A website is the ‘shop window’ for professional services such as Law Offices. It’s also often the first port of call for potential clients looking for these services. It is crucial that a website conveys qualities of trust and credibility in all the languages of its audiences. Doing so supports the reputation built by these firms.
How information is displayed on a law firm’s website in all languages is of principal importance for building trust and creating a good impression. To effectively convey your branded message to all target audiences, official translation and localization must be at the heart of your website strategy.
Examples of website translation mistakes are easy to find and, fortunately, easy to avoid if you have the right tools and prior knowledge. Below are five of the most common mistakes made by law firms, along with advice to prevent falling into the same traps.
The Lure of Machine Translation
The temptation of machine translation for creating multilingual websites at a low cost and quick turnaround lures many firms towards these services. However, the poor syntax, grammar, and cultural insensitivity that results can damage credibility and create a poor first impression.
Translated landing pages will reach a wider audience, but if a confusing message about your services is conveyed you will be unable to convert people to paying clients.
Hiring professional legal translation services are the most cost-effective and efficient way of avoiding this mistake.
Experienced legal translators will be subject matter experts in the relevant legal fields. They’ll have the appropriate skills and tool at their disposal to optimize your pages for search engines through their understanding of localizing content for target demographics.
Unintelligible Automatic Responses
After taking the time to translate and localize web copy, the next steps of the conversion funnel must be considered.
Beginning your conversation in a prospect’s language only for auto-replies to arrive in a language that is unintelligible to them is certain to disrupt their journey.
Sensitive, technical, and urgent legal matters rely on clear understanding on both sides. It is essential that all steps of a prospect’s journey are delivered in a language that they can understand to ensure business is not lost.
Translate Profiles and Descriptions
Often, website visitors will have been directed to your firm by recommendations from friends, family, or colleagues. In their search for a legal firm to take on their case, lawyer profiles and service descriptions will enable them to make their decision. To avoid losing this warm lead, your lawyer’s profiles and descriptions should be translated. Doing so will also decrease bounce rates and improve conversions.
Google Analytics will provide the information necessary to ascertain which lawyer profiles receive the highest inbound traffic, allowing you to prioritize which profiles to translate first. This will confer the greatest impact in the shortest time to provide you with a quick win for your firm’s website.
Localizing Marketing Assets
Translating marketing assets such as email communications and newsletters for audiences of other languages is worth your time.
The use of email and newsletters to connect with all clients is an essential part of your marketing team’s toolkit. As these are often the first point of contact, translations must be of the highest quality.
Sending translated newsletters and emails to arrive on national holidays that are relevant to your target audience will demonstrate an understanding of their culture as well as their language. They will also provide an opportunity to build trust and credibility with your audience.
Supporting Clients Beyond Your Website
Creating multilingual websites that avoid the pitfalls above will be ineffective if your firm cannot support clients beyond their digital interactions in these languages. Think beyond your website to ensure you can integrate website initiatives with your internal and customer support initiatives.
Think about the entire client journey: If they call with a query, can your customer support team converse over the phone or via email in a language that they can comprehend? If a client needs to supply further documentation pertaining to their case, can your firm interpret them so that they can be understood?
Speaking a client’s language at all points of their interaction with your law firm will allow you to establish trust, build credibility, and develop a professional relationship with them. You can always opt to include a part of your website listing the different languages you service.
Demonstrating a clear understanding of your audience by communicating in a language they understand will convince clients that your firm is able to tailor its services to their requirements. It will also win you additional recommendations for further business. By starting with accurate website translations, the entire onboarding process from visitor to client becomes faster, easier, and overall more effective.
About the Author: Morningside Translations is a leading translation and localization company with a worldwide team of over 5000 linguists. They are dedicated to client satisfaction and in bridging the gap in communication between businesses languages. They bring personalized attention and a passion for excellence to every translation assignment, regardless of company size or industry.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
