The best website translation technology: What approach is right for your company?

Many successful business owners emphasize the importance of “speaking your customers’ language.” This isn’t just an idiom for understanding their needs; if you’re expanding into new markets, translation can make all the difference.

Translation is a necessity for success in international markets. It improves the user experience, increases engagement, and drives sales. Website translation technology streamlines the process, helping businesses reach a wider global audience.

This guide will explain different types of machine translation technology and show you how to pick the right software translation tool for your needs. 

Translation software for websites: Why do you need it?

Translation should be a top priority for any organization targeting a global audience. Website translation software helps businesses localize their content for different languages and markets.

Why is website translation so important? It provides a few powerful benefits:

• Improved search visibility: Search engines prioritize content written in a user’s native language. Website translation helps businesses attain a coveted first-page ranking and attract organic traffic from new markets.
• Enhanced user experience: Translation makes websites more accessible and user-friendly to international audiences. Roughly half of all websites are in English, which only about 16% of the global population speaks (and less than 5% as their first language).
• Stronger engagement: Businesses that translate content to resonate with local audiences will capture consumers’ attention, create meaningful interactions, and build trust. In addition, consumers tend to spend more time interacting with a website in their first language, which further boosts SEO rankings.
• Higher sales: Expect higher conversion rates when you speak to consumers in their language. Studies show that 72.4% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy a product with a description written in their first language.

Traditionally, businesses had to hire human translators for website translation. However, technological advances have provided a credible alternative via machine translation software, which is faster and more accurate than ever.

Machine translation is now widely used by companies worldwide. Even professional translators leverage automated translation technology to streamline and accelerate their work. Multilingual content creation has never been easier or more cost-effective.

Choosing the best website translation solution for your business

Businesses can utilize numerous website translation technologies, each with distinct advantages and disadvantages. The following solutions simplify various aspects of the translation process, and many work in tandem to make multilingual marketing a breeze.

Multilingual CMS

Over 70% of websites use a content management system (CMS) to create, manage, and modify content. SEO is often managed through a CMS as well.  Most CMS platforms now have multilingual capabilities or third-party plugins, enabling companies to deploy a different version of their website for each global market while efficiently managing localized content.

However, translation features aren’t a core part of the average CMS. Manually adding translated content is slow and inefficient, and webmasters must repeat this process for each language every time businesses update content. This repetitive process raises the risk of human error.

To overcome these obstacles, multilingual content management systems often rely on integrations with website localization tools. Integrated translation tools help businesses quickly launch new localized content and automatically update global sites whenever a change occurs.

For example, Smartling features integrations with many popular CMS platforms and marketing tools, streamlining website translation and management.

Pour

• Most businesses already use a multilingual-capable CMS
• International websites have a consistent look and feel
• Website translation tools make localization automatic
• A CMS supports localized SEO efforts

Cons

• Not an all-in-one solution
• Manually updating translations is inefficient and error-prone

AI translation

AI translation doesn’t refer to a single technology but a broader group of machine translation (MT) techniques. 

One of these techniques is neural machine translation (NMT), which uses deep learning algorithms to understand the broader context of sentences and automatically translate them between languages with high accuracy.

Although NMT models have transformed global communications and are still used today, the translation industry is moving toward new AI translation advancements. These include small language models (SLMs) and large language models (LLMs) that have been fine-tuned for translation tasks.

SLMs and LLMs are often built similarly to NMTs. The main difference is that SLMs and LLMs rely more heavily on training datasets to predict the next word in a sentence.

Pour

• Unbeatable speed and efficiency
• Handle many languages with ease
• Remarkably accurate in most contexts

Cons

• May still need human oversight to ensure translations are publication-ready
• NMT translations may sound a bit stiff or robotic
• SLMs and LLMs may not be reliable in specialized fields (e.g., law or medicine) where accuracy is paramount and language is complex

Post-édition de traduction automatique (MTPE)

As the name suggests, this approach uses an initial round of machine translation followed by human review and refinement. The practice has become commonplace among professional translators, who use MT engines to quickly generate reasonably accurate translations so they can fine-tune the results.

Machine translation with post-editing combines the efficiency of AI with the knowledge of humans. It speeds up large-scale localization projects without sacrificing quality, enabling faster launches and lower expenses.

However, human intervention still takes time, and translators can’t iron out all the shortcomings of MT. Translation quality may vary, and translations sometimes require more editorial intervention from clients.

In addition, machine translation (and MTPE, to a lesser extent) primarily addresses the linguistic aspects of translation. Cultural adaptation often falls outside the scope of this approach.

Pour

• Quicker and less expensive than relying solely on human translators
• Increases the efficiency of large-scale translation projects
• Human editors can fine-tune style and tone to ensure high translation quality

Cons

• Content and design localization for different cultural contexts may require additional work
• Numerous factors, such as selected language pairings, affect final costs, making them hard to predict

Mémoire de traduction

A translation memory is a database that stores previously approved translations. It’s useful for both human translators and machine translation systems, as they can reference the translation memory when translating future content.

Businesses sometimes use language in precise ways that translators—whether human or machine—haven’t encountered before. Similarly, certain industries often use technical terms with nuances that translators won’t intuitively understand. Translation memory keeps businesses’ content consistent throughout international markets. 

With that being said, translation memory is most effective when paired with terminology management through regular maintenance of translation glossaries and style guides, a practice that’s especially important in industries like finance, tech, and healthcare.

Note that translation memory is not a standalone translation solution but a feature of translation platforms—like Smartling.

Pour

• Provides a single source of truth for all translations across the company
• Saves time and money by re-using translations when possible
• Keeps translated content consistent and familiar

Cons

• Only functions as part of a larger translation platform
• Takes time to build a comprehensive database
• Less useful for creative or idiomatic texts that haven’t been translated before

Additional website translation technologies

Website translation proxies

Website translation proxies provide a fast, scalable way to localize content without deeply integrating into your CMS or codebase. A translation proxy like Smartling’s Global Delivery Network (GDN) sits between your original website and the end user, detects content in real time, and serves translated versions of your site dynamically.

Instead of website managers needing to manually export and import text in a complicated and tedious translation workflow, the proxy automatically captures your website’s translatable content, routes it for translation (whether via human linguists, machine translation, or a combination), and then displays the translated pages to users in their preferred language. This process all occurs without website managers needing to lift a finger. 

A translation proxy is ideal for brands that want to launch quickly in new markets, have a complex or custom-built website, or need to translate dynamic content that changes often. With a website proxy like Smartling’s GDN, brands can launch content in new languages faster than any other solution.

Translation integrations across your tech stack

In addition to CMS integrations, leading translation technology providers—like Smartling—also offer integrations across your entire tech stack, enabling you to translate your designs, web content, and marketing assets in one unified process.

Translation integrations allow your teams to translate within the tools they already use—whether that’s Figma for UX design, Contentful for web copy, or Marketo for marketing automation. By integrating your tech stack with your translation technology, you can route through a centralized, efficient translation process, ensuring consistency, speed, and accuracy across every touchpoint.

How to select the best translation software for your website

Your approach to website translation impacts your business’s global reach, customer engagement, and operational efficiency. Companies must carefully evaluate various factors to ensure their chosen solution aligns with their objectives—whether they prioritize speedy, cost-efficient, or high-quality localized content.

Businesses are best served by website translation solutions that offer a range of translation technologies to meet different needs. Consider the approaches covered in this guide:

• AI translation: AI translation enables businesses to translate large volumes of content quickly and cost-effectively. It’s an excellent option for companies that prioritize speed and efficiency, and it scales easily.
• Human translation: Professional translators ensure high-quality, localized content, making them an ideal choice for supreme accuracy and cultural nuance. Human translation can be expensive and time-consuming, but it’s often worthwhile for companies in highly regulated industries, such as law or healthcare.
• A hybrid approach: Combining AI translation with human review balances cost and quality, making it a preferred choice for many businesses.

Don’t want to compromise? Smartling’s AI translation solution is among the best machine translation tools. It revolutionizes website translation by offering MTPE-quality translations for half the price and twice the speed. This automated approach ensures high-quality multilingual content while significantly reducing costs and turnaround time.

Smartling elevates your website with the best translation technology

Website translation opens doors to new markets, enhances user experience, and builds customer trust across regions. Whether you opt for an AI-driven or hybrid approach, a premium website translation solution ensures you deliver high-quality, localized web content without breaking a sweat—or the bank.

To learn more, grab a copy of “Optimizing Localization With the Right Mix of Human and AI.” This free eBook offers valuable insights for navigating the translation technology landscape and integrating machine translation with human expertise.