heating”, I explained. My client brightened up.

“The dessicants in the cavity means it will stay dry and you won’t get that annoying condensation in between the panes of glass that are impossible to get rid of”. My client was nodding in recognition.

Get the picture?

Hermetically sealed double glazing = feature
Save money on heating = benefit

Dessicants in the cavity = feature
No annoying condensation = benefit.

Going back to the title of this article, the reason this approach works so well is that it focuses on YOU rather than ME (you being the client, not YOU, and me being, well, you. If you get my meaning).

A quick way to see whether your marketing materials focus on yourself or your client is to simply count the number of times you use the words I, Me, We, versus the number of times you use the word You. It’s a simple trick, but the brain really does wake up when it sees the word YOU. “Me?” the brain says, stretching and yawning. “Did someone mention my name? What’s in this for me…?”

But isn’t it a bit condescending to assume the client will only pay attention if something is about them?

My clients aren’t like your property-buying client, I hear you say. They don’t need things spelled out for them.

No. Probably not. But they are busy people, and busy people don’t have time to plough through the rhetoric to find out What’s In It For Them. Look at it this way: you’ve got about 2 seconds to stop them from hitting the delete button, so you need to use every trick in the book to make them pay attention to your email and not the other 213 CVs, emails or proposals they received that morning.

But I work for translation agencies, I hear you say, I don’t have marketing materials.

Yes, you do. If you’ve ever written an email, you have marketing materials. And with more of the YOU and less of the I, WE, and ME, your marketing message will reach its target: your potential client’s brain.

No, not you. THEM!

Everyone loves a logo. Where would our world be without them?

Coca-Cola.

BMW.

Google.

I don’t even have to include images of the logos to remind you, do I? You immediately visualise the images: they are tattooed on your brain.

But where can the rest of us go to create a free, instant logo that will give us that little extra slick of professional polish? Where can the small-business owner or freelancer without a huge marketing budget find out how to create their own simple logo without downloading expensive, complicated software or paying a fortune to a designer?

Watch my 4-minute video on the right, to learn how to create a professional-looking logo in minutes, totally free.

Then get your own by clicking the link at the top right of the video, or come back back here and click: Create A Free Logo to follow the steps I show you in the video (link will open in new window).

IMPORTANT:

As you’ll see once you click the link, this is a tool provided by logoyes.com. However, if you go straight to logoyes.com, you will go through the entire logo-making process only to be asked to pay for it ($69 at the time of writing). The link I have given you is a special promotional link given only to registered affiliates, and only through that link will you be able to download your logo for free.

Please let me know how you get on by commenting, below. I’d love to see some of the logos you create so include a link, too.

In a previous post, I discussed some of the common mistakes translators make with their professional websites (and yes, the sharper-eyed among you will notice that I only came up with 13, not 17 mistakes as the headline promised. I’m a translator, a “words” sort of person. I don’t do numbers ).

But I don’t want to just criticise, point fingers and pick holes, so here are some DOs (as opposed to DON’Ts):

A successful website needs two things. Each ingredient is inert when solitary. Combined, they make for an explosive mixture.

The ingredients are:
1. Targeted traffic (visitors looking for what you have to offer), and
2. An ability to convert those visitors into clients.

To go into each in detail would require hundreds of pages of information. So here are some quick-fix ideas based on what I think makes up a website that “works”.

1. Clear organisation, direction and sequence.

Websites that “work” are very, very easy for the user. They provide clear direction and sequencing and take visitors by the hand and gently but artfully lead to the result you want: a sale.

2. Clear writing and design.

Clean, elegant design with jargon-free, plain but compelling language that naturally incorporates keywords and phrases with strong headlines and content that provides some sort of value for the reader.

3. Call to Action on every page

I was watching one of those reality talent shows on television the other night. I was struck by how many times the presenter asked viewer to call in and vote and the numbers were displayed on screen. At every opportunity, viewers were asked to take action. The programme makers know better than to assume people be bothered to hunt for the information. A clear instruction can be a very powerful thing and simple “calls to action” like “call me now” or “click here to get a no-obligation quote within 6 business hours” seem obvious but are often overlooked and are still very effective.

4. Give something (useful) away.

No doubt you’ve seen it on many websites: successful online marketers combine their “call to action” with a valuable “goodie” such as a report, white paper, ebook etc in exchange for your email address. If you think that such tactics can’t be used successfully by translators, here are some ideas for your own brainstorming on what you can give visitors that is valuable to them and will establish you as an authority:

• a white paper on ways to save on translation costs (hint: hiring a freelancer direct instead of through an agency is one)
• a report on the linguistic challenges in your field of specialisation (different legal systems, for example) and how they can be overcome
• an ebook helping translation buyers distinguish between poor quality and high quality translation
• a paper on how to leverage free translation tools with minimum damage to the company brand (hint: you could also use this vehicle to demonstrate cases in which machine translation could be disastrous for your client).

By offering something clients actually get some value from, you don’t need to brag about your expertise: your “report” will do that for you. You will also stand out immediately from all the other freelancers who use their website simply to drone on about themselves. By exchanging the report for their email address, you also have their permission to contact them again in the future rather than letting that website visitor and potential client leave your site – and your business – forever.

5. Get other people to tell your client how great you are

Get detailed testimonials from past clients and sprinkle them throughout your website: not just on a “testimonials” or “references” page, but one on each page. If you can get a photograph of the happy client to go along with the testimonial, even better.

The description meta tag. Ever give it much thought?

It’s important – but not for the reasons you might think.

The meta description tag is placed in the “head” section of the html of your website, and looks something like this:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="informative description here">

You can’t see this description when you look at your web page on your monitor: it’s “hidden” in the code your website is built on. So if users can’t see it on your site, what is this description for?

It’s not to send information about your site to the search engines, contrary to popular belief.

Google, for one (and remember that in terms of global web search, Google dominates the search market, with around 70% of search queries), pays no attention to it at all in terms of judging what your site is about for search engine ranking purposes. Nor does it pay any attention to the “keywords” meta tag.

The meta description is used to create a “snippet”, or a short text preview of your site displayed in the search engine results page (SERP). When a user searches for a phrase using the search engine, the listings page (SERP) shows a list of titles and snippets, that look something like this:

The relevance and effectiveness of this snippet has a direct influence on your “clickthrough rate”. And the meta description tag is your opportunity to control what is displayed. You have around 160 characters or less to prequalify searchers and get them excited about what you can do for them. I say prequalify, because with the description you can also filter out free online translation seekers. You don’t want just any traffic: you want traffic that is actively seeking your translation services and is ready to pay for them.

So what happens if you don’t use a meta description tag?

If you don’t specifically tell the search engines what to display in your snippet using the description meta tag, the search engines will try to cobble together a description of their own, taken from the content on that page. This means your snippet is no longer in your control, and the results can often be less than satisfactory, as you can see in this example:

In this case, the search engine has cobbled together words that match the query from the page, but the snippet makes little sense, doesn’t tell the searcher really what they can expect to find on the page and certainly doesn’t entice the search to click that listing over another with a better quality snippet, like this one by Guru.com:

For that snippet, the description meta tag, which clearly describes what searchers can expect to find and includes a clear call-to-action, provides much greater control over what is shown to the searcher on the Google results page and is much more effective, with a higher click-through rate, than a mish-mash of keywords and phrases extracted from the page by an automated system.

But I have a meta description tag and Google won’t display it in my snippet!

If you have set a meta description tag in your page’s html but Google is not showing it as a snippet in the SERP, the reason is usually one of the following:

1. your description is not relevant to the search query
2. the description is stuffed full of keywords and is therefore not relevant to the search query
3. you have used the same description for every page on your site

1. Your description is not relevant to the search query

When someone searches, and Google has decided your site is relevant for the search and includes it in the listing, it then scans your description meta tag to build the snippet. If it decides the description isn’t relevant enough for the query, it will reject your snippet and create its own description by pulling text from your content.

2. The description is stuffed full of keywords

Remember that the description will not affect your search rankings, so don’t waste time filling it with long strings of keywords. Not only it is pointless, but descriptions like these are far less likely to be used as snippets as they degrade user experience.

3. You have used the same description for every page on your site

This is a common error. Google doesn’t like it when you give an identical description (and title, but more on that in another post) to every page. So instead of using the description “Jane Doe, freelance Klingon to English translator specialising in Klingon history and architecture” as your description for each page, use a different description relevant to the content for each page on your site. Doing so will mean a much greater chance of Google using your snippet.

And remember, while the description meta tag won’t increase your search engine ranking, it will help encourage qualified potential clients to click your listing instead of someone else’s.

Simple rules for effective descriptions/snippets

1. Don’t use the same tag on each page: make each tag different and relevant to the content
2. Remember you are writing the description for a human searcher, not the search engine
3. Describe the page content, save your USP or generic business description for the home page

Branding. Brrr.

What a horrible word.

It seems to conjure up images of corporate board meetings with lots of suits braying about “strategic assets” and how they can leverage “core competencies”. The word seems to have acquired a meaninglessness that has absolutely nothing to do with freelance business.

Or has it? Just what is branding, exactly, and how can it help the freelance translator?

Branding is just packaging. It’s how you package yourself, and how that package is anchored in the minds of your client. The visual anchor triggers an intellectual, emotional or visceral reaction to something – in this case, you. The aim is to establish that anchor in the mind of your client, linking you to a particular set of values, before they do.

Human beings buy packaging. It’s just in our nature. Recent research has shown that 97% of clients base decisions on whether or not to use a professional’s service on their website. Obviously, further down the line, if an ugly, cheap looking car actually performs like a Ferrari, the ugly, cheap looking car will eventually garner enough raving fans for the packaging not to matter, but this is definitely the slow route to success. Unfortunately, in many cases people won’t even try your service unless you package yourself properly. As I said, it’s just human nature.

It doesn’t necessarily mean we are superficial. As a species, we have simply learned that outside appearances usually provide a good indication of the contents. We take shortcuts in order to be more efficient: we don’t have the time to research every tiny decision we make throughout our lives, so we make assumptions to speed things up. One of the assumptions we rely on the most is based on…packaging.

For you to prove your worth, first you have to sell yourself, and packaging is a vital aspect of that. It is the first step in establishing trust, a bridge that helps clients feel secure enough to try crossing instead of having to make a leap of faith into the unknown.

Because, after all, services are invisible. You can’t see, touch or feel a translation. Well you can, but not before you actually do the translation, not before you have had a chance to show your translating chops. You can provide samples, sure, but samples don’t tell the client how reliable you are, how well you stick to deadlines, that you understand and respect confidentiality issues, how well you work under pressure. You can provide references and testimonials along with your sample translations to establish credibility… but then, isn’t that just part of the packaging?

It all comes back, full circle, to packaging yourself. That’s branding: packaging yourself and your services so that potential clients know exactly what they are buying.

Of course, the standard of the service you offer must match or preferably exceed the expectations set with your branding… and that’s your end of the deal. That’s down to you.

photo credit: TheTruthAbout…

I’ve always thought it best not to publish rates online. Better to invite a contact first, a request for a quote. Then contact has been established and a working relationship can be nurtured, right?

Well, I’m in the process of changing my mind. Here are some of the reasons I am considering publishing a rate card in PDF on my website.

1. To prequalify clients. I can stop wasting time with clients looking for a €0.04 a word translator by prequalifying/disqualifying them with my online price list. I can stop wasting their time too.
2. There is something about a pre-prepared, published rate chart that looks official and far harder to argue with.
3. It reassures other translators in your language combination that no, €0.04 is not the going rate, despite what some agencies would have them believe.

The jury’s still out. Thoughts?

Some staggering results of research carried out recently and published on Raintoday.com shows that an amazing 97% of service buyers base their decisions on the service provider’s website, further confirming just how important a website or blog is for any freelancer’s business (source: Raintoday, How Clients Buy 2009 Benchmark Report).

The study analysed the responses of 200 buyers from companies of all sizes of professional services such as accounting, financial consulting, engineering, IT consulting and services, legal services, management consulting, marketing, public relations, advertising and training, for a total of over $1.7 billion in professional services purchased. Only 3% said the service provider’s website had no bearing on their decision, and the majority (54%) said it had a great deal of influence on their decision. The rest said the website had little or some influence (23% and 20% respectively).

This is a huge increase since the same research was carried out in 2005, with a 23% increase in the percentage saying the service provider’s website has at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider, showing that an effective website is more important than ever for professional translators, an importance likely to continue to increase in coming years.

With a well-designed, well-written and well-optimised website, translators can:

- establish they are professional, with design, writing and content that adequately reflects the translator’s expertise
- establish they are worthy of consideration, with client lists, testimonials, case studies
- establish themselves as an authority and expert in their field, with well-written content, white papers, publications, videos and other tools to build credibility, reliability and trust.

1. Focusing on yourself, not the visitor.

Copywriting experts have been telling us for decades: focus on the benefits for the visitor, not the features of your services. Studies have shown that less than 1% of website visitors visit the “About Us” page. People simply don’t care how wonderful you think you are. Without exception, visitors have one thing in mind when they visit your site:

What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM).

People buy benefits, not features, and clients are people just like everyone else. It is basic underlying psychology that drives human behaviour.

It’s just not about you. It’s about them.

How you can solve their problem, make their lives better, and make them feel good. So remember to appeal to visitors my writing your website copy with their needs in mind.

Features are part of the service. They are there regardless of who the client is. Benefits are what the client will gain by using the service.

For example:
feature: car with four-wheel drive
benefit: you can drive in areas other cars can’t, safer driving on poor road conditions, won’t get stuck in snow etc.

2. Not researching the market

If you don’t know what keywords people are using to search for translation service providers, how can you ensure you show up in the search engines for those keywords?

If you don’t know the tactics and strategies used by your competitors (by competitors I mean any website in the first page of Google for the keywords people use to search for translation service providers), how can you hope to emulate their success and improve on it?

The good news is you don’t need to guess, and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. You can research keywords, and study the competition, before you start creating your website.

3. Not having a clear idea of your ideal client.

To win visitors over and convert them into clients, you have to speak their language. When they look at your home page, they must immediately feel a connection: you “get” them, you understand their problems and concerns: you are on the same wavelength and can deliver what they are looking for. You can’t do that if you have no idea who you are writing to.

4. Having a generic page title, or the same title for each page.

This is a Search Engine Optimization issue. The title tag in each page’s html is the most important on-page factor for search engine optimization, and the biggest mistake you can make with it is to have a generic phrase like “page 1″, “home”, or similar. Another mistake, albeit not quite as disastrous, is to put your name in the title tag, instead of targeted, researched keywords, or to cram as many keywords as possible into each title tag. Less is more: use razor-sharp focus instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

5. Not providing anything of value on the website.

People use the internet to search for information. If you can provide valuable content, you will attract visitors, who will read what you have to say and begin to view you as an authority on your subject. You can leverage this to show clients that a) you can write, and b) you are an expert in your field. If you provide something they didn’t previously know that is actually of value to them, you have instantly established yourself as an authority in their eyes.

6. Not establishing your personality.

Translators are often so intent on appearing “professional” that they forget that clients are people, and people like working with people they like. Again, it comes down to human nature: if people don’t like you, they won’t want to work with you. You can be professional and likeable, and part of that is revealing who you are. Professional doesn’t necessarily have to mean cold, generic or anonymous.

7. Not establishing uniqueness.

What is it that makes you different from all the other translators working in your language combination? It’s an advertising and marketing cliché – the USP, or Unique Selling Point. But it’s a cliché for a reason: it’s necessary. And be specific: claims of “quality translations” don’t really mean anything. Uniqueness often goes hand in hand with specialisation and expertise. If you don’t have a specialisation yet, then start working on one, and in the meantime find something else that will distinguish you from the masses. For example, are you in a time zone that means you can deliver overnight translations for clients? Or can you provide a “within 5 minutes of deadline or the translation is free” guarantee? Does your rate include third-party revision or proofreading? Brainstorm possibilities, and remember, if you don’t have a unique selling point, create one: what would you like to be able to offer your clients? Then work on that selling point until it’s something you can offer your potential clients.

8. Thinking that, if you build it, they will come

I’ve heard translators claim that a website doesn’t bring business. It won’t, if you just put up a static “brochure” site and sit back and wait for clients to come rolling in (they won’t). Websites that work are ones which a) rank highly for keywords that people are actually searching for and b) effectively convert those visitors to clients. That takes time, knowledge, some skill, and effort. But once you have it up and running, the maintenance is minimal and the benefits could transform your business.

9. Not keeping your site fresh

This is a mistake for two reasons:

a) search engines love websites that have fresh content added on a fairly regular basis. Fresh content is rewarded with higher search engine results page rankings.

b) fresh content is the ideal opportunity to show clients that you are a real person, that you work regularly. You can use it to establish both authority and likeability.

I don’t mean using your site to write about your cat, what you had for lunch or your current gripe with your mother-in-law. However, you could use a blog on a section of your site to write about the research you are currently doing for a highly technical job, the linguistic challenges you faced and how you overcame them.

The good news is that this is now easy and free to do online. There is absolutely no reason for you to have to send content to a web designer to update it for you, or for you to have to fiddle around with code and re-upload entire pages everytime you want to update or add content. Take advantage of the latest free open-source technology.

When someone takes the time to visit your website, grab this wonderful opportunity with both hands and both feet to show potential clients how you work, and for them to get to know and like you in a no-pressure, no-obligation environment that will possibly have them returning for more. Don’t waste this opportunity with a static CV website!

11. Not having a clear call to action on each page.

Many people forget this very simple element on a site: remember to tell your visitors which step to take next. It’s a very powerful tool which should not be underestimated. On every single page, there should be a clear call to action making it easy for the visitor to take the next step: ask for a quote, sign up for a newsletter or email updates, contact you, or take some kind of action.

Try to make the “barrier to entry” as low as possible. The best way to do this is to offer something for free in exchange for an email address. This doesn’t have to be a free translation: it could be a free report or PDF providing information that educates the client and is useful to them at the same time. By doing this you have established the first contact and have permission to contact them in the future. At the same time, if the PDF is well-written, informative and useful to the client, you have also established authority and expertise in their eyes.

12. Violating standard design conventions

Even with the most innovative design, there are certain standards that we have become used to. Don’t make visitors hunt around for links, incite them click text that look like links but aren’t, or hunt around for a way to contact you. People are busy – make things as easy as possible for them. While we are discussing design, avoid moving, flashing elements and stick to three colours or less.

13. Not analysing and tracking website performance and visitor behaviour

Do you know the path visitors take through your site? Do you know how many and which visitors “bounce” straight back off your site without doing anything? Do you know which keywords the people who contacted you through your site used to find you? Do you know which pages cause your visitors to leave the site? Do you know which country most of your website visitors are in? Do you test different page versions with different headlines and copy, to see which one results in a higher rate of people contacting you?

Without knowing all the above and much, much more, how do you know what is working and what isn’t? How do you know which areas to concentrate on (the bits that are working) and which you can stop wasting your time on (the bits that don’t?). Failing to test, analyse and track means you are stabbing in the dark, with no idea of whether you are hitting your target or not. Again, the good news is you can now do for free online what companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do only a few years ago.

————————————————

Does all that sound like too much hard work? Great news

Because the hard bit is the bit most other people won’t be bothered with. Meaning you get a massive head start.

Whether you like it or not, you are a business person, not just a translator – unless you have a full-time, in-house position, of course.