Follow these steps to define your goals, choose target languages, and structure your content for optimal results and cost-effectiveness.

1. Define your translation goals

Start with these key questions to establish a clear foundation:

Target audience

Who are you trying to reach? (customers, partners, employees, prospects)
What's their technical expertise level? (general consumers vs. technical professionals)
What's their relationship to your brand? (new prospects vs. existing customers)

Content scope and priorities

What content needs translation? (marketing materials, product docs, support content, UI text)
Which content drives business value? (conversion-focused vs. informational)
What can you translate in phases? (MVP content vs. nice-to-have content)

Quality Requirements

Different content types require different quality levels:

Expert: Offers translations by professionals with deep understanding and expertise in fields like legal, technical, or medical content, supported by Tolq’s advanced tools. Where applicable, translators with relevant experience or certifications ensure precision and industry-specific accuracy.
Localization: Provides professional localized translations that adapt content to your audience’s cultural and contextual needs, powered by Tolq’s advanced tools. Perfect for marketing texts, websites, or product localization to drive engagement.
Translation: Delivers professional translations enhanced by Tolq’s advanced tools, ensuring accuracy and fidelity to the original meaning. Ideal for straightforward content like simple product descriptions or informational texts.
Post-editing: Utilizes machine pre-translation with a professional translator’s review to ensure clear usable results. Ideal for projects needing translations with a professional touch.
Machine translation: Designed for high-volume, budget-friendly projects like customer reviews, internal emails, or user-generated content, Neural Machine Translation (NMT) offers an efficient, cost-effective solution.

Success Metrics

Define how you'll measure translation success:

User engagement rates
Conversion improvements
Support ticket reduction
Market penetration goals

A/B Testing Your Translation Strategy

Test different approaches to optimize your translation investment:

Quality levels: Compare expert vs. localization quality for key conversion pages
Content prioritization: Test translating high-impact pages first vs. comprehensive site translation
Cultural adaptation: Compare direct translation vs. localized messaging for different markets
Translation timing: Test launching with basic translation vs. waiting for full localization

2. Choose your target languages

Now that you have established your target audience, your content, and your desired quality level, you are able to proceed to the selection of the target language(s). We would advise you to take the following factors into account:

Research your target markets

Country vs. Language Considerations:

Most countries have multilingual populations
Consider regional language preferences (e.g., Canada: English and French)
Research local competitors' language strategies

Locale-specific factors:

Currency formats: USD vs. EUR vs. local currencies
Date/time formats: MM/DD/YYYY vs. DD/MM/YYYY
Cultural preferences: Formal vs. informal tone
Regional variations: US English vs. UK English, Brazilian Portuguese vs. European Portuguese

Technical Considerations

Right-to-left (RTL) languages: Arabic, Hebrew require special handling
Character encoding: Ensure your systems support Unicode
Text expansion: German and Finnish text can be 30-50% longer than English
Content management: Consider how you'll maintain multiple language versions

3. Prepare your content

When you have evaluated your goals and your target audience(s), it is time to select your content and prepare it for translation! Preparing your content consists of adding a Style Guide and/or Glossary and sizing your orders.

Content selection and organization

Group related content:

E-commerce: Bundle by product category or brand
Documentation: Group by feature or user journey
Marketing: Organize by campaign or funnel stage
UI Elements: Separate interface text from content

Avoid these common mistakes:

❌ Sending single sentences without context

❌ Mixing different content types in one order

❌ Including outdated or placeholder content

❌ Submitting content that's still being edited

Optimal order sizing

Recommended size: 1,500 words maximum (approximately 3 pages)

Benefits of proper sizing:

For you: Easier review and approval process
For translators: Better context understanding and consistency
For quality: More focused, accurate translations

Sizing examples:

Blog posts: One post per order (typically 500-1,500 words)
Product descriptions: 10-15 products per order
Marketing pages: One landing page per order
User interface: Group by feature or screen

File formats:

Please refer to our the File Formats section in our Knowledge Base for a comprehensive description and list of accepted file formats.

Supported languages

Our platform caters to diverse linguistic needs, ensuring effective communication across borders. Please refer to the Supported Languages section of our Knowledge Base for the complete list of supported languages.

Please note: This list is regularly updated, and any additional language requests can be accommodated. Contact our Customer Service Team at [email protected] for custom language requests.

4. Creating supporting materials

Style Guide

A Style Guide ensures your translations maintain consistent brand voice and tone across all target markets. It provides translators with essential information about your preferred communication style, target audience, and brand personality.

Key benefits:

Brand consistency across all translated content
Improved translation quality when combined with glossaries
Audience-appropriate tone for each target market

What to include:

Define your brand's tone of voice, target audience characteristics, formality preferences, and communication goals. You may need separate Style Guides for different content types (marketing vs. product descriptions).

Need detailed guidance? Visit our Style Guide section in our Knowledge Base for comprehensive instructions on creating effective Style Guides.

Glossary

A Glossary is a curated list of terms and their preferred translations across multiple languages. It ensures translators use your specific terminology for products, marketing concepts, and brand-specific language consistently.

Key Benefits

Consistent terminology across all translated content
Brand-specific language that aligns with your marketing strategies
Translator guidance for terms that shouldn't be literally translated

What to include:

Add product names, technical terms, marketing concepts, and any words that have specific meanings in your industry or brand context. Include both terms that should be translated and those that should remain in the original language.

Need help building your glossary? Visit our Glossary section in our Knowledge Base for detailed instructions and best practices.

Translation Memory

Translation Memory (TM) is a cost-saving feature that stores your previously translated sentences and automatically reuses them in future orders. You only pay once for each unique sentence, with 100% matches applied automatically at no additional cost.

How it works:

Each translated sentence is stored in your personal Translation Memory
Future orders automatically detect 100% identical matches
Matched sentences are applied at no cost, reducing your overall translation expenses
Only new, unique content is charged

Key benefits:

Immediate cost savings on repeated content across your translations
Consistent terminology across all your translated materials
Transparent tracking of savings before you place each order
Automatic expansion as you order more translations over time

For detailed instructions on accessing, editing, and managing your Translation Memory, please refer to the Translation Memory section in our Knowledge Base.

5. Optimise quality and budget

We offer six quality levels ranging from AI-generated translations to expert professional translations, allowing you to match quality and cost to your specific content needs.

Quality Levels Overview

Quality levels:

Expert: Specialized translators for technical, legal, or medical content
Localization: Culturally adapted translations for marketing and websites
Translation: Professional translations for product descriptions and general content
Post-Editing: Machine translation refined by professional translators
Neural Machine Translation: Enhanced AI with optional glossary integration
Machine: Pure AI-generated translations for high-volume, low-priority content

Pricing structure

Per-word pricing with rates varying by target language
Translation Memory (TM) ensures you never pay twice for the same content
Language-specific rates for certain languages (e.g., Scandinavian languages)

Choosing the Right Level

Match your quality level to your content purpose: Expert for specialized content, Localization for marketing materials, Translation for product descriptions, and AI options for high-volume or internal content.

Need detailed quality comparisons and pricing? Visit our Pricing & Quality Knowledge Base for complete information on all quality levels and current rates.

Don't hesitate to contact us for assistance

If you need any help with deciding which elements are relevant for you, and which choices suit your needs, don't hesitate to contact us. Our experts can provide you with all the support you need.

Customer Service: [email protected]

Tolq Knowledge Base: Knowledge Base