Like with translating a website, translating a blog, or maintaining a multilingual one, there are a lot of benefits. As such, you might strongly boost your traffic, broaden your audience, and create competitive brand recognition. Still, there are some downsides as well. Most of them relate to the resource side of your business and actually depend on how you see the benefit-downside ratio, yet, they are worth mentioning too. Here is the list of some pros and cons of translating a WordPress (and any other) blog for you and your business.
Pro #1 – It is easy for WordPress blogs. WordPress contains a vast number of useful features for both the beginning and advanced bloggers, including a plugin for multilingual blog creation. You don’t have to post everything in a single stream as well as do not have to create multiple blogs. All you have to do is activate a needed language page and post the needed content there. The content that you post, however, will have to be translated by a professional rather than a machine. But more on that later.Pro #2 – Reaching a bigger audience. It is quite obvious that if you post in more languages you will more likely reach a bigger number of people. This does not mean that you have to translate your blog into Chinese right away, for instance, yet, you can consider the second most spoken language, which is quite close to our heart and which is Spanish, in terms of the number of native speakers.Pro #3 – Increased traffic and international SEO. With more people reaching your blog, you get bigger traffic, which means higher positions in search engine results. This way, you increase your online presence, which allows you to spread your ideas more widely and efficiently, create influence, or increase your revenue, in case your blog is related to your business.Pro #4 – Increased trust. By maintaining a multilingual blog, you show great respect to your followers and impress strangers. You will more likely be visited by a bigger audience if it understands you better.Pro #5 – Getting more content. The more content you have, the more interesting and diverse your blog is. Blogging in different languages means blogging for different cultural domains, which in turn will drive you to learn something new and largely diversify your content. Essentially, you will create an endless loop. You will be motivated to reach a bigger audience with the audience being interested in your content and, hence, motivated to be reached.
Still, a multilingual blog has some downsides, most of which are related to extra effort and money.
Con #1 – Needing more content. While just a paragraph ago, having more content was pointed out as a benefit, getting more content requires you to put more effort into generating and developing more ideas. Unlike a website, a blog cannot contain generic or repetitive information. While it does not seem like a critical issue, bloggers’ burnout is actually a thing.Con #2 – Need for professionals. Despite blogging being a rather informal work, you still have to approach it professionally in order to gain your audiences’ trust and respect. This strongly relates to translation as well. In order to make sure your blog shines in all languages, you will need to get a certified translation online. This problem, is, however, quite easily solvable even if you are low on cash as even top translation services do not usually charge that much.Con #3 – Additional costs. As you will need professional translators, you will have to pay for them. Although translation companies and freelance specialists do not usually charge much for their services, you will have to use their service often, to make sure your blog stays fresh. The problem here, thus, is more in volume and cost, rather than a price.Con #4 – Need for blog adaptation. Many languages have their nuances and specifics, however, some of them go extreme. In case if you, for instance, would like to translate your blog into Arabic or Hebrew language, you will have to reorganize your blog as those languages have left-to-right orientation, contrary to English, for instance. That, again, will create additional costs.Con #5 – Additional SEO work. While international SEO was already pointed out as a plus, it also requires a professional effort and, hence, a corresponding specialist, who you will certainly have to pay additionally.
If to Translate, then Approach Seriously While pros are many and sufficient indeed, there are some downsides with blog content translation. Although blogging might seem easy, it is actually hard work and may even be equal to a full-time job. So, it is important to approach your blog professionally, despite its somewhat informal nature.
Author Bio:
Mark researches and shares information about the modern ways of life, education, travel, and more. Every day, he makes sure to overview the latest trends and compile them into interesting and enjoyable posts. Join Mark on his journey through life’s modernity and learn something new every day!
