Translating my content & blog from German to English?

[Strider1973]

Hi - I'm planning to start a personal poker blog and a plus a poker strategy site. I plan to write in German.

Do you think it makes sense to translate both blog and strategy content to english? (I could do this by myself).

Would you host the english versions

on new, dedicated sites (for example: germanpokerblog.com and englishpokerblog.com) or

on one site (for example thebestpokerblog.com/german/ and thebestpokerblog.com/english/) ?

Thank you!

[Michael Martinez]

It might be more trouble than it's worth. I just read a new article on the perils of translation by Andy Atkins-Krüger and he hits the nail on the head. He's only talking about why you should not use automated keyword translation in your content and page titles, but the point is that if you are going after an international market you need to speak that market's language.

If you optimize your blog posts in German, translating them to English (rewriting them yourself) may not be nearly as helpful as simply developing new original content in English. People don't just use different expressions in different languages, they may look at a topic in different ways.

[Unknown Webmaster]

I were doing something similar, but ended up just writing everything in English because I were about to go insane after having written the first 20 articles and then translated/rewritten them.

After reading your other post I'm assuming that you are a new affiliate. Based on that I would try to keep as much as possible in 1 language on 1 site and then evaluate whether or not to start translating (possibly on an other site) after a month or two.

[Planet Mark]

Assuming you write well in both languages why not... really just a question of return on your time invested - and I'd consider developing quality content in the first place to be the more time consuming part.

Have you considered also a .de or .au domain for the German version? My (admittedly fairly limited) experiences so far show that country domains ranking nicely for smaller sites, though I also have subdirectories that do ok too... one thought here is that seeing an 'English version' of a DE site might not be 'acceptable' to some less globally aware readers, not in any bad way - just not fitting in with the normal way of things! - I might argue for separate domains based on this.

Bit of a mish-mash of thoughts really, sums up as - assuming your English is as decent as most of the Austrians / Germans I have ever met then go for it - separately!

Cheers, Mark

[Charlie Brown]

It might be more trouble than it's worth. I just read a new article on the perils of translation by Andy Atkins-Krüger and he hits the nail on the head. He's only talking about why you should not use automated keyword translation in your content and page titles, but the point is that if you are going after an international market you need to speak that market's language.

Good article. Indeed, translating a page/site into a foreign language should involve the same work than creating a page/site in English (or your mother tongue) involves; as in, targeting an audience, keyword research, page optimization, link building etc...

Re OP's question, I would probably do it on two dedicated sites. Re-using your examples, for English, I would put it on thebestpokerblog.com and for German, on the (popular) German translation of "thebestpokerblog" .com. That way you can have the domain names in the actual language you're targeting. On the German site, you can put a link saying something like "An English version of this blog is available here" and put the same sentence in German on the English site...

[Juggler]

I agree with Michael Martinez, it's more trouble than it's worth. I think your time is better spent on making good quality german articles. If things pick up maybe you can outsource the translation.

[Strider1973]

Thank you very much for your qualified answers! While I am a rather experienced and successful midstakes poker player, I'm indeed totally unexperienced in the area of affliate marketing.

I'll do the following:

- start with a site in German language (hosted on a .com domain but with a German domain name)
- once I have about 20 articlel/posts and as soon as I feel confident in using Wordpress, I will translate the content and host it on another .com domain and see what happens

[Juggler]

A .de domain will rank higher in the german google than a .com - buy both and redirect the .com to the .de for now is my tip.

[CK]

one thought here is that seeing an 'English version' of a DE site might not be 'acceptable' to some less globally aware readers, not in any bad way - just not fitting in with the normal way of things! - I might argue for separate domains based on this.

Mark - why would it not be seen as acceptable if he placed his site on a .com with the /de/ ext?

I would think if he's good at what he does, and the language is up to par (well written for both the english and german) it would do fine.

The /de/ folder can rank just as well or better in google.de as if he was working with the actual TLD so I just don't see why he should place his work on two seperate domains and have to struggle with links for both, updates on design etc when everything can be done under one roof and still have optimal results.

My bounce rate on foreign languages isnt any lower than that of the english side. Actually looking at the german side its 4% lower than the exact same page in english and ranks well.

[Strider1973]

Mark - why would it not be seen as acceptable if he placed his site on a .com with the /de/ ext?

I agree with you, but I think that Mark just meant it the other way round:

www.superpoker.de/en/strategy might seem less trustworthy for an American user than www.superpoker.com/de/strategie for a German user.