It’s common for U.S. based startups to overlook the fact that English speaking internet users only comprise about 20% of all internet users. So if you’re not translated into other languages, you’re missing a very big piece of pie – and who doesn’t like pie? Even if you’re ad based revenue model doesn’t mold well into other countries, it’s rare that more exposure won’t help – A rising tide lifts all boats…
Realize early on you’ll want to support multiple languages for your website and make sure you support unicode. This way, before you even being translating into another language, you’ll start seeing profiles and pages on your site in other languages – and then you’ll know who to hit up for translations (^_^) The second thought to keep in mind is to use a framework that supports different language files for phrases you’ll be presenting to users.
Once you know who speaks another language, reach out to them. You don’t have to do it all at once, but incrementally overtime. Somebody sends you a question, and you check out their page or profile and notice another language? Ask them if they’d be interested in translating. More often they’ll be happy to help. Why? Because not only do they get the advantage of using your service in their preferred language, but they realize the benefit they are giving to other comrades in their country. It’s pretty motivating for many people, and a link thanking them somewhere in your credits doesn’t hurt.
And when you get users helping you, make sure they realize how much you appreciate it. Keep track of their progress, send them thank you’s from time to time along the process. Let them know they are not alone, but that there are other users translating as well. And when they process is finished, make sure to push out the changes quickly – it’s not fair to have people do all this work, then leave them hanging.
Anecdotal Corner
Interesting enough, the first site wide translation on our new site, was by a user reaching out to us. He was running a Brazilian soccer forum for his friends. The site was in english, but they posted in Portuguese. He asked if we had plans to translate into other langauges, I said we did, and would want the help of our community to translate. Cut to a few emails later, and I sent him a text file of about 1,000 phrases. Within 2 weeks we opened our doors to an entirely new audience.
p.s. Bonus points to you if you noticed I ‘translated’ my ’smiley’ up there to a Japanese style. (^_^)
