Translator's Ravings

Discussions Concerning Search Engine Optimization

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If you’re ever running out of work, another side/backup job you could do is the following.

But it requires that you already know how to work with Expressions.

Basically, and consider this a secret, I save a lot of my correspondence and turn it into web pages. One of the secrets how to get one’s pages to the top of google is to have a lot of original text. Not plagarised from other websites. I have written a lot myself, but over the years I realised how much incredible amount of text I write in emails, not to mention the text that people write back to me. So I have been organising it into categories. It’s a bit of work to prepare it and create the outcome such as:

http://001yourtranslationservice.com/submit-articles/2012/08/01/people-who-sneeze-big-work-hard-enough-for-the-global-man/

That’s just a random sample.

I set them up like wiki pages and point to my other pages from within the text.

I have a LOTof text I have not had time to deal with, and generally creating more pages on my site helps all around. It is important to keep doing this occasionally, and its been long enough, so this issue is getting a little bit important.
This is one of my main ways how I like to find work.

After that is the individual language pages, like I already wrote, but that is much more time consuming because you need to read and research a lot for each page, and then write the material from scratch.

With my way above all the text is already written so you can create the pages much faster.

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thanks for the tips. Yes, I was thinking of getting my new proofreader to look over things once I’m done with the new French to English translation pages. From Czech to English I simply think there is not that much work out there.

My main entry page should be on the first page of google for “translation service” (about 25 million results). I plan to fix up that page so it looks a bit like translation-service-usa’s. For individual language combinations I need to make individual pages, which then all point to my main agency’s page.

I didn’t have to pay to get my pages high up, but a LOT of work was required, and certainly a LOT more than simply meta tagging.

Thanks Karel, I’m trying to build up my website using Joomla! which seems pretty good to create a professional design and manage the content easily, thanks to the templates. Anyway, I’m reading a lot of marketing books at the moment, trying to pick the best approach to attract direct clients. I’ll definitely contact you for some help climbing up the google rankings. I noticed your website is on the first page of results when typing “czech to english translation” on http://google.co.uk – Pretty Impressive!!! Did it cost you actual money to achieve that or is it just a clever use of meta tags? With such visibility, I honestly find it hard to believe that you don’t have more work that you can handle. I can see 3 ways to improve your CV webpage though: – I noticed a few mistakes, such as “database of more than 7,000 translators the world over” -“over the world”, etc. which might put off the customers. Maybe give the whole page a good thorough proofread, it cant hurt.

– definitely try “modernizing” the design, to make it look more “corporate”. This helps to build a solid, serious image and is very comforting for the clients.
– Finally, and this is just my personal opinion, I believe it might help a lot to offer your services as an agency rather than as a single individual. I would use these websites as templates :

http://www.thebigword.com/
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/
http://www.lingo24.com/

This is what I intend to do, even though I only work in one language pair. You have the added benefit of actually representing an agency, so definitely use it as an advantage. Of course, these are just suggestions to help you out, I’m only a beginner in the field so what do I know. But this is the approach I would – and will – take myself.

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glad that we can move forward with this. Is the Artisteer a free application? If so I can recommend it to the other translators. I think we can combine forces somehow. For the other languages and a markup I would suggest you just forward me the emails. You would have a record that you forwarded it to me, and I would save the email in a special “commission” folder. If some work comes from that customer, I would charge a little bit more to cover your commission.

I see that your page has a non-existent PR, so we need to slowly work on that. For a starters I would suggest you set up an account with google and go to their Webmaster Tools, and submit your site there. I would like to propose a link exchange, where you would link to my French to English Translations Page. I will link to your page as well and it will help increase PR (Page Rank – http://001yourtranslationservice.com/search-engine-optimization/page-rank.html) over time.

You also need to change your Title to something like “Alexandre.. – English to French Translations Translator”, and use the same words in your Description and Keyword meta tags. Right click on any of my pages and select View Source to see how it should look (at the very top). These “meta tags” are within the <head> </head> section.

For a free html editor I would suggest html kit, as it colours the text for you and makes it easy to edit. ctrl+s to save and then F5 refresh in your browser to see what the page will look like before you upload it from your computer.

Then you will need lots of text. The more the merrier. Each page you create should have a maximum of between 20,000 and 40,000 characters. You might take a look at

http://001yourtranslationservice.com/translations/ea/project-management/2009/12.20_French-to-English-translator-translation.html

for an example. Please keep these tips a secret. I use email correspondence for added text. You then link from keywords in the text to your other pages, occasionally (let’s say at most 3 outlinks per page) to an external, high PR site ranking high on google, but which does not compete against you (such as free translation or French dictionary websites). You can install Google Toolbar on Firefox or IE to see a page’s PR, or the SeoQuake plugin for Firefox. Perhaps you could use some source text for translations in the past (if you want to rank high in the French language, you should keep all those French language pages in a special folder, or in a subdomain might be better – keep the languages separate). Important is that it must be ORIGINAL CONTENT and not published elsewhere on the net. You can use copyscape.com to determine that. Then you need a lot of “backlinks” to you, to help push up your PR. The higher your PR, the higher you will rank on google. The bank links should be from such keywords as “English to French Translations Translator” or “English to French translations” etc. (not always the same – perhaps 3 different sets). For this you can try something like http://www.addurl.nu/ to submit your site to high PR directories. Don’t forget dmoz.org, probably the most important. Best is if you submit a domain (such as http://mysite.com) and not a buried link (such as http://somefreeserver.com/translations/yourwebpage.html). Domains can cost about 10 bucks a year, so definitely worth it. Many directories will not allow buried links.

In exchange for all this and future help, I would like a link from your main/entry page to my French to English Translator page (it will only help your rankings, because it uses the same keywords – even though in the opposite direction), and to use your postal address as a sort of virtual office. To verify it google will send you a postcard with a pin code. We would both publish it as our office (you are allowed to connect as many as ten websites to this address). You do not need to worry about people coming to pound on your door. It’s just a little trick in the rankings. Even if someone did come to your door and ask for a French to English translation service, you can refer them to me and I’ll give you commission on the earnings.

Another backlink service I recently started using is http://www.seosubmit.com/. It costs 17 bucks a month and I think it is worth it. Moneyback guarantee if you are not happy with the results after two months.

Another service I’ve used in the past is http://www.submitshop.com/, where they can submit your site to 500 directories for some 50 bucks. Most of the directories are probably crap, but in time they could gain substance. In any case, it seems to have helped the pages I wanted to promote and a good bang for the buck.

These are some of the basics to get you started. I’ll guide you more as you progress. Have fun!

Okay, I thought about what you said about SEO. Since you mentioned it takes a LOT of time to get the website up the rankings in google I thought it might be wise to upload an index page as soon as possible to get things rolling, assuming that it’s enough for you to work your magic. I have uploaded a “front page” of what will eventually become my website. The address is http://www.allfrench
translations.com Only the various “contact us” links pointing to my email work at this time. I will improve the texts and create the other pages when I have some more time on my hands. If you’re interested about the design, I recommend you check out an application called “Artisteer” (it’s a template builder). It took me 10 minutes to create the html template, a bit more to design the logos (I used The Logo Creator). Both applications are available on the “usual” download sites (wink wink). I welcome your advice regarding SEO and setting up referrals. If you scroll down, you’ll notice I put a “other languages” section, this is where I intend to create the referral to your agency. I have no idea what is the best approach with this. Is it better to sell it simply as “contact our partner” or to put a Kenax banner directly? I thought maybe I could create an email adress specifically for this on my server and automatically forward a copy of the emails that land there to your mailbox. That way we could both see the project offers and decide together how to handle them. I’m not sure about this though and open to your suggestions. Again, I am not interested in dealing with other languages at all and would rather focus solely on my own translations. If we’re taking referral fees on each other’s work though we’ll need a way to know which offers came from which page. My approach with this website is to look big like an agency while still remaining a freelance translator. I’ll send all the non English to French work to you and I’ll find some other qualified English to French translators to handle the subjects I cannot handle myself (law, pharma, etc.) I’d definitely rely on you too with projects involving software localization like Jade Dynasty to process the files and technical stuff like that. There should be plenty of work for everyone. I have taken a look at google’s first page with “English to French translation” and the current results are pretty weak. I honestly think that if we make it to the first page, we’ll get so much work that we’ll have to unplug the phones! Anyway, I really think we can pull it off, English to French is a huge market and, with good visibility and quality work, we’re bound to attract tons of customers. I look forward to hear your attack plan!

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Artisteer isn’t free but you can get cracked versions for free. I am familiar with html and meta tags, I use KompoZer which is an open source editor offered by the same guys who came up with firefox/thunderbird. Thanks for the PR tips, though some of this doesn’t seem clear to me. How does the number of characters on the page influence the PR? If you type “English to French translation” in google.co.uk, on the first page you’ll see this: http://translation2.paralink.com/  

the only way that is possible is with a lot of backlinks, and they probably pay for a lot of them. It is difficult to build up backlinks, but without them the text on the page is a free approach and works, or at least helps.

No, do not hide the text because google can tell and will penalise your page for “black hat tactics“.

I know it can look a bit cheesey but most people won’t scroll down the page, and if they do, and bother to read the text, its not the end of the world. For my French to English page I wrote about the history ofFranceand the language etc. I cannot imagine that giving a very bad impression.

This for example has no text at all! Are you sure about this? I want a keep a professional yet simple website so that the information is displayed with clarity. Adding 20-40k characters seems somehow counterproductive. Does it have to be “displayed” or is it okay to hide it in the source code? I can’t let you use my postal address as a virtual office for the simple reason that I myself already use an address that isn’t directly mine. I am registered in France but currently live in the UK. I usually move to a different country every 6 months or so to discover new horizons.

Any postal address will help me/us. Without that it does not really make sense for me to spend the time to help you and the other translators push their websites to the top of google when I can spend the time focusing on my own pages. If you move every six months then we can use each address. They send you a postcard, site is verified, and no customer ever goes there. I have “offices” like this all over the world and no one has ever said they are approached by people.

I can put a link on the front page though but I don’t see the point since I already told you I would forward the non English to French work to you. Do you have a banner or something?

The point is that your link to me is a backlink and helps my pages. Hence profit for me to spend the time helping you push up your website. Without that there is very little benefit for me.

Anyways thanks for the tips, I’ll get started with this.

Feel free to contact me if you would like help with Search Engine Optimization.
For more discussions on SEO.

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