Have you thought about law firm translation services? In a growing, ever-diversifying world, changes are often required. With a large and growing number of Spanish-speaking individuals in the United States of America, it has come to the attention of many firms around the country that law firm SEO must be accommodating to this reality. It is therefore true that the best law firm content is one that includes Spanish on its webpage as they adjust to the times.
Here at Blue Seven Content, we are committed to educating the public on new SEO trends while simultaneously offering the very best services for all of your online legal marketing needs.
The Numbers Send a Clear Message
It is now estimated that over 13% of the American population speaks Spanish, rounding out the figure at about 37 million hispanophones. To put this in perspective, the United States is fifth in the number of Spanish speakers of any country on Earth. We, as a nation, have more Spanish speakers than Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, and a slew of other native Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
In the coming years, it is expected that with the population growth the country is experiencing, the United States will surpass Spain and even Argentina to become the country with the third-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world.
Many law firms make the mistake of overlooking the Hispanic and Latino population of the United States. Spanish is present in every state in the country, and its outlook for growth only further provides proof that the language will need more attention over time.
The opportunity to translate your website into Spanish is therefore one that is a near-necessity if you wish to capture new audiences and gain a competitive edge over other law firms. Missing out on nearly one-seventh of the American population due to issues with communication is a potentially detrimental mistake.
Secondary Effects of Translating Your Website
Expanding your audience will have other impacts that are consistent with those seen across the field of marketing. With a commitment to community and diversity, your law firm will begin to gain credibility amongst Spanish speakers and English speakers alike as they begin to take note of how your firm is dedicated to working with the community and adjusting to its needs.
It should be remembered as well that your network will be able to flourish with your newfound commitment to a marginalized community. Even with over hundreds of Spanish newspapers, magazines, and publishers in the United States, one of the primary means of referencing within communities that speak a language that is not the official language is word-of-mouth. Expanding services to Spanish speakers will make them more likely to recommend you to friends and families where you otherwise would not have been able to market your services.
The Baseline for Online Marketing – SEO and Rankings
Of course, the bread and butter of legal marketing is search engine optimization. It has been revealed that including reliable SEO material in other languages boosts Google Analytics and performance in search engine rankings. This is a critical step for so many firms that are constantly vying for the top spots on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Your firm will not only be utilizing completely novel SEO keywords (with the use of a different language) but will be also pleasing the algorithm as it recognizes non-machine translation of a webpage.
Why Machine Translation Doesn’t Get the Job Done
Despite the aforementioned reasons for providing Spanish translations on a website, it is often the opinion of law firms that they do not need to manually translate their pages as Google translate and other machine-based translation services are available to them at the click of a button.
It is a common misconception to those unfamiliar with machine translations and the cultural intricacies of languages that these are largely unreliable. Unfortunately, technology has only come so far. As it currently stands, machine translation services still make many elementary errors in their translations. This is often the case when anything such as a compound sentence is processed through an online machine translation service. Law firm translation services need to be done by a qualified person, not a machine.
Cultural and Nuanced Considerations in Machine Translations
Apart from simple errors in grammar and spelling, there is a larger underlying issue regarding machine translations. Languages are extremely complex and have an insanely large amount of nuances within small amounts of language. This means that, for example, while the word “lamp” may mean a light fixture that sits on a table or the ground in English, its Spanish equivalent may only refer to light fixtures that sit on the top of a table.
On many occasions, there’s more than one word to describe what we only have one word for in English. While this is a completely fictional example, there are an infinite amount of words with different nuances between the two languages that are not able to be picked up by a machine.
Speakers’ intentions and cultural considerations are also important when considering hiring a translator versus using machine translation. Spanish has two voices for formality, for example. Even more compelling, across all varieties of Spanish, there are five different ways to say the word “you”.
Machine translation is not able to tell in which voice and to what audience you are directing your message. On top of this complexity, there are cultural considerations to taking the place such as what may come across as rude or too forthcoming for an individual that was born into a different culture. All of these are important to remember when moving forth with a translation campaign for your webpage.
Want to Get the Leg-Up on Your Competitors? Contact Blue Seven Content Today for Law Firm Translation
As previously covered, there are more than enough reasons to decide to translate your law firm websites into Spanish. Everything from potential clients to law firm SEO greatly benefits from this addition to your website. It has been proven time and time again that the best law firm content is one that is readable and accessible to people from all walks of life.
By investing in law firm translation and legal SEO copywriter, your business will benefit greatly from the uptick in visits to your website and eventual clients that you’re able to take on from Spanish-speaking clients. For more information on law firm SEO, translations, and online marketing, please visit the Blue Seven Content website by clicking here or calling (843) 580-3158 and getting connected with a passionate and experienced legal copywriter.
Written By Ian Shotts – Legal Content Writer