Hello reader! 🙂

My Ciklopea story began about two years ago. I have a strong background in economics, IT and organization. Before joining the Ciklopea team, I worked in the healthcare industry and for one of the biggest regional IT companies.

I was working on IT process and software development in the healthcare industry. Between jobs, I applied to an open Project Manager position at Ciklopea and it turned out that I had just the right combination of skills and experiences to meet the job requirements. I wanted a new challenge, to explore and master a new IT niche and Ciklopea offered me just that.

What’s the driving force of your job?

People. My colleagues and the clients.

I have been enjoying learning, working and growing with all my teammates and Ciklopea as a company. I aspire to become even better at what I do, to set up the new standards, services and procedures in the language industry, to develop business processes and high quality end products, with the high productivity and the added value for the client from my side.

You committed yourself to website localization and the processes behind it. How did that happen and why?

Given my education and experience, website localization was a natural choice. I took SEO for my master’s degree. Every content, marketing or sales manager understands the importance of SEO and SEM.

Combine that with my IT development experience and you get a perfect formula for a website localization manager. I think that this area is certainly the one where I can really show my strengths.

Which CAT tools make your job easier? Can you name some of their advantages?

I work with practically all of them, but Memsource is my personal choice. The main advantages of Memsource are a very fast and easy assignment of multiple jobs, automatization widgets and the possibility to connect directly with the website.

Once you do some tweaking to adapt the process in accordance with the specific requirements of a client or a website, Memsource is making website localization fast and easy.

How can you automate the website localization process? Are there any specific plugins that can come in handy?

There is a specific plugin for website localization automatization. For the WordPress CMS there is the WPML plugin (WordPress Multilingual Plugin) that, combined with Memsource automation widget, provides an optimum value for the client, high level of process control, reduces the time and the costs and make my job easier. I have more time to focus on the business process development and to create additional services and benefits for the client.

What’s the toughest/most complex thing about it (website L10n)?

Setting the process up. Every website is different and has its specificities. Good analysis, preparation and testing is a must. Another important aspect is having a good information flow with the client’s marketing and sales department in order to tailor the localization process in accordance with to the client’s goals, short-term and long-term strategies.

A quality feedback on the localized material leads to creation of translation assets in a stable and high quality process that provides high quality end product over and over again.

How can the client’s feedback help you? Has there been any situations where it wasn’t helpful and where your suggestions were more practical and beneficial for the client?

There are examples of both. In one project the client edited the translation on their end without informing the project manager and that did lead to complications in the localization process, consistency and accuracy errors.

On the other hand, a quality feedback on the localized material leads to creation of termbases and other translation assets in a stable and high quality process that provides high quality end product over and over again.

When you’re not working hard to deliver high quality solutions, how do you fill your time? What are your passions outside the office space?

I have several fields of interest. Shooting pool, playing basketball and playing PES (gamers will know what PES is 🙂 ) are some of my favourite things to do. Besides that, I like to watch a good movie (at home and at cinema), hit the gym , ride the bike.

I have somewhat funny hobby – I like to tweak OS or game setup to perfection and after the game is running as smooth as possible – my job is done and I usually do not play the game afterwards 🙂

The three things you would take to a desert island?

A knife, a flint and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe – it would be a perfect opportunity to fully enjoy, experience and understand my favourite book

If it were up to you, how would you make the world a better place?

Like in the Ancient Greece – I would delete all financial records and redistribute the wealth among the people.

Describe Ciklopea in one sentence.

Added value for everyone involved.

The post My Ciklopea Story: Nikola Đorđević appeared first on Ciklopea.

Connecting with people has never been easier, considering that significant parts of our lives are now happening online. For business owners, it can mean setting up and regularly maintaining a website, which will represent them in the best possible way. However, sometimes having a website alone does not guarantee success, especially if going global is one of business’s main goals. The global markets require content that (almost) anyone can understand, which is why website localization is necessary.

It is a complex and serious task that takes time, resources, practical knowledge and a lot of patience to be performed the right way. Luckily, there are technologies designed to optimize the localization process and integrate it into website development. What makes the whole process less painful are definitely content management systems (CMS). In addition to being user-friendly, they also feature a bunch of plugins and modules enabling the users to set up multilingual website. The plugins can be easily integrated with the computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools, which can help speed up the process later on.

CAT integration

Surely, you have heard of WordPress, the most popular and the most powerful CMS of them all, but maybe you still haven’t figured out all of its possibilities. Because it is an open source software, it offers developers endless possibilities for tweaks and expansions. There is one plugin in particular that has been designed for optimization of localization projects and it is called WPML (WordPress Multilingual) Plugin. It enables full integration of cloud-based translation productivity software into the CMS, making the localization process smoother, faster and leaner.

On the other hand, there is Drupal, another widely used content management platform. Just like WordPress, it has numerous modules used for website translation and localization, whether it be content or interface itself. Some of the useful modules would be Localization client module, Localization update and Internationalization (i18n) module. To be completely honest, none of them can stand alone, or at least cannot provide you with satisfying results. The idea is to use them symbiotically in order to launch proud-worthy multilingual website.

The good thing about Drupal is that it gets along with CAT tools, primarily with Memsource. This means there’s a special module that synergizes the two. Thanks to the Memsource Translation Plugin, every piece of content can be sent to Memsource Cloud platform for translation and pulled back into Drupal for review and publishing, preserving the code integrity and optimizing the localization process. It can be imported manually or automatically using the Automated Project Creation feature. It’s important to emphasize that Memsource plugin only supports Drupal 8, which is the current version of the software.

Major benefits of CAT-CMS integration

Website localization is not only cost-effective, but it can also be a time-saver, since processes are optimized and automatized. In addition, it preserves code and layout integrity, which means HTML, CSS and other codes will not get lost in translation. The layouts, fonts, image and video settings will remain intact across the localized versions.

Wasting time and resources on preparation, export and import of textual content for localization becomes a thing of the past. Also, a website can be localized to more languages simultaneously as the completed content is automatically assigned to the linguists working on all required languages.

CRM, CAT and CMS – what’s the catch?

Okay, you know what CMS and CAT are, but what on Earth is CRM now and how are these three things connected?

Well, every business should show consideration for their customers, which is why they’re trying to excel at Customer Relationship Management. However, to build and maintain a good relationship with customers, it’s necessary to get to know them.

Tracking your online traffic and collecting data on your visitors can help you get closer to your audiences, as well as to understand how they use your website. Once you gather all that important information, you can adapt your website accordingly. You can achieve it through localization of the relevant and engaging content or any other way that will show them they’re not just a sales target to you, but rather a valuable partner.

It’s Worth It

It seems that the producers of content management software have recognized the need for creating and maintaining multilingual websites intended for wide use. The main purpose of such websites is to reach the minds and hearts of audiences across the globe. And of course, the biggest benefit here is yours, since expanding your ideas outside the state borders means faster growth of your business.

No one said getting into website localization would be easy, especially not with all these modules and plugins that can leave you utterly confused, but it’s the inevitable step on the business success ladder.

But it will pay off in the end. Literally.

The post Website Localization: Why Is It Important and How to Do It Painlessly appeared first on Ciklopea.

According to an older research, more than a billion of people use the Internet for banking, streaming music or looking a job. More than two times more use it for e-mail communication and reading the news. The data also show that e-commerce and online shopping services are on a high rise, since online payment platforms are much more accessible and safer.

Of course, advertisers now have an eye on these trends and behaviour patterns and are adjusting their budgets towards advertising via Internet and mobile applications. Which brings us back to knowing your audiences and customers and showing them ads in their mother tongue. Showing them ads in Klingon has a little to none relevance for them, just like showing Europeans prices in yens is a waste of time and money.

With exception of e-commerce, a huge amount of money, even up to $120 billion per year, goes on mobile app downloads. Having in mind the high number of available apps, a very smart move would be to adapt and localize them for each particular market.

Software and app localization services are more and more requested, since software developers and company owners have figured out that they could approach their customers easier that way.

Incomparably higher consumption in regards to other activities on the Internet are the activities related to travelling, whether it be purchasing plane or bus tickets online or booking an accommodation.

Data from 2015 show that people spent over $810 billion on those kinds of activities. Looking at these high numbers, we’re coming to the conclusion that it definitely has sense to localize booking websites and other tourism materials. This increases the chances of buying decision and it’s easier to perform transactions.

In addition to the mentioned examples, active Internet users are spending money on books, CDs, DVDs and online courses as well.

This indicates that there’s the need for diverse and accessible content. However, in order to use it, we have to understand it first. Which is why now is the time to ask yourself why you haven’t thought of localizing your content before.

The post How the World Uses the Internet and What Localization Has to Do with It? appeared first on Ciklopea.

Analyze Online Traffic and Research the Market

If you own an e-Business, you’ve already done the research on your target markets, but it’s always useful to remind you how important this first step is. Your website analytics can provide invaluable information – from where the interest for your content comes from to demographics and desires of your (potential) clients.

Besides that, researching the foreign market can help you define the niche for your products and business. This should include an investigation of their GDP per capita, number of speakers of certain language, number of internet users and other information that could be relevant to your business.

Price Tags

Now that you’ve done research on your desired markets, it’s time to dive into the practicalities.

Of course, the first logical step would be to localize price tags. That means displaying prices in the local currency, at competitive rates, with the proper symbols and decimal marks as they are used in the target market.

There is also the possibility of displaying them in two or more currencies, which can be very useful and successful, particularly on territories where both local and foreign currency are used.

Address Formats and Addressing Customers

Although every address in the world usually contains the same information, different countries use different formats of addresses and postal codes. Make sure to check the right format for addresses in the target territory.

The same goes with addressing your customers. Maybe it sounds right to you, but the same form of personal addressing may be acceptable in one culture and offensive in another. If you want satisfied customers, it’s important to pay special attention to those kinds of details.

Laws, Regulations and Logistics

Trade regulation laws and legal requirements differ from one country to another, which is why every legal requirement, from the calculation of taxes to information that needs be provided to the customer has to be studied carefully.

The most important thing for your customers, aside from the price and the quality of your product is its shipping cost. Even though it can seriously affect the prices of your products or services, you have to think of the solution for delivering the final product in the cheapest, fastest and the safest possible way.

Successful e-commerce business cannot be built overnight but it starts with a thorough research and examination of the foreign markets and your targeted audiences.

Stay tuned for Part Two in which we will cover the technical, cultural and marketing aspects of e-commerce localization.

The post Localization Guidelines for e-Commerce Websites: Part One – Getting Started appeared first on Ciklopea.

What you used to know about the traditional advertising should be buried ten feet underground, as the new millennium has brought us the new rules. If you’re keeping track with the trends, then I’m sure you spend at least half of your time online or even make a living out of it.

For marketers, this new platform meant changing the game completely and giving themselves into the hands of uncertainty and ever-changing global movements. Which got me thinking about the mainstream definition of insanity which says it’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, then apparently everyone in the digital world is insane, because online advertising and digital marketing are exactly that. Sometimes doing the same thing can lead to different results, and there is no way of knowing what it’s going to be today.

One-way ticket to Localization

Advertising through Google, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms can do wonders if you know how to use them to your advantage. One thing I’m sure of is that businesses and individuals who offer accommodation can really benefit from online advertising, especially if they’re familiar with the words remarketing and localization.

The main advantage is that it gives them the opportunity to reach not wider, but the widest audience. Places that once seemed like never reachable dreams are now just a few clicks away. Of course, in order to get closer to your desired audience, it’s necessary to give them what they already know, so they don’t have to get out of their comfort zone (or the bathtub, for that matter). That means providing them with information in a way that won’t make their heads hurt. One way to do it is to be multilingual-friendly.

Of course, conducting research on the demographics of your audiences is the first step to growing your business. Once you establish where your most frequent guests are coming from, it’s time to adapt and localize your website. For example, if you’ve concluded that your visitors are coming from France or Germany, the logical step would be to localize your content to those languages. Another thing that’s important, and that most booking sites are doing now, is showing the prices in their currencies. As you already know, translation is more than a mere adaptation of textual content these days, so make sure to do your part of the job the right way. Personally, I’m a big fan of this trend, because it saves me the agony of constantly recalculating my money and the budget.

Catch me if you can

Now that you have set up the website, it’s time to take a step further and ping your future customers with appealing online ads. We’ve said this many times before, but it seems like it’s important to say it again – no one will buy and use a product or a service they can’t understand. This means that localization is a business necessity. However, if you think it would be too much for you or out of your depth, you can always seek help from language service providers, who are usually the experts in the field.

Once you’ve completely prepared your digital content, it’s time to enjoy the power of online advertising, which is not only easy to use, but they can be recycled as many times as possible. Now what’s up to you is to track the traffic and the growth of your income.

However, when you’re (re)targeting your audience, try not to be too spammy, since it may result in blocking, reporting or turning customers towards your competitors. You want customers to come back to you, not to throw you into their spam filter. Find the golden mean and be patient – the success can’t come over night.

Bon voyage, my friend!

The post Going Global Digitally: Localization of Tourist Ads in the Adriatic Region appeared first on Ciklopea.

Website localization alone is a tricky business as it is, and when you add SEO to the equation, it can easily turn into a nightmare – particularly if you’re not familiar with the rules or if you decide to go against them. I’m not going to lie – it can be tough sometimes, but there are several tips and tricks that can help you increase your online traffic.

If you find yourself at a digital cul-de-sac, not knowing where to start or which parts of SEO texts you need to localize, it’s always a good idea to take a step back and think of a general text structure. Then think of how you want the people to find your content and interact with it.

Keyword list

Searching for what we want to see in most cases happens through keywords and simple phrases. Knowing that, you’ll have to do a research on what keywords people use to find your website and then you’ll have to make a list out of them. Once you’ve set the list of terms in your language, it’s time to localize them to other target languages, since search habits differs from culture to culture. Note that there’s no such thing as a simple keyword translation – they need to be researched for each market.

Audience oriented content

It sounds obvious, but I guess you’re not producing the content just for yourself. Naturally, you want it to reach a particular wider audience and to make it happen, you need to shape it in accordance with the intended target market environment. It’s not enough to simply translate the content as it may have a negative impact on your business, it needs to be localized and thoroughly prepared for different  cultures.

Keywords in text

Now it’s time to use those keywords that you previously researched. SEO texts should contain appropriate amount of keywords so that it could be easy to find, but it’s also important not to overuse them. Google will automatically penalize the materials with an unhealthy amount of keywords and mark them as spam. Besides that, you want your texts to have a natural, understandable flow that can be enjoyed and understood by the users, not just computer-generated gibberish word lists.

Meta descriptions

Well-written, catchy meta descriptions are what attracts readers and potential customers to click on your page. Obviously, it’s the essential part of SEO localization process, but be aware of character length restrictions. Even though Google announced expansion of snippets in search results (speculatively up to 320 characters), it is recommended to stick to the original 160 characters. After all, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Titles

Title is the first thing anyone sees when searching for something on the Web, so it needs to be accurate, interesting and mildly provocative – but also true in the context of material. Nobody likes clickbait, neither users nor Google. Its localized equivalent, as every other, should be clear and concise, telling the reader what the text is about.

URLs

When localizing SEO content, URLs should not be neglected either. Make sure they contain the keyword and be careful not to make them too long.

ALT tags

Since it’s impossible for search engines to crawl pictures, we use alt tags to tell Google what’s in the picture. For that reason it’s important to localize them as well so that they match the website language, which should also contain the keywords.

A regular localization of textual elements is simply enough anymore. If you want to improve your business strategy and online performance, you need to get deeper into adaptation of your content, products and services. That means getting to know your target audiences, how they browse, search and behave on the Internet and what kind of content they like to engage with. Most importantly, your primary goal should be giving them only the relevant, accessible and easy to find information.

When dealing with content production, it’s always good to have in mind that it needs to be unique and attention worthy. Sometimes it can be difficult to accomplish because new content is produced every minute and it’s becoming hard to distinguish good content from the bad one. But you may be sure that the audience will always be able to distinguish the good from the bad sooner or later, most of the time sooner.

If you think content production might cause you trouble, you can always chose a partner in crime who knows all the secrets of digital marketing. I hope that now you have a clearer picture of why is it important to localize all the content on your website and not just the visible text.

SEO next time! 😉

The post Localization and SEO: A Perfect Match appeared first on Ciklopea.

Reviewing analytics for your business’ website can often be tedious and boring. But it is also the best place to find insights on new markets. If you’re a British company providing IT solutions, serving only the UK and analytics reveals that a large chunk of your views have been coming from Ireland or Germany, then it’s time to review your policies and expand. Keep in mind, although Google dominates Europe and America, Yandex is used by most of Russia and Baidu equally in China. So if these countries are your goals, they may require further research.

Website Localization

When translating and localizing your site, do you need to be multiregional or multilingual?

Multiregional refers, for example, to add both UK and US versions of English to keep both markets happy and similarly for other polycentric languages, whereas multilingual refers to adding an extra version of the site in the target country’s language (just like our own website is available in four languages). Google doesn’t like content translated by machine translation, so to get good rankings, you’ll have to get a quality LSP (language services provider) involved too.

Domain and URL

The next step to success after speaking the language, is looking local. Country Code Top Level Domain Name (ccTLD) is a great way to boost your ranking in the target company. To look local, your site needs a domain in the target country. Hosting your site on a ccTLD may be an additional cost, but it gives your new customers extra trust in the site, although some countries don’t make it easy to bear their signature. For example, gaining .co.uk is a lot easier than gaining .ie, as Ireland requires Irish residency to setup a .ie URL.

Site Structure

Since the internet never stops evolving, neither should your website. Every website could be improved if you have the passion or interest to keep developing it. One of the biggest mistakes a business can make is finishing its website and leaving it to rust.

Your website does require a lot of attention to grow. Annual restructures and research for best practice is also helpful.

International Keyword Research

If you’re dedicated to bettering your website, tools like SEMrush and MOZ will show you how your site is performing in target countries. They also come with keyword research tools. These tools will help show keywords that you should be using in these countries.

Performing SEO into a new language can be a bit of a minefield so these tools will help point you in the right direction. Just remember, there is no such thing as translating a keyword! Every language has a different way of searching for something, so you have to make sure that your search terms are local too – and global success comes from local adaptation.

The post International SEO: The What, The How, and The When appeared first on Ciklopea.

1. Get Insight into the New Markets

You probably already have at least an idea on what your next foreign market will be. But is it really right for your product/service?

First, you should check the local market trends and the demand for your industry on the given local market by using the dedicated market research tools and resources. Next, you should check the data such as website hits from the desired location and keywords related to your business in the target languages.

This step includes data crunching, strategic and marketing decisions but also a little bit of intuition and for these reasons it is probably the most important one.

2. Analyze the Local Competition

Knowing where similar businesses stand on the local market and what makes your business different from the local competitors and detecting the comparable pros and cons of your company is always a valuable information that may help you get a more realistic expectations from a new market entry.

3. Set the Conversion Goals

Every industry is different, every business is different and every market is different, but taking the idiosyncrasies of your own company and the data collected above, you should get an estimated conversion value of your localized website.

The estimated conversion values and rates will help you set realistic conversion goals to be achieved on the local market.

4. Calculate Localization Costs

Once you get your data, you can decide on the localization scope, number of languages and calculate the localization costs of a new market entry.

5. Estimate the ROI

Return of investment is sometimes elusive and difficult to calculate, but with all the mentioned figures collected you may be able to make a pretty good ROI estimation that may help you make the final decision.

The post Assessing Website Localization Prospectiveness: 5 Steps appeared first on Ciklopea.

However, there is an additional step that has to be taken to make sure that search engines on a local market take your localized website into account and to announce its presence to the local online audiences.

Having an online business localized to Spanish does not necessarily mean that search engines used in the Spanish-speaking countries will recognize your website as a local one.

For example, having an online business localized to Spanish does not necessarily mean that search engines used in the Spanish-speaking countries will recognize your website as a local one and list it among the search results.

In other words, a translated and localized website is speaking to people on the local market. A multilingual SEO strategy is required to make it speak to the search engines on the local market as well. Multilingual SEO is there to drive traffic to your website and send your business message to the local Internet users.

A multilingual SEO strategy combines programming, web design, market research, marketing and linguistic skills and, depending on the scope, may range from simple defining of keywords to full-fledged multistep projects.

While an LSP is primarily there to translate and localize your website, it may also be helpful with the multilingual SEO, particularly nowadays, when more and more LSPs are expanding the scopes of their services, including SEO.

The post Multilingual SEO – When Website Localization is not enough appeared first on Ciklopea.

It is said time and again that localization is much more complex and demanding process than translation, and this is particularly true when the word is about website localization. It is necessary, but it is just not enough to translate the textual and to adapt the nontextual elements of the website. Quality, style, tone and accuracy of the localized information are essential.

The elements of the website to be localized that require special attention (and that should be the first to be localized) are product information and support pages. Marketing materials such as ebooks, white papers, case studies, news, audio and video materials and blog posts are always extremely popular with the users and should be localized whenever it is possible.

A website is never complete – it always requires more or less frequent updates and a localized version is no different. Depending on the type of a website, its structure, target audience and content, the frequency of updates may span from once a week to once a year, but updates should always be considered in a localization plan, no matter whether you opt for translation proxy or the standard localization process.

To conclude, a good website localization strategy should be focused on the two main elements – quality of the localized content and frequent updates.

The post Website Localization: What Truly Matters appeared first on Ciklopea.

People are usually more perceptive to the content in their own language

This was true even before the Internet was invented, but in the days of the dominance of English, it may be even truer – people simply like to hear or see the content in their own, first language. Having a website localized into languages other than English means reaching out to more potential users.

Website is above all the interface of the enterprise, serving as an interactive bridge between the company and its customers or users.

More than 70 percent of Internet users do not speak English as their first language

English is the dominant language of the culture, technology and business of our era, it is the most widely learned second language in the world, but it is not the first language to a great deal of Internet users.

The localized version of a website must be a “mirror image” of the original one

The localized version of a website is not a new version of the website, but a customized version of an existing one, usually in English. It has to be represented in the target language and culture as if it originated within them, but it has to follow the pattern of the original one and convey the exact same information.

The localization process is easier when the original website is complete, tested and stable

It is not only easier, it is also safer and less complicated and promises better results – the finalized source text is translated and the finalized design elements are adapted and no quick and stressful changes are required.

Website localization is more than website translation

Translation is the central process of localization, but not the only one – it also includes the localization of code, and, in certain cases, images, audio and video files, interactive content and other multimedia.

The post What you need to know before making your website global appeared first on Ciklopea.