We are an translation agency that is specialised in processing translations for eCommerce. This subject, relating mostly in combination with content, is widely discussed on our blog.

,

Quick and Easy Ways to Boost Sales During the Holiday Season

As I discussed previously, the holiday season is a great time to bump up your sales. We have already gone over how to target your existing or email-based customers with various promotions and specials, as well as the ways to make sure you keep customers signed up and invested in your business; now we will take a step back into various methods behind the scenes that can help you determine what your holiday goals are, and how to meet them.

Two Crucial Goals

First, there are two goals to keep in mind:

1. Email acquisitions (for future promotions and updates)
2. Sale goals (how much do you want to make?)

Set a stretch goal for both of these that forces you to aim high and get creative! Some like to set a few goals – ‘Must reach’ goal, ‘Happy to achieve’ goal, and ‘Made it to the moon’. You can use these to reverse-engineer your sales and marketing techniques.

Planning is Everything

Secondly, I cannot stress this enough, plan ahead! Know your holidays: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the last sat before Christmas, Christmas Eve and Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve. Note that it is best to stagger your promotions throughout the season, rather than focus on one day. Think of this in terms of both being able to start small and ramp up – which is better for your bottom line – as well as the idea that it is easier to finally get your audience’s attention if you try several times, rather than throw everything at them on one day.

#1 Email Acquisition

Easy Ways to Increase Email Acquisition:

Update your email sign up form with text regarding upcoming sales, such as “Sign up now for Cyber Monday deal updates!”, as well as pepper your social media with hints about upcoming promotions that they can only receive via the email list. People love deals – they want to sign up.

Launch holiday retargeted banners. You lose click-troughs and conversions every month; this is a great time and way to turn those into customers.

Update your creative on the site and on the newsletter to attract new customers:

  • Use high quality images
  • Create a consistent story, from your promotional newsletters to your website
  • Keep item text short and clean

If you have not already, make sure any purchase automatically opts-in to your newsletter.

#2 Boosting Sales

Quick Ways to Increase Sales:

Bid on Cyber Monday terms in AdWords & Bing. People only know they want a deal, not necessarily what or where, so they will search for it.

Make sure your website is mobile friendly! Mobile traffic accounted for over 50 percent of all internet traffic during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2014, and mobile transactions counted for about 30 percent of all online orders. If you have an app, you may want to emphasize your iOS platforms: according to Apple Insider, Apple devices drove almost 78 percent of mobile e-commerce orders. Long story short, if your site does not function on a smartphone, you are losing business.

Keep an eye on your bestsellers; running out of popular items costs you money on the item, and might send customers searching for it elsewhere.

Streamline your online checkout. The less information they have to input, the better. One mistake commonly made by online retailers is requiring the customer to create an account before they check out. Always let them have the option to check out as a guest!

Theme your landing page to optimize your SEO. This will need to be planned out ahead of time, but it is worth it to create clean, well-designed pages that are as attractive as they are useful.

Lastly, do not forget follow up emails! How often have you bought an item simply because you received a coupon or discount from the online store after browsing? Follow up emails after a purchase encourage previous customers to come back and shop with you again.

Also, do not make the mistake of forgetting about abandoned cart customers, who may place items in their cart and then navigate away from the page. Follow up emails to them should compel customers to come back and complete their purchases. They should be sent within 24 hours of a cart being abandoned, and can offer things like free shipping, a small discount, or a free item with purchase. Do not forget to be creative!

It All Pays Off

This all may sound like a lot of work, but planning ahead and getting things ready will pay off in the long run. Above all, know your customers, or use this as an opportunity to get to know them better. The more you try and learn during this season, the better your marketing techniques will be all year round!

/by
,

6 Effective Tactics to Prepare Your Web Shop For Holidays

Holidays are a good time for online stores. During the holiday season, it is easy to make extra revenue – especially with well-planned and well-timed promotions. If you have already had a good season in the past, you can choose similar promotions that worked for you, but be sure to read on for some tips and tricks you might not have thought about – and if this is your first, I have got you covered!

#1 Plan It

Smart strategy is a well-planned strategy. Too often promotions and other extra marketing ideas get forgotten until later in the season, or worse, sent to the junk mail box with an unsubscribe. Think about what incentives you want to offer your clients, and plan well. Use a calendar to decide down to the day when you want to start and send each promotion.

#2 Use Promotions

Prepare varied promotions, for example:

Limited time offers
A limited time offer that gives customers extra incentive. (Supported by research.)

Early bird offers
Early bird offers encourage people to get items before they run out.

Freebies
Give away freebies when customers make a purchase on specific days, or purchases a certain amount or higher.

Contest
Run a contest in social media, where the prize is money to spend in your web shop or winning your products. Example: customers have to send pictures or videos related to holidays, or a holiday theme.

Theme up
Do not be afraid to get themed! Use tasteful and fun graphics or colours to make the email stand out in the inbox. Catch their eye.

#3 Keep Your Clients Up to Date

Inform clients about promotions long before you actually send them; you do not want to lose out to rival sites. Use e-mails and social media like Facebook, Instagram, etc.

#4 Do Not Forget About Hashtags

Prepare a strong, visible call to action. Hashtags are perfect for this: try to make one that blends your business with a holiday-related thought, phrase, or item. You can link it to an Instagram contest as well, with followers taking photos and tagging them with your hashtag. Best one wins!

#5 Share the Holiday Spirit

Do not forget about social media. If it is related to your business and your brand, you can post content related to holidays. Things like recipes, links to songs classic or new, gift guides from various places on the web – all of these get your followers in a holiday mood as well as paying more attention to future posts.

#6 Focus on Retaining Customers

Make sure you try to keep the customers! Around 70% of companies says it is cheaper to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. There is no perfect way to hang on to customers, but there are a few things you can do to make it easy for them to want to stick around:

Limit your e-mail marketing
Do not send email promotions too often. No one likes an email a day all week from the same site – and offering too many discounts makes it look like you are not doing well as a site. Space the offers, and any communication, out long enough that people are excited for your next email.

Upgrade your customer service
During holidays your customer service should be 100%! Make sure you or a colleague are available to respond, either by phone, chat, or e-mail during all of these busy days.

Be creative
Think about other ways to entice and reward return customers. Newsletters, promotional discounts for returning customers, or reward programs based on money spent are all good ways to keep customers happy, and coming back for more.

If some of these do not exactly fit your site model, modify them! The most important thing is that you are communicating effectively with your customer, as well as taking advantage of the holiday season. Happy holidays, and be sure to let me know in the comments what has worked for you!

/by
, ,

What is the Difference Between a Customer and Client?

Customer and client: two words that are often mistaken, and cause problems for both non-natives and English speakers. Although the words are frequently used as synonyms, they do not have exactly the same meaning. There has been already a lot of discussion when the word client or customer should be used; the answer is not always easy. The choice of the right word depends on the context. The distinction between the two terms in question is of special importance for business owners and for translators.

As a business owner (including online business owners), you want to be sure that you address your customers/clients correctly in order to gain future business. The distinction is also relevant for translators – not only for the sake of precise translation, but also to help address the customers/clients better.
By the end of this article you will be sure whether to use client or customer in your communication. I have prepared for you the ultimate rules that will help you make this decision.

#1 Know the Meaning

According to Oxford Dictionary, a customer is a person or organization that buys something from a store or business. A manager of a supermarket would call a person who buys a lot in his store a good customer.

A client is defined by the same dictionary as a person that uses the services or advice of a professional person or organization. An example is a lawyer or a translator who has clients, not customers.

Thus the difference between the two words is quite big. Customers buy goods like cookies, books or clothes, and clients pay for services like accounting or legal services.

#2 Think of Continuity

The distinction between selling products and services is not enough. The other thing that will help you decide whether to use word customer or client is continuity. This simple rule tells that a person who comes to your shop only once to buy a product is a customer. However, when this person comes to you every week to buy a product(s) and a relationship is built based on that, that person is a client.

So John, who bought butter one month ago from you but has not been seen since, can be called your customer. On the other hand, Peter, who buys groceries at your shop every week, can be called both: a regular customer or a client. If you want to put an emphasis on the fact that Peter buys products or services from you regularly and is loyal to you, then you call him a client.

#3 Recognize Different Businesses

Businesses have two main focuses: gaining customers, or gaining clients. Those focused on customers rather than clients are interested in significant numbers of one time purchases – a volume game. Businesses aiming to gain clients are looking for creation of long time relationships with an emphasis on loyalty.

You should take this information into account when creating communication for your business. Want to focus on long term relationships with people who buy services? Call them clients. For the reverse, use the word customer. Use the right word in order not to mislead your audience.

#4 Know for Whom You Translate

The distinction between a customer and a client is important for the quality of a translation, especially in English. In some languages there is only one word used for both terms – such as the Dutch “klant”, the Polish “klient”, or the Spanish “cliente”. Know that in these languages, you won’t have to differentiate in your translation.

However, as a translator you are offering services, for which you had like repeat business. Remember to communicate with your audience as clients, not customers, when applicable, to ensure growing feelings of loyalty.

Remember to use the correct word in your communication, as one word can often make a big difference!

/by
, ,

How to Make Your Website Findable With Keywords?

You have all the technical aspects of your website in order. There is however one more thing left to do: adjustment of your content in a way that will make it optimally findable in Google. But how can you make your website easier findable with the help of keywords? That is one of the questions concerning SEO that clients often ask me. That is why in this blog post you will find information on how to use SEO keywords effectively in order to help positioning your website.

When you are surfing the internet for usage of keywords you will find that the opinions of SEO experts are divided. That is why I would like to share my experience in what works best for online shops. The mission is easy: to make your website findable! Organic findability usually means a huge boost in your sales and it also saves you a lot on marketing expenses.

Keyword density

Keyword density is being displayed by almost all website analyzers. Website analyzers are companies or websites responsible for in-depth analysis of your webpage(s). What does the keyword density actually tell you? It gives you the information on how often a specific keyword appears on your page.

But what is a good keyword density? Whenever you ask this question to SEO experts, again you will receive many different opinions. It is striking that most of the experts say not to calculate keyword density at all.

Personally, I stick to one rule: put the keyword combination in at least 3 important places. This can be for example in the URL, page title and the header. I try to use one keyword per approximately 100 words on a webpage. This method helps to make our website findable.

Long texts are being preferred

In a previous blog it is explained why you should not overload your text with keywords. In short: Google has a preference for longer texts that go more into depth.

The research from SERPIQ shows really clearly that pages with long texts rank higher in search machines. Thus, if you want to be found on a keyword that has a high competition rate, you should make sure that your page has more than 1500 words. This will significantly increase your chances of a higher rank in the search machines.

Less competition with a long-tail

Approximately 70 percent of all search queries are performed on so-called long tail keywords. Long-tail means that the search query consists of at least 4 words.

The number of search queries on specific long-tail combination is however lower. As a result the competition is also lower. With a low competition keyword there are fewer regulations concerning the keyword density. Thus, you do not have to write long texts to be found organically if your product is very unique or specific.

Who sticks to it, wins

Making your website findable has often to do with being very persistent. Obtaining a high organic ranking in a search engine often takes a lot of time. Of course it depends more factors than only writing texts. Nonetheless, if the technical aspects of your websites are in order, you can continue to improve the textual elements in order to leave your competitors far behind.

Are you going to write a new page, product description or a blog post? I would advise you not to pay too much attention to the number of keywords. Rather pay more attention to the content of the texts and make sure your readers are not being bothered by excessive use of keywords.

/by
,

How to communicate with your target audience?

At our office we read quite a number of articles throughout the week. We regularly ask ourselves the question for what target audience an article was actually written. In most cases the answer is the same: for a broad audience. However, addressing a broad audience may negatively affect the persuasiveness of an article.

Let me give you an example: when you tell 65 year old people that they can play very awesome games on an iPad, it will probably not sound appealing to them. On the other hand, when you tell them that they can easily borrow electronic books (e-books) at the local library, they will surely pay more attention to that message. This is a simple and very general example, it does however highlight that the manner and style in which you communicate with your target audience is very important. In this blog post I will give you three examples on how you can tailor your communication to your target audience.

#1 Do not try to target everyone

Strategy is focus. Let me illustrate this by an example: you have a restaurant. Which of the three options below would be the most suitable one for you?

  • The focus lies on people between 40-70 for whom eating healthy food is more important than the price and who would like to take a seat in a place with a peaceful atmosphere.
  • The focus lies on people between 20-35 who have a preference for a trendy décor and a wide range of special beers or cocktails at a market price .
  • Focus? Everybody is welcome! There is a large menu so everyone will be able to find something he/she likes.

Obviously you would pick one of the top two options. When it comes to online businesses, this is often not the case. Online businesses tend to forget about the need for focus and try to have an online business that targets everyone. If that is what you are doing right now, you should better split your target audience and target each group in its own appropriate manner.

#2 Segment

Now, when you have determined what market you want to target, it is time to start the segmentation. Imagine segmentation as an orange which is being divided into several parts. According to old standards the division of your target audience would be done based on for instance gender and age. Nowadays, big data is more and more accessible to a lot of companies. Therefore, use big data to gauge the needs of your segment and to address them more specifically with the right type of communication.

#3 Dare to be unique

Your business should be a reflection of who you are, what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. Tailoring your marketing to people who are interested in the same topics is easier when you have a unique identity. This way you speak to the right people and at the same time you are honest about what you are doing. Do you prefer to do business with small businesses? Gently give the impression that you do so. Your external communication will be more appealing to small businesses this way and they will be more interested in doing business with you.

If it is about browsing, the uniqueness of communication plays a major role. Example of companies that distinguish themselves thanks to their unique content are companies like Zalando and GoPro. Think text, images and videos. By communicating to different target groups in different ways, they know how to convince them time and time again.

At GoPro, you do not only see this uniqueness in their products, but also in their job vacancy for a new Director of Ecommerce Operations. A standard job offer in a scarcity market will in fact not conquer hearts of a many people.

In a nutshell

How to communicate with your target audience is of utmost importance and it will make your life way easier if you do it the right way. Your communication with the outside world begins with defining your target audience.

Targeting the right audience in the right way increases the likelihood of successful communication. If you have a limited marketing budget, you will actually be able to take advantage of this principle. After all, you will only have to communicate to a select group.

/by
,

7 important SEO tips for E-commerce websites

If you want to sell products or services online, the position of your website in Google is of big importance. After all, your goal is to beat the competitors and to be easily found by potential clients. Regardless if your website has an innovative design or that you sell products for the best possible price, it will not matter if your business is hardly findable online.

Research conducted by online advertising network Chitika shows that websites which have the first position in Google have a Click-Through Rate (CTR) of 33 percent. Second position websites have a CTR of 18 percent and after that position the visitors’ interest decreases quickly. To make sure that you do not lose valuable website traffic, I collected seven extremely important tips that will help get your website a better position in Google through SEO.

TIP #1 Research the most effective keywords

As with all the projects, it is important to start with the preparations. That is why you should first research which keywords will help to increase traffic to your website. The most effective way to do this, is with the free Google Keyword Planner.

To achieve the maximum conversion rate it is recommended to use ‘long-tail’ keywords that are not too generic. This will make it easier for you to enter the competition. Also pay extra attention to words with a high search rate that are related to your website. The rule of thumb is that it is important to take the relevance, search volume and the level of difficulty for high ranking into account when looking for a keyword. Thus, make sure that a keyword is not too broad and too competitive at the same time.

TIP #2 Add keywords strategically

Adding keywords to your website will provide a huge boost to your findability in Google. When using hyperlinks, make sure that you use this keyword combination instead of ‘click here’ or ‘read more’.

In addition, it is essential that you do not use the same keyword combination on each page. If you do so this can lead to cannibalisation of your keyword because it has been used on multiple pages. In that case Google will get disorientated and it will treat your pages as duplicates. Consequence of that is that your website gets a weaker position in the Google results. To avoid this, you could create a spreadsheet in Excel to list all keywords used. This way you ensure that you will not use duplicate words.

TIP #3 Write a catchy product description

If you are planning to simply use the product description provided by a manufacturer, then be aware that you will not get a good result and you will most likely be banned by all search engines. Google is becoming more and more advanced in finding duplicate texts and their original source. That is why you should try to avoid spam-like content and should create high quality E-commerce SEO texts. Remember that it is essential to create unique and catchy product descriptions.

TIP #4 Make good use of images

People are visually oriented by nature. That is the reason why they want to see the product they will be spending money on. E-commerce websites will benefit enormously when using high quality images that persuade customers to making a purchase. In addition, it is important that all your images are optimized to improve your Google position.
The spiders of search machines do not have the same brains as we have. In order to make the images recognizable for these search engines you should use an alt attribute. Make sure that any tag concerning an image is unique and that it correlates with the alt attribute of the image. Another important element is the size of a picture. Try to keep the size as small as possible without losing the quality so your page loads fast.

TIP #5 Keep good URL structure

Never underestimate the importance of a good URL structure for E-commerce websites with a large amount of products and descriptions. When your website is well structured, Google will find it easier to index it. Take into account that all your URLs should be unique. Furthermore good URLs should include the name of a product and it should indicate the keyword.

Another advantage of a good URL structure is the overview of the users’ satisfaction. When your customer has had an enjoyable and pleasant experience when using your website, the conversion is higher and at the same time you sell more. Which in turn will boost your website’s ranking.

TIP #6 Observe website visits

It is not a secret that everybody wants to get as many visitors to their websites as possible. Make sure that you always know the actual figures. To keep an overview and to evaluate your SEO marketing, use for instance a tool like Google Analytics.
You should not only analyze the search traffic but also identify how many visitors convert into a paying customer. If you know what is the source of your revenue, you will be able to tell what is yet to improve on your website. find their way to your website by organic search results. If you can find out where your revenue comes from, you can better tell what is not yet optimal on your website. This gives you an opportunity to customize your E-commerce SEO strategy and to generate more paying customers.

TIP #7 Ask for honest reviews

Around 80 percent of the online shoppers first reads online reviews before making a purchase. To boost the conversion rate of your website it is crucial to show customer reviews. To generate unique customer reviews you should encourage customers to write reviews. You can stimulate them to do so, by offering them a discount on their next purchase.
Honest customer reviews also have a positive impact on search engines. New customer reviews create new content for your website and ensures that your website remains active. This makes it easier to reach the top of the Google search results.

Apply my tips and experience a great difference. Using these tips will make your E-commerce SEO undergo an immense improvement.

/by
,

5 Deadly Sins of E-mail Campaign Authors

E-mails are an important part of your company’s communication. Surprisingly, they are quite often neglected as a good way to increase traffic to a website. Too often web shop owners and marketers use e-mails just because they feel they have to. This causes newsletters to become a routine rather than exciting news.

We all receive a ton of e-mails every day. I bet that deleting the biggest part of them is not your favourite way of spending free time. Time and time again you see the same type of e-mail that is shouting to you to buy something and you start to be fed up with the company that sent it. Thus, when it is your company that is sending e-mails, you want to achieve the opposite effect. You want customers to open e-mails they receive from you and to eventually buy your product or service.

E-mail marketing tools allow you to easily create your own template and even automate the sending process so you do not have to worry about sending e-mails all the time. Some of the most popular e-mail marketing tools are Mailchimp, Campaign Monitor and Constant Contact.

There are three main types of e-mails that you can send to your customers: regular marketing, notification and transactional e-mails. The first type of e-mails concern informative e-mails that are sent without the receiver’s action as an incentive. These are e-mails that include information about promotions and newsletters.

The second type of e-mails that you can send to your customers are notifications. This kind of e-mail can be sent after a customer took action. For instance, e-mails that you receive from Twitter or LinkedIn concerning activities related to your account, shopping cart abandonment e-mails, birthday e-mails or feedback requests.

Transactional e-mails are sent as a direct response to a certain action taken by a customer. Examples of transactional e-mails are for instance: welcome and thank you e-mails, e-mails with invoices, order, payment and shipment confirmations. These kind of e-mails are especially important for online stores, as most of the customers look for a confirmation of their actions.

Below, you can find a list of essential rules for creating e-mail marketing campaigns for online stores.

#1 You are being repetitive and bothersome

As I have already mentioned at the beginning, sending similar e-mails and telling people to buy your products almost every day is just not the way to go. By doing so you will deter customers rather than attract them.

Try to offer your customers informative e-mails that do not always scream “buy this, it is a must have!” Of course it depends on the business and industry. Try to be original and entertaining so customers remember you and not your competitor.

#2 You do not create a clear call to action

The best recommendation when it comes to creating a call to action is to make it short and concise. Some of the best examples are those including 2-3 words, for example:

If you use more than one call to action button, try to remember to emphasize only one. The less confusion for the reader, the better. Add words like “now” or “today” to your call to action in order to create an additional incentive to engage people.

#3 You are afraid of being creative

Nobody remembers plain e-mails. In order to stand out from the ton of e-mails that people receive daily you have to create an e-mail that catches attention immediately. You can do it by adding a video (it can be yours but can be also a YouTube video), creating a new design for your e-mails or by making your e-mails interactive (present one or more of your discounted products or services).

What is equally important to the content of e-mails are the subject line and preview text. Make sure that both are interesting and humorous. This will significantly increase the probability of your customers opening the e-mail.

#4 You do not treat clients personally

Addressing people directly is a proven way to make customers feel more positive about your advertisements. Thanks to personalization people find the content more relevant and tend to engage with it more often. Personalization does not only concern addressing your customers by name but also customizing the content they receive.

#5 You forget about timing

By sending your campaign the right day of the week and at just the right time you can increase the opening rates of your e-mails. Check out one of the recommendations about the right timing for sending newsletters and adjust it to your type of business.

When you apply these rules you will not be the next web shop sending repetitive, boring e-mails. Dare to go out of your e-mail comfort zone now!

/by
,

When is language useful for images?

Photographs often form a large part of communication with clients or friends. Photographs create a certain image in our minds which is connected to feelings evoked by a text. Hence, a lot of documents we receive at Simply Translate from our clients include pictures and photos. The same goes for online documents.

For online documents it is important to pay attention to a number of elements. By translating the image details, you can improve both your SEO position and search results. It concerns the following four elements:

  • Title
  • Alt text
  • Description
  • Caption

#1 Give your photo a good title

Most of the cameras give photos a generic name like 000001.jpeg. This name does not say anything about what is in the picture and therefore does not increase the relevance of your website nor the significance of your image.

When you just publish a photo or a picture with the generic name on your website, you ignore the regulations of the Google Image Publishing Guidelines. Google advises you to provide your image with a title that is related to the topic of the picture.

Although the Google Algorithm is already quite advanced, it cannot verify titles and the content of the photo. This means that the algorithm looks at the text descriptions of the images in order to evaluate if the image is relevant to the search result.

Obviously it does not sound like an interesting job to rename all your images. However, when you do this, it will definitely increase your search results.

#2 Remember to fill in the Alt Text

If you want to post a picture on your website, the CMS system asks you to fill in various fields. If you have not been doing this, it is wise to take a look at the multiple benefits of completing these fields. I begin with the first field, the Alt Text.

Google declares that its algorithm checks for data filled in in the Alt Box to assess whether the content is relevant for a search or not. This means that you have to fill in the Alt Text in order to be found by Google’s spiders.

Moreover, the Alt Text has a more in-depth meaning. Alt Text is intended for users who cannot access images easily, such as people who cannot see well. Another reason why Alt Text is important, is that it is useful for people with a bad or slow Internet connection, or those having problems with downloading the images.

It is also of importance not to place keywords in the Alt Text. It will help you to avoid confusion. The best way to fill in the Alt Text is to write exactly what you see in a picture.

The ideal Alt Text is 16 words long. It will help people who cannot see your image, or those who cannot download it, by informing them about the image’s content.

#3 The Description

The next part is the Description. This text can be displayed on the attachment page for your image.

Does an image serve as an addition to a SEO written website? Then make sure that the keyword you used for the page text occurs at least once in your Description. You should not use the keyword too often because that could harm the readability of the sentence. This text is visible for the visitors of your website, so make sure that a good description of your image is being displayed.

#4 The Caption

The Caption of photographs may seem unnecessary. However, it still is very important that it is present. Visitors that briefly go through your website and cannot see the images can be triggered to look at your caption. This will increase the average time spent on the website and will decrease the number of people leaving your page. This important adjustment will help those with a high bounce rate (those that leave your web page immediately) and cause an incentive for them to come back. Do you not have a caption integrated yet? In that case the high bounce rates will negatively affect your SEO position.

/by
,

How to write a product description?

A lot of e-commerce businesses seem to forget how important it is to have good product descriptions. In some cases web shop owners even decide to use product descriptions from the manufacturer. That is a pity, because this can lead to a decrease in the amount of traffic on your web site. Unexciting and unoriginal product descriptions can actually harm your business. On the other hand, appealing product descriptions can bring a boost to your sales.

At Simply Translate we regularly get asked to write product descriptions. Through this blog post you have the possibility to have a look behind the scenes and find out what we focus on when we are writing product descriptions.

There are two main rules that you have to keep in mind:

#1 Describe the added value of the product

A product description must sell the product. It should indicate what needs it is satisfying, it should sound appealing to your clients and it should emphasize why the consumer should buy your product.

#2 Write according to the SEO rules

The chance that you simply appear on the second page of the Google search results is very slim. Therefore, you should make sure that your descriptions are written according to the SEO rules in order to increase your chances to a higher ranking.

You can look for inspiration, however, make sure that your text is unique. A well-written product description does not only increase your chances to be found, it also stimulates sales.

Original product descriptions are essential

The assessment of unique content has become more advanced over time. Google’s latest update, the ‘Farmer’ Algorithm, gives you some useful information on the new assessment style. Make sure that you will not be a victim of duplicate product descriptions nor duplicate text fragments. This even goes for duplicates on your internal pages.

If you decide to use product descriptions from manufacturer or from your competitor, expect a degradation in or even a complete elimination from the search results. The one who indexes content first is considered its owner. So, make sure that you always index your content after its published. You can do this with Google Webmaster Tools.

No plain text, but unique, appealing SEO texts

Before you start writing, try to conduct a research in which you pay particular attention to Google’s search results. Ask yourself: what words are customers using when they are looking for products you sell?

About 70 percent of people uses long tail keywords when they search the web. Usage of this kind of keyword is recommended. Use it in moderation though. In the past you could stuff your product description with keywords. Now you will be punished when your description has too many keywords. For the best effect, keywords should be used with a density of approximately 1,5 percent of the whole text.

Who is your target group and how do you communicate with them?

You should ask yourself this question before you start writing texts for this specific target group. Does your target group consist of housewives? Then try not to write text that is ‘too cool’ and full of slang that will only be understood by the youth.

If you write, do it with pleasure. Texts that are written with pleasure appear to be more sincere, interesting and sophisticated. You should also make sure that your product description is informative. Consumers read your content in order to find answers to their questions. Providing the right information stimulates consumers to make a purchase.

Write your product descriptions in a narrative way

This principle is especially important for the B2C market. An ultimate product description is one that tells a story. It is not about a product itself nor about your company, it is about you describing the experience or status provided by the product. In order to create a narrative product description, you need to have either money or talent, because not everyone is good in writing in a narrative manner.

Want to achieve success with your web shop? Then start writing original product descriptions and take the needs of your customers into account. Take them by the hand and ensure that you write according the SEO requirements in order to give your sales a boost.

/by
,

5 Golden Translation Rules That Will Help Your Company

It is impossible or at least hardly doable for any professional company to achieve success in foreign markets without translating the external communication into other languages. External communication consist of for instance advertising, newsletters, brochures, web content, social media posts and other marketing related content. When intending to enter new markets you should consider translating your external communication into the language(s) of your target country or countries.

While having your external communication in English you may ask ‘Why?’, as ‘so many Internet users speak English nowadays’. Even though the latter is true, it does not mean that you should not care about the other languages your recipients speak. After all, English is the native language to only 30 percent of all Internet users.

The need to understand what you buy

As you want your product or service to be attractive to potential customers you probably put a lot of effort into increasing traffic and conversion rate at your website or webshop. What you might not know, is that as much as 75 percent of Internet users prefer to read web content in their native language. Even if your potential customers know English or French, they still prefer a website that is translated into their own language.

Moreover, it has also been proven that most of the visitors do not make an online purchase if a website or webshop is not available in their native language. Hence, people do not buy what they do not understand! This is of extra importance when offering pricey products or services. With high value purchases consumers want to be even more assured about making a payment, the return possibilities and warranty than in case of low value purchases.

You only make first impression once

When consumers read your external communication, for example your website or webshop, it can cause several reactions. They might be interested, have a neutral opinion, dislike it or even criticize the external communication.

To make a good first impression and to lead people to your product or service you should have a precise translation into their native language. Why? Do you remember a website with bad translation or with language related mistakes? It is very likely that your answer is positive. You probably also remember that this kind of website did not seem trustworthy to you and you quickly navigated to another website. That is exactly why you should already know that creating a good first impression is crucial to convince potential customers to choose your product or service instead over the ones of the competitor.

Five characteristics of a good external communication translation

Knowing that if you want to reach foreign clients you should use their native language, you finally decided to have your external communication translated into other language(s). How to start? We have created a practical set of rules that will help you to build trust among the potential customers in foreign countries:

#1 Target Language

First decide into which language(s) you want to translate your external communication. You can best start with translation into one or two of languages first and then have your communication translated into multiple languages.

#2 Choose carefully

Remember you do not need to translate all your external communication. You can choose to translate descriptions of best-selling products or services and the related advertising content only.

#3 Be productive

Use the most productive type of translation, like for instance Human Automated Translations. This prevents you from having to pay for the same text twice, and allows you to have a native proofread your text.

#4 Do not forget social media

When translating product or service descriptions and basic information about your company, do not forget to include the social media content. Potential customers like to see that your social media account is active and foreign potential clients have higher tendency to respond to your Facebook or Twitter activity in their native language.

#5 Include reviews & comments

Want to go all in? Then opt to also translate customer reviews and blog comments. No less than 70 percent of online consumers were found to trust reviews and messages of other online customers.

/by