Lots of local companies have dedicated SEO professionals who understand the value of content. Since the demand for onsite and social media content is so great, repurposing old content into new is standard practice.

However, things can get tricky when content repurposing projects include translation activities.

Translating niche-specific in a foreign language is more difficult than it seems. If you don’t deliver a consistently accurate and culturally-sensitive translation, you’ll hurt the quality of your content.

That’s why in this article, you’ll read about 3 different approaches for content translation.

Let’s dig in!

Translate Content Yourself

The first thing that usually comes to mind is to translate content yourself, especially if you’re translating from your native language to English.

It’s no secret that the global English level proficiency is at an all-time high. This notion was confirmed in a 2021 report from EF Education First.

Source: Statista

English proficiency is rapidly improving across all continents, with European countries on top of the list. This hardly comes as a surprise, given that millennials will represent 75% of the global workforce.

In-house content creators are tempted to save the marketing budget. However, you are going to need 3 key things to get the job done:

A superior command of the English language. If you want to translate large amounts of text, your grammar, vocabulary, and syntax must be at the very least on a C1 level. To get an objective feel of your English skills, test your skills.

Often, marketers have misleading confidence in their grammar skills with several blind spots to things like tone of voice and communication style. These can prove to‌ be fatal errors that harm the quality of your translated content.

Keep in mind that a C1 level of English proficiency is not a guarantee you’ll do a terrific job.

Writing Aid tools. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a post for your company’s LinkedIn or onsite content, you’re going to need to rely on writing aid tools. They are incredibly useful because they highlight your grammar mistakes and recommend different phrases.

Some tools, like Grammarly, have advanced features that track the clarity and focus of your text. Even if you have excellent English proficiency, you’ll benefit from writing aid tools.

Translation software. As you’re translating your content, you’re going to encounter lots of atypical phrases and words. The quickest way to do it is to use Google Translate.

Word to the wise - relying on Google Translate to translate large chunks of text can be disastrous. While it works decently well, the translation quality of Google Translate (and other translation software) can vary. So before posting any content, triple-check to see if the translation is accurate.

This statement doubles down if you’re working with niche-specific content with lots of technical terms.

Hire a Freelancer for Translations

When repurposing native language content into English posts and articles, many companies hire freelancers on a project-to-project basis.

If you don’t have absolute confidence in your staff’s grammar skills, this move makes perfect sense at first. After all, it’s better to hire a freelancer than deliver a flawed translation.

When it comes to translation tasks, there are many different platforms for outsourcing professionals.

Here are the leading sites for hiring translators and writers:

Upwork is an established freelancer platform with professionals offering a wide range of services. Translating is one of the more popular assignment requests. Like many freelancer platforms, before hiring a freelancer, you’ll be able to see their rating and what kind of specific projects are they best suited for.

Fiverr is another popular platform for outsourcing freelancers, with one important distinction. Unlike Upwork, Fiverr allows professionals to provide a wide range of services, instead of one specific. If your translation project requires additional writing or repurposing for multiple formats, you’re more likely to find a freelancer with a wider range of skills.

Gengo is a rising star in the freelance translator industry. Some of their clients include Buzzfeed, YouTube, and The Huffington Post. Their line of expertise is customer-help articles and email templates.

Even though hiring freelancers is considered to be a compromise between quality and saving money, it’s not a foolproof translation strategy.

When you work with freelancers, you have limited correction requests, meaning that there’s a risk of a freelancer doing a mediocre job and not delivering the full results.

Let’s face it, a 4.5-star rating does not guarantee an excellent translation, especially if the assignment is difficult.

In case you’re dissatisfied with the results and want your money back, you’ll often going to have to work things out through customer support. That can take days, if not weeks, which is bad when you’re on a tight schedule.

Hire a Translation Agency for Content Translations

Hiring a translation agency is about as sure as you can get when translating content.

An agency has trained professionals that guarantee consistency, accurate translation, and understanding of the cultural sensitivities of the English language. More importantly, they have a logistical structure in place that ensures the translations are delivered on time.

For that reason, translators will never run out of business; even in a world where English proficiency is at an all-time high.

The obvious setback of working with a translation agency is the increased costs of translating. However, that’s often not the case.

If you’re hiring a freelance translator that does a poor job, you already lost money. In addition, the quality of the repurposed content will drop. You’re less likely to make a return on your content.

Finally, if you’re on a tight schedule to translate lots of text, the probability of you missing the deadline is more likely when you’re not working with a certified translation agency.

You can imagine how easily the expenses can add up. Oftentimes, it’s much smarter to hire trusted professionals than spend days researching freelancers, or take up a translation project that you’re not equipped to deal with.

Conclusion

As we said, there are 3 ways to translate your content:

• DIY

• Hire a freelancer

• Hire a translation agency

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide which option works best for the type of content you want to repurpose and translate. However, keep in mind that your users have high expectations for content.

If you underestimate the complexity of the translation task, you introduce other risks that can cost more than what you planned on saving. Think about what you read today and hire our agency for your translation assignments.