First and foremost, a translator webpage should be clean and easy to navigate. The is no need for fancy graphics or typefaces, nor are they suggested. Look at other B2B sites and you will observe a lot of white space and simple designs. This is the preferred template for your translator. The reason why might surprise you. One of the primary goals of a translator, aside from delivering a high quality translation, on type, etc., is to be invisible. We want our translations to read as if the original writer had written the translated text in both languages; a translator will never appear in a good translation. That might seem a little confusing, so to highlight the idea, run a few sentences from a song you like or some other text through Google translate and then back to the original (the "source") language. Does it still have the same flow? Does it feel artificial or forced? That's what I mean. Let your translator be invisible.
So, what should you put on your translator's site? Typically, a professional translator's website will be something like an online business card or portfolio. It should contain information about the translator's experience, language pairs (the pair of languages that a translator works in) names of former clients, lists of any formal education and/or recognition that he or she has received, memberships they may have, samples of their work, references, what tools they use, and most importantly, methods of contact.
You may even be able to fit everything on one single page, if you can keep it well organized. Info graphics, maybe?
Some important translator lingo would include:
- CAT Tools: Computer Aided Translation. These are special programs that provide a more efficient workspace for the translator, and helps to handle things like glossaries, dates/unit conversions, formatting, and repeated segments. There are several of them on the market, but not everyone uses them and they we not mandatory in most sectors.
- L1/L2: This refers to the translator's first and second language. Typically the second language is the one the original text is written in, the source language, and the translator translates into his or her first language, the target language. This is not always true, nor is it applicable or even appropriate in all cases.
- ATA, ITI, etc.: These refer to different translator associations throughout the world. There are many of these and will usually be mentioned as part of the linguists qualifications. Not all of these associations are government agencies or sponsored. The ATA, American Translators Association, for example, is a privately operated business in the US that grants its own certification for its paid members, though it has no bearing on a translator's ability to operate within the country. Others are official government bodies and will need to be displayed as dictated by local law.
Additionally, any references or published works that the translator may have should be highlighted on their website. Names should link back to the contact information of the person/organization providing the reference so that it can be easily confirmed. The same with any published works, so that any potential clients can easily authenticate the material and see published examples of the translator's work. There are cases where a translator signs an NDA, a non-disclosure agreement, which prevents them from publicizing any information about their client or the project in question. This is more common in certain sectors, such as legal and commercial industries, but can even be found in video game translation.
Another point that I would like to make is to ensure that the site also leads back to any other professional profiles that the translator may have, such and LinkedIn or Proz.com. This serves the same purpose as that mentioned above, as it helps authenticate the translator's professionalism, experience, and identity.
There is a lot of spamming and scams targeted towards translator's. It is suggested that direct email links be used sparingly, if at all, otherwise unscrupulous individuals will collect and sell the email addresses provided to unknowing new translators looking for work, or will be used as potential targets for scam artists. Contact forms tend to fair better.
Most visits to the site will probably be direct and very few will come from organic searches. If you will be trying to rank higher in the search engines, make sure that you focus your key words and SEO efforts on the translator's niche, as well as countries that speak the translator's L1 and L2.
And with that you should have an easy-to-use translation professional website. I will be creating a few videos going over how to create your own translator website using different free/cheap tools that most translator's will be able to learn quickly. Please add my to your circles and follow me on YouTube for those updates.
If you have any questions, or if you have any tips and tricks that you like to share, or even if you would like to share your own site to highlight something that you did well or to ask for feed back, please leave a comment below. You are also welcome to share this with any linguists that you know who might be interested in building their own webpage, but please link back to the original.
Have a great day!
