Jul
29How to maintain second language product pages?
Tags : German SEO, To Do Posted in: Tech Talk
I’ve got a product which is available in English and German. I met a German guy online and we discussed our software and we helped each other. Then he offered to help me create a German version of my program. He provided all the text I needed for all parts of my program.
Its been a good thing for me and my program and has created a lot of sales, as many if not more than the English version.
About a year ago, maybe two, I created about 20 additional keyword pages.
I guess you could call them landing pages.
But I like to think of them as additional product pages.
I took care to write content which was relevant to the keywords I used.
However some of it probably sounded a bit waffly, perhaps.
I also added some nice unique pictures and as I say added unique content.
Also so outgoing links, more recently I’ve added nofollow.
So it took me quite a long time to create these pages.
So once I finished them I contacted my friend and asked him to create some german versions, to translate them. Obviously it was a big ask and it took him a while to find the time to do it. And in the end he used some standard text on certain pages.
If I look at these pages in analytics they don’t do as well as my english versions.
My german pages don’t get many hits at all.
So my question is where do I go from here?
I guess my options are :-
a) to contact my friend and ask him to do some improvements.
b) hire someone on RAC to revamp and SEO the pages and submit to german search engines.
In my SEO book it mentions other language sites for your products and says you should have a that language manager, who does the SEO and handles everything related to that language.
My problems are that I don’t want to impose on my friend as he’s done a lot for me and I feel guilty. Also its nice to have someone on-board in case I get really stuck with something.
The counter problem, is the cost of hiring someone on RAC, germany has similar costs as the UK and therefore to get someone good, will cost me a lot. I can’t really afford to spend much money at all on this.
I do realise that this will probably increase sales.
Of course another question, which relates to Ideaspad as a whole, if I re-brand ideaspad, I’d probably want a german re-brand and possible a standalone site for it.
So a long of decisions I need to make and hurdles to jump.
Any thought would be greatly appreciated.
Ideaspad - An Award winning information manager for home and professional use
by JM
I’ve been a bit shy myself of foreign language copies of software and websites so far because I don’t think we’d be able to handle the support issues. The software I sell is very simple and may be purcahsed by people where language becomes a slight issue.
In terms of German language work, there’s not a lot I can help you with.
However, my gut instinct is that you are already concerned about the amount of work you will have to put in to get your other new site/ sites running and ranking well. Maybe you should concentrate on these for the time being and try to make sales to the English-speaking world.
I think you have some good comments here.
I did just start an email to my friend to beg for his help.
However, I’m thinking that I need to improve my english pages to give him / rac coder something to work with.
But, this put these pages at the bottom of the pile again, like always
I think those Landing Pages are only useful if not only the side content is in german, but also the domain name itself.
A “normal” german guy would not click to a english sounding domain name, if he can find german domains too. If you really want to promote your product in germany, you have to buy german domain names with a Top-Level Domain “de” and than place the translated stuff onto it.
I think I have the same problem with TimePunch, because I only own “DE” Top Level Domain names. The most sellings are from germany. The worse about that is, that my other favourite domain names are all sold to resellers (e.g. TimePunch.com, or TimePunch.net). But that’s another thread.
I have to agree with Jachman. I deal with German engineers and customers a lot. They have a great deal of pride in items produced in Germany by Germans and tend to shy away from UK based engineering products.
I’d get the English stuff running well as a priority. You can attack US, UK, South Africa, Canada, Australia and so on.
I think you could be right about DE TLDs.
I have been thinking about re-branding Ideaspad and had thought about having different german and english product names.
But I guess I’d need some kind german person, to think up a new popular name (which was dense with keywords)
Also my other problem would be getting a german domain not being a german company
Good ideas
Just saw your earlier comment about the pages being at the bottom of the pile!
Well, a positive way of looking at this is that there is something at the top of the pile! Finish stuff from the top down.
I was quite upbeat, I found a coder with german language skills, and he even made an expert guarantee. But since I accepted him, hes gone quiet and the time where he has to pay up has passed, so I back to square one on this.