Casino translation: three things to remember when translating your website

Earlier this year, we ran an article looking at five essentials for online casino translation. In that article, we focused on key areas of your site; things like the terms and conditions page, language selections system and local gambling laws for each target market.

Today, we’ll be focusing on the casino translation process itself and three key things to remember across every part of your site. Follow these steps and you’ll not only engage with your audiences more effectively, you’ll also avoid some common translation issues online casinos run into.

#1: Don’t translate word for word in your casino translation

Any decent translator will tell you that word for word translations don’t really work. The problem is website owners are often confused about their obligations when it comes to creating multilingual content that ranks well in Google and other search engines.

Sure! Equivalent across languages / regions doesn’t require word-for-word translation.

— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) October 30, 2017

Much like humans, search engines don’t want to see word for word translations, though. They want to see pages that are translated naturally to engage multilingual users in the best way possible. Yes, different language versions of the same page should be identical thematically, but the specific wording will naturally be different.

#2: Localise your content before translating

One thing you’ll often find with casino translation is the pages for different regions will vary significantly. For example, blackjack might be your most popular game in one market while users respond more to Texas Hold’em in another.

Don’t be afraid to feature different games for different audiences.

You’ll also want to localise your pages to make sure they’re topically relevant to each audience, too. For example, all those Christmas references are irrelevant for audiences in parts of the world where it isn’t celebrated.

#3: Rethink your content strategy for each region

If you’re running a blog, news section, email campaigns or any other kind of content marketing strategies for each region, you’ll need to do more than simply translate your material. Much like the Christmas example above, there are topics that won’t be relevant to every market. Likewise, audiences in each market will have their unique interests and needs, which are largely determined by their local environment.

So you’ll want to localise your content strategies as well. Some blog posts and emails will be effective regardless of where your audiences come from – and that’s absolutely fine. However, knowing which pieces to adapt for local interests makes all the difference when it comes to multilingual content marketing.

If you’re ever in doubt when it comes to casino translation, the trick is to think about your individual audiences and work backwards. Translating the same piece of content into ten different languages may not be enough to get the results you need. So decide what’s going to engage each audience most effectively and work from there.

If you have to create completely different content for some markets, there’s nothing wrong with that. In many cases, the same content will be fine – but don’t fall into the trap of translating word for word.