SEO: Search Engine Optimization Bible

and discard the words that are not relevant. Once you’ve translated the words, and expanded your

[second language] keyword list, then you must see if the words are still relevant, and if they are back

translated — translated back to English — are they also still relevant?

Our thinking is around liberating the SEO environment. Once translated, then we could build a

glossary that whenever you translate one word, this is what you should use for this word in this

language. Then you could write all of the content around those keywords. And it would be based

on the keywords that have already been examined and carefully chosen.

Jerri: Does the localized way people think affect how they consider SEO localization?

Otter: The way people think does play a role in localization. I think it does. An American might

not think of localization as much as people in other countries do, but that’s changing. A lot of edu-

cation is required to help people understand the need to present localized web sites, but I would

say it varies by corporate culture.

We suggest that you find an SEO partner when you’re localizing your web site. We don’t recommend

hiring an individual, because in our experience, individuals aren’t equipped to handle localization.

Find a partner that specializes in translation, because a company like that has more resources and can

return a translation to you that’s been validated or approved.

Once you’ve decided what keywords you want, you can build a glossary of those terms so the next

time a word comes up, the proper translation for that word is already decided upon. Another tool

you can use is a translation memory.

A translation memory allows you to analyze your pages against the translation memory to leverage

existing translations. This is a method that’s often used in translation to speed the process and to

keep the content consistent.

Translators come and go. But you need consistency and you need to achieve the correct translations

as quickly as possible.

We also work with our clients to understand their link structure. Links are important in SEO, but

translating a link is a little more difficult than translating a word or phrase. So we work with clients

to understand their link structure. So we do essentially a translation of the links on a page to make

it possible to contain a link hierarchy.

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