WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO PAY ATTENTION TO METADATA TRANSLATION?
Correct metadata translation is a very important part of digital marketing that cannot be entrusted to only a machine translator. It can significantly help improve search engine results, as local search engines are by default in the native languages of users. Therefore, if you want to appear on the first page of search results in a specific country, you definitely need to ensure high-quality translations of your website text and metadata.
WHAT IS METADATA?
Metadata is used by every website and page you visit. How we classify and search for information online depends largely on metadata. Essentially, it is “data about other data,” including the name of the web page and product descriptions. In other words, metadata can be considered data indicators. Think back to your most recent search on Google. The keyword or phrase you entered into the search engine was included in the metadata of all the sites selected for you. You may have started your search with a specific term, phrase, meme, place name, slang, or something else. People are creative, and our job is to predict how our ideal buyer might search for the service or product we sell.
Types of metadata
Descriptive metadata – descriptive information about a product or service. It is used for discovery and identification. It includes elements such as title, short summary, author, and main keywords.
Structural metadata – metadata about data sets that indicates how a website is structured, for example, how product pages are organized to form product categories. It describes product types, versions, relationships with other products, etc.
Administrative metadata – data that helps manage a resource, such as the resource type, permissions, and when and how it was created.
Reference metadata (sometimes called explanatory metadata) – information about the content and quality of statistical data.
Statistical metadata – also called process data, can describe the processes that collect, process, or generate statistical data.
Legal metadata – provides information about the author, copyright holder, and public licensing, if specified.
THINK ABOUT THE LENGTH AND USE OF METADATA
When translating a website, don’t forget to translate everything, including the metadata used to find your content.
It takes a lot of time to perfect the content of a homepage or website, making sure that every sentence is the perfect length and that no words are used incorrectly. It is therefore important that the translated metadata is of the appropriate length, especially since, for example, when translating English text into French, it tends to be 20–25% longer. If the meta description is too long or too short, the search engine optimisation of the page or website will suffer, so make sure that the translation is of the appropriate length
The meta title must be unique and should not exceed 50 to 60 characters. Be sure to remember that spaces between words are also counted.
The desired number of characters for a meta description is 120 to 160 characters.
Create accurate, yet appealing metadata. If possible, use relevant keywords to attract readers’ interest while educating them about the page or website. Careful use of keywords (frequency) will ensure that your site or page is indexed by various search engines, as search engine optimisation is based on keywords. Although keywords have become less important to search engines than they used to be, it should not be forgotten that metadata is used to help users quickly find your content.
Keep in mind that most metadata has a specific format, such as the schema.org format.
It is worth making an effort to familiarise yourself with the market for which your translated metadata will be intended. Find keywords that are relevant to your products or services in the relevant foreign market. These keywords may not always be obvious, and they need to be researched by someone who understands both the target language and the content of the translated text.
WHAT TO CONSIDER BEFORE TRANSLATING METADATA?
Before sending the metadata for translation to a language service provider, make sure you are satisfied with the text, its length, and style. If you request updates and changes after the translation work has begun, the entire process will take longer and will most likely cost you more. Skrivanek Baltic recommends editing twice and translating once – this will make your life much easier and ensure that meta descriptions are accurately translated into different languages.
Remember that often the platform chosen as the basis for creating a website offers automatic export of metadata for translation, so you don’t have to copy them manually one by one and send them to your translation agency.
HOW TO DECIDE WHICH LANGUAGES TO TRANSLATE INTO?
Now that you know how important it is to translate and localise content wisely in order to reach a wider audience, the next logical question is: which language should you translate it into? We hope that choosing the languages you want to include on your e-commerce site will not be difficult. Think about where your company currently operates. Where do you want to sell tomorrow? In fact, the answer often lies in analysing your existing customers or clients and the markets you want to enter.
