Six Tips for Translating Websites into Arabic
The Arabic language is one of the fastest-growing languages on the internet and is ranked 12th for the number of translated websites overall. Over 420 million people speak Arabic across the world. With the rising demand for Arabic translations, especially for websites, we thought we should provide some tips to get the best Arabic translations possible. After all, while there are a lot of Arabic website translations, many of them aren’t well structured. With some changes to your website localization process, you can quickly make improvements to your translations.
#1 Know Your Audience so You Use the Right Dialect
Arabic, like many other languages, has different dialects spoken across the Middle East. The best way to reach as many internet users as possible is to use Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is commonly used and understood across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. However, if you want to target specific regions, you need to provide content that uses the specific dialect spoken in that particular region.
#2 Conducting a Cultural Correctness Assessment is a Must
Content in Arabic, whether on a website or in other types of content, has many cultural considerations. In general, the MENA region is a conservative and sensitive community when it comes to culture, religion and history. So conducting a cultural correctness assessment, which includes things like evaluating the appropriateness of images, text and references, is a must.
Without going through this step, you may offend your audience and lose potential business. The content simply must be user-friendly for your target audience.
#3 Be Succinct and Catchy
Online readers have a shorter attention span than ever before. They don’t have the time or desire to spend much time searching for what they’re looking for. As a result, don’t have too much information, and avoid long and non-catchy openings.
Make your sentences, paragraphs and messages as short and engaging as possible to draw their attention. It’s not about how much content is there; copywriting is the art of saying some meaningful with few yet engaging words.
#4 Avoid Jargons
If you use jargons, you’re limiting the accessibility of your website to specific audiences. Speaking your target’s audience language and using common terms will keep your target audience interested and your website informative.
#5 Consider Linguistic Details
When providing web copy into Arabic, consider some linguistic challenges like the left-to-right direction (LTR) of Arabic, which affects the layout of the website.
It’s important to localize the layout as well so the content flows in the proper direction. Another challenge is that Arabic text expands, and so you need to carefully consider this in the website template to avoid any truncated text.
#6 Online QA & Testing
An online QA checklist will take linguistic items and more into consideration. QA online testing is a very crucial step, as it ensures the integrity and functionality of the website. After the content is uploaded to the Content Management System (CMS), a QA expert must go through the QA testing to ensure zero linguistic, functional, contextual or cultural issues.
Conclusion
Your website content is a powerful marketing tool for your brand, as no customer will choose a brand that describes their products/services poorly. So, investing in a thorough website translation process is the best way to ensure your Arabic business success and make your products/services stand out from the crowd.
