Ian McAnerin had a great idea today at SMX to help us get through some of the most difficult parts of website translation. He’s called it a Symantec Expression Equivalency Document, which, in his words “rips the soul out of the marketing copy” while it’s being translated and then re-insert it later.

Creating a stripped-down version of emotional marketing text can serve as a vehicle for moving to a new destination language by freeing it from the burden of carrying nuance during translation.

Well written English marketing copy is often full of culturally-specific emotion, which is very difficult to translate.  Nuance that drives us to convert in our native language may not work after the perilous path of translation.  This is especially true with website translations from English to Asian languages, for example.

Ian pointed out the following process in his slides.

1. Bulletize the facts of the original copy

Stripping it down to its basic facts. Ian suggests that by removing the emotional component and stripping the “soul” from it - leaving a fact-oriented bullet list of things to discuss.

2. Use the stripped down version as your translation source

After you’ve created this fact-oriented English version, you will ask for it to be translated into your target language. You can use software or human translators for this part.

3. Re-Insert the Emotion using a native speaking-skilled writer

The last phase of the journey is when the fact-based document is handed to a native-speaker who understand the delicate emotional details for the target language. In this case, the person may not even know the original language the document started in.

4. (Sometimes) Re-translate the resulting copy to English

This is a round-trip approach that can be used for quality assurance of your translation efforts.  If you have the budget and the copy is important enough - it make sense.

Kristjan Mar Hauksson points out that doing a great job in translation shows ‘respect’ for the market, and that regional credibility will take a boost.

Search marketers who ignore international SEO are severely limiting their reach and abilities.  The above ideas show that even without a lot of knowledge about the destination language you can still prepare information for effective use around the world.

I’ve not written a post for a while that just draws attention to another discussion. But I thought Mark Jackson’s two articles from the past week or so were absolutely brilliant. Mark - look me up sometime, I’d love to buy you a beer.

It also rekindled my thinking that I need to finally change the name of my firm. You all know what a joy doing that is, especially when you have strong search rank for your old domain name.

I hear this all the time

“I’m a designer and I don’t really do I.T.”
“I’m more of an I.T. person, I don’t really do design.”
“I looked at competitor sites and built something similar.”
“We don’t really look at our site’s statistics much.”
…and on….

I’m old. I’m blessed (cursed?) with a background EXTENSIVE in both I.T., Design, and Search Marketing. What I realized even with the different viewpoints is that SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is far more important than any pixel tweaking or snazzy coding ever was or would be to the growth of a web business. I imagine I see the world like those flies that have 100s of lenses each giving a slightly different angle on things.

In 1998 when I started, I was all about web design and meta tags, but over the next 3-4 years, through 2002, I did more and more real search marketing. By 2004, it was almost full-time, a split between organic SEO, PPC, and landing page optimization. Design was done as a necessary vehicle to achieve search rank - sort of a super-landing-page project (in my mind at least.) Site Creations, Inc. doesn’t fit anymore. I’m going to have to rebrand soon to be faithful to this change.

I feel that no design should be started without a true SEM expert present at the meeting, and throughout design. This introduces confusion into my sales activity, of course. Most people come to me wanting web design, often for abysmal product offerings. I want to help, but unless they have a great offer, and truly understand how conversion-driven design works, I have a hard time staying enthused unless we can address some of the underlying issues first. I thought David Rodnitzky did a nice job of summing up one way this can work:

….frequently pitch clients on a combination of ongoing SEM consulting and a one-time usability tune-up. Again, this is a win-win situation – I get more of the client’s business by charging for the usability assessment, the client gets a much better converting Web site out of the deal, and we both end up satisfied with the increased success of the search engine marketing campaign….

….it’s important as a consultant to try to bring these folks at least a little closer to earth and establish realistic and clearly understood goals at the beginning of the relationship….

I realize that I.T. and design skills are both vital to the success of many sites - features, functions, branding, and identity are naturally very important. But when “expertise-egos” get in the way, you lose. When that feature is taken too far for no good reason, or when that customer-driven design compromise makes you feel defensive, it’s time to hand over the keys.

I will be heading out to SMX Social Media and SMX Advanced this year, and would love to catch up. I will not be liveblogging, rather will be hoping to gather ideas from those of you in the business.

I will not be waring my hat. But come shake my hand - meeting folks is the best part of the event.

If you’re going, fire over a Tweet [scottclark] or comment and be sure to say hi at the show.

Photo (me, Bruce and Cristine) from last year’s shows.

This week, my call log shows four companies calling me with sad stories to tell about ill-conceived internet marketing strategies executed by way of an agency or part-time “SEO.”

It’s unacceptable. Business customers deserve honesty, integrity and more help in understanding which are selling bullshit and which have the needed expertise. If a product or service isn’t going to fly online, they deserve to be told so, and why- not bled dry.

I envision a process including the following steps in order to make this happen: 1. Define commonly used search marketing tactics; 2. Rate the tactics by risk level; and 3. Educate webmasters on the ratings… he search engines provide Webmasters with guidelines on what tactics they consider right or wrong. Enumerating the various tactics, and the risk rating associated with each tactic would allow people who are not familiar with search marketing to make informed decisions. It would also go a long way toward fostering a better understanding of the work that goes into organic search engine optimization.

So here I cast my link juice to this article about SEO/SEM Standards and why they’re needed. Chris, you did well, my man.

Go check it out.

I have six professional heroes presently - and I don’t mind sharing. In random order, they are:

• Seth Godin - For telling me to quit dead ends and focus on being the best.
• Edward Tufte - Guided me into information design, recognizing and avoiding chartjunk, and telling stories visually.
• Jakob Nielson - For telling it like it is even when it’s totally unpopular.
• Richard Florida - For drawing attention to what drives creative people.
• Steve Wozniak - For his approachable demeanor as well as the desire to spread knowledge.
• Steve Jobs - For his relentless passion to innovate.

I’ve met Florida, Tufte, Jobs and Wozniak. If only for a moment (they wouldn’t remember me.) I had no trouble making the list above. It came to me in 3 minutes. Each have contributed through a career of hard work with a real passion to improve things.

Have any heroes emerged in the SEO world? Should we expect it? As I sat in a meeting recently all eyes were on me to save the business. My answers about content creation, social media, and slow, steady growth were not superhero answers. Some are looking for the cape crusader to save old-school companies with new marketing feats of awe. People start looking for a mild-mannered SEO to burst from the phone booth and fix the problem. I don’t know why.

(more…)

A quick search of Google News shows dozens of cases where homeowners, business owners, and community code enforcement officials are embroiled in battles over improper building permits. In many cases, the builder is forced to tear down the structure - at great expense. Communities put permitting procedures in place so that an even-handed process is applied and ensure safety, prevent shoddy workmanship, and preserve home values. You must stand in line, fill out forms, and pay fees when your project is already complex enough, they reason. So lots of people try to get around it, and some succeed. Houses crack. Fires start. Communities get uglier.

In the website construction industry, we can draw a parallel between SEO advice and building permitting. Pressures placed on any web development project can cause marketing goals to be ignored or at least diluted. The builder doesn’t have to “live” with the results. They get paid and can easily vanish independent of the commercial success of the venture. The SEO gets called to come fix the mess. But the mess is already sealed in the walls. The cracking foundation has already been built upon.

Many companies invest heavily in their web design and construction, and then call on SEO experts to come in after the fact to make suggestions to help traffic flow. Unfortunately this often results in bad news. The website was not designed with search in mind, and you have to re-build it if you want organic traffic to flow. This is the equivalent to being forced to tear down that addition to your home, or that big warehouse building you just put together. You’re stuck. The expense to rebuild it is too high. The expense not to build it is too high (paid search.) I’d like to make the plea to the business community to consider thinking about SEO earlier.

I propose that people involved in web development look to the construction industry for guidance. Involving an SEO/SEM consultant before, during, and after your web development plans are in place can be a money-making proposition. I think that in some ways this is like permitting your building project. In my opinion, SEO/SEM experts should be project managers for any web development project where marketing the site is a core business directive. Decisions will be made with the social, search, and traffic goals take center stage, not the aesthetic “high” of the site being finished and wowing a committee. (more…)